Lom felt his defences crumbling. He was tired and scared and weak and sick.
‘You killed him, actually,’ Kantor was saying. ‘Of course you did. You knew you were doing it at the time. At least, you were indifferent whether it happened or not. See why you interest me, Lom? I see something of myself in you, as a matter of fact. And you killed Vishnik too.’
‘No!’
‘What do you want to know, Lom? Go on, ask me something and I will answer, I promise, even if only to repay the pleasure of having finally got you to speak. I have to get something out of you before Chazia does. You have the advantage of me: you’ve seen my file. Tell me about it. What does it say?’
It was as if he had been reading Lom’s thought processes in his face.
‘Chazia thinks she can use you,’ said Lom. ‘But she’s wrong, isn’t she? You’re using her. The question is, what for? What do you want, Kantor?’
‘Ha!’ cried Kantor. ‘You wonderful man! You do see to the heart of things, don’t you? You’re right, that is the biggest question. No one, not even the angel, has asked it until now.’
‘You owe me an answer.’
‘I do.’
‘So answer.’
‘Have you ever wondered where the angels come from?’
Surprised, Lom shook his head. ‘The stars, I guess,’ he said. ‘The planets. Outer space. Galaxies.’
‘Exactly. And what about that? We hardly consider it, do we? They arrive, and we take them for signs and wonders. Messages about us. Who is justified, who not? What clever machines can we make of their dying flesh? It’s all so narrow and trivial, don’t you think? As if this one damp and cooling world with its broken moons was all there is. The Vlast looks inwards and backwards all the time. But we’re seeing angels the wrong way round. What they tell us is, there are other worlds, other suns, countless millions of them; you only have to look up in the night to see them. And we can go there. We can move among them. Humankind spreading out across the sky, advancing from star to star.’
‘Impossible,’ said Lom.
Kantor slammed his hand on the table. ‘Of course it’s possible. It’s not even a matter of doubt. The engineering is straightforward. Like everything else, it is only a matter of paying the price. A few generations of collective sacrifice is all that’s needed. The fruit of the stars is there to be harvested. That’s our future. I know it. I’ve seen it in the voice of the angel. A thousand thousand glittering vessels rising into the sky and unfolding their sails and crossing the emptiness between stars. All it requires is ingenuity. Effort. Organisation. Purpose. Sacrifice. The deferment of pleasure. Imagine a Vlast of a thousand suns. That would be worth something. Can you see that, Lom? Can you imagine it? Can you share that great ambition?’
It seemed to be an honest question. It might have been a genuine offer, a door out of the torture room.
‘No,’ said Lom. ‘No. I can’t.’
‘Ah,’ said Kantor and shrugged. ‘Pity.’
The door opened and Lavrentina Chazia came in.
Archangel unfurls his mind like a leaf across the continent.
The dead dig trenches to bury themselves.
The dead ride long slow cattle trains eastwards, the streets behind them empty, the walls fallen from their houses, their wallpaper open to the rain, their home-stuff spilled across the streets. The smell of wet, burned buildings enriches the air.
Grey-haired young men with ears turned to bone.
A naked corpse lies at the foot of the slope; a lunar brilliance streams across the dead legs stuck apart.
Conscripts in trenches kiss their bullets in the dark and drink the snow.
Corpses awaiting collection stiffen like thorn trees.
Men and women hang by the neck from balconies on long ropes, like sausages in a delicatessen window.
I becoming We.
The clock and the calendar reset to zero.
Everything starts from here.
Archangel – voice of history, muse of death – reaches out across his world – the is and the will-be-soon – touching its unfolding – tasting its texture with his mind’s tongue – testing it with his mind’s fingers – it is satisfaction – it is joy – it is hope. The stars are coming, and the space between them.
And yet – and still – nearby but out of reach – the tireless egg of time glimmers diminutively in the massy dark – his future tinctured still with the edge of fear.