Terraplane Read Free

pouring a cupful of wine. Varnish's smooth poison shellacked my
mouth. The culpable grapes might have been Georgian; the bottler
of this grand old label was Stolichnaya, subbrand of Vladamer, a
Dryco subsidiary. Dryco-our company-convinced me to retire
when I did so that I might join them in spirit, having worked for
t boot.
them in flesh since my first day at-boot.-
    "That some become happier and wealthier sooner than others is unavoidable dysfunction of near-perfect system," Skuratov said.
"Eventually monies reach all society members."

    "Marvelous theory."
    "Popular in America many years too, yes?" he said, laying the
saccharin on his plate as he would a pulled tooth. "Here it works.
Fresh techniques satisfy long-hindered desires. Russian people
have money now to buy fine products at last available in plentitude. "
    "They have to buy," Jake said, lifting and twirling his switch
between his fingers as if keen to plant it. Russians failing to meet
their monthly purchase quotas were investigated by the Consumer
Patrol. If matters were beyond their hands, the Dream Team
settled.
    "First-time Americans visiting our country find it always difficult to suspend belief in long-heard propaganda even when facts
beat them over head with shovel," said Skuratov. "In America,
perhaps, facts so hard to face propaganda is better, yes?"
    "You haven't been in ten years," I said.
    "Russia and America both bloody lands," he said, frowning.
"We transfuse ours. You spill yours. One day you learn as we did."
    INTERCEPT THIS MORNING GAVE NEW INFO.
    The curtain rose. The lights brightened. The orchestra's flaccidity drooped over a synthesizer bank, cracking knuckles, scratching himself.
    "A toast. Na zdorovye!" cried Skuratov, lifting his cup, tapping
mine, rubbing it against Jake's box of Pepsi. "Tomorrow you do
business in best business place in world. To Vladamer."
    DEVICE IS PROBABLY NOT WEAPON AS SUCH.
    WHAT? I tapped.
    POSSIBLE TRANSFERRAL DEVICE.
    No set showed onstage. Two yellowed posters of New York's
skyline hung from the back wall; a green Statue of Liberty molded
from one of the lesser plastics stood at stage center. The Drama
Advisers chose to rouse at once; their production-West Side
Story-opened with `America."
    "Songs left in original tongue to preserve purity of text,"
Skuratov noted.

    TRANSFERRAL WHERE? I tapped.
    WHERE ALEKHINE WENT.
    The Puerto Rican girls wore nuns' habits and flapping wimples,
and possibly came as if from a convent to attempt conversion of the
male dancers, boys of Sakhalin shoeblacked to appear more tropical. Backgrounders repeatedly slammed together as if following
choreography's demand. The synthesizist, orchestra's iconoclast,
lent a sixty-piece unit's sound.
    "They've punched up the lyrics," I whispered to Skuratov, noticing a variorum libretto in use.
    "Public domain," he explained. The women tore off their black
cloaks during the first bridge, prancing thereafter in glitter and
G-strings, headpieces affixed topside. Bending, they wiggled
towards us. Russians loved shoving acres of flesh into centimeters
of cloth and studying the result.
    "What is this agitpop?" asked Jake, unable to pull his look from
the action. One of the nuns swung over the stage on a rope, felling
the statue as she hit her mark.
    "Muzhiki!!" came a cry rearward. At this alert Jake moved; we
were up before the splintering rang. A Mongol shattered empties
floorways. Before his bottle shards impressed full, the bouncers
buried him beneath their tonnage. Onstage nuns wrapped young
men around them as if to keep warm. The song concluded with an
atonal thud. The clientele-Skuratov, too-stood, applauding.
    "All was intentional?" I asked.
    "How else?" said Skuratov, reseating with watchful look. Kidin
turned his attention from us back to the Kazakhs. The principals
onstaged for the next number. Tony seemed not to be of troublesome Polish descent in this adaptation. Maria's paint, mahogany
dark,