Transreal Cyberpunk Read Free Page A

information theory,” Zipkin whispered, drunkenly touching one finger to his lips. “We’re designing error-proof codes for communicating with the ... you know.” He made a little orbiting movement with his forefinger and looked upward at the shiny dark bottom of the piano. The Sputnik had only been up since October. We space workers were still not used to talking about it in public.
    “Come on, don’t be shy,” I said, smiling. “We can say ‘Sputnik,’ can’t we? Everyone in the world has talked of nothing else for months!”
    It was easy to draw Vlad out. “My group’s hush-hush,” he bragged criminally. “The top brass think ‘information theory’ has to be classified and censored. But the theory’s not information itself, it’s an abstract meta-information ...” He burbled on a while in the weird jargon of his profession. I grew bored and opened a pack of Kent cigarettes.
    Vlad bummed one instantly. He was impressed that I had American cigarettes. Only cool black-market operators had classy cigs like that. Vlad felt the need to impress me in return. “Khrushchev wants the next sputnik to broadcast propaganda,” he confided, blowing smoke. “The Internationale in outer space—what foolishness!” Vlad shook his head. “As if countries matter anymore outside our atmosphere. To any real Russian, it is already clear that we have surpassed the Americans. Why should we copy their fascist nationalism? We have soared into the void and left them in the dirt!” He grinned. “Damn, these are good smokes. Can you get me a connection?”
    “What are you offering?” I said.
    He nodded at Lyuda. “See our hostess? You see those earrings she has? They’re gold-plated transistors I stole from the Center! All property is theft, hey Nikita?”
    I liked Vlad well enough, but I felt duty-bound to report his questionable attitudes along with my information about Starsky. Political deviance such as Vlad’s is a type of mental illness. I liked Vlad enough to truly want to see him get better.
    Having made my report, I returned to Kaliningrad, and forgot about Vlad. I didn’t hear about him for a month.
    Since the early ‘50s, Kaliningrad had been the home of the Soviet space effort. Kaliningrad was thirty kilometers north of Moscow and had once been a summer resort. There we worked heroically at rocket research and construction—though the actual launches took place at the famous Baikonur Cosmodrome, far to the south. I enjoyed life in Kaliningrad. The stores were crammed with Polish hams and fresh lamb chops, and the landscape of forests and lakes was romantic and pleasant. Security was excellent.
    Outside the research complex and block apartments were dachas , resort homes for space scientists, engineers, and party officials, including our top boss, the Chief Designer himself. The entire compound was surrounded by a high wood-and-concrete fence manned around the clock by armed guards. It was very peaceful. The compound held almost fifty dachas . I owned a small one—a kitchen and two rooms—with large garden filled with fruit trees and berry bushes, now covered by winter snow.
    A month after Lyuda’s party, I was enjoying myself in my dacha , quietly pressing a new suit I had bought from Nokidze the Kazakh, when I heard a black ZIL sedan splash up through the mud outside. I peeked through the curtains. A woman stamped up the path and knocked. I opened the door slightly.
    “Nikita Iosifovich Globov?”
    “Yes?”
    “Let me in, you fat sneak!” she said.
    I gaped at her. She addressed me with filthy words. Shocked, I let her in. She was a dusky, strong-featured Tartar woman dressed in a cheap black two-piece suit from the Moscow G. U. M. store. No woman in Kaliningrad wore clothes or shoes that ugly, unless she was a real hardliner. So I got worried. She kicked the door shut and glared at me.
    “You turned in Vladimir Zipkin!”
    “What?”
    “Listen, you meddling idiot, I’m Captain Bogulyubova from