Free Asimov's Science Fiction: July 2013 by Penny Publications Page A

apartment complex in front of which he stood was decorated with a mosaic of grim, determined workers in baggy pants laying brick on brick to create more and more of the same dismal apartment buildings that stretched down the street. There the line of uniformity met crumbling shells and rusting skeletons of buildings never completed, where the Socialist ideal encountered the reality of history: with no central authority to direct them, the original crews had gone in search of other opportunities, abandoned projects in place, and left the edge of the city as brown, dingy, and unfulfilled as the once-colorful mosaic.
    Miroslav rubbed his tongue over his teeth. Already he felt the grime and soot that covered everything starting to permeate him. The apartment balconies overf lowed with junk, as much the detritus of capitalism as were the empty storefronts lining the street on his walk from the station, while the unmowed swath of grass in front of the building spoke of a discipline sorely lacking in the civilian sector.
    "I know you," said a voice above him.
    An old man, balding and sun-browned, leaned against the railing of one of the balconies. He sucked on his cigarette, grinned, and blew a great plume into the air.
    "Is that so?" Miroslav asked. He stepped painfully closer to the building, trying not to use the walking stick they had issued him. He did not venture too close, lest the stink of neglect and piss attach itself to him.
    "Who else could you be, but Ponomarenko? We all know you here, in uniform or out." He took another drag off the cigarette. From a radio or television behind him a commentator's voice rose to announce a goal for the World Cup team. He grinned and continued, "You are the hero of Gudermes, the hero of Vedeno. What did they give you after Vedeno? Order of Suvurov?"
    Miroslav winced a little at the sound of the names, his vision brief ly clouding with blood-tinged remembrances of the Chechen cities. He shook his head. "Order of Kutuzov, Third Class. And Order of Saint George, Fourth Class."
    The old man's cigarette was a tiny nub in his stained fingers. "Idiots. There was a time you would have earned the Red Banner."
    "And there was a time you would not so casually have called them 'idiots.'" The old man laughed, and nodded, as Miroslav said, "Besides, I'm no hero, only a survivor."
    "Only a survivor... who has come home." The old man laughed at some private joke, then gestured across the street. "You're going back, then?"
    "Perhaps," Miroslav said.
    "You go on. Inside, they wait for you. You will do fine. You'll come out a new man." The old man winked, and returned to watching the street.
    Miroslav crossed the street toward the ugly front door. He cursed both the cheapness of his new leg and the fact that he had had so little time to learn how to use it properly.
    The stairway was wide, the treads slick and uneven in the shoddy Communist crafts tradition. Instead of using the damned cane, he held it in his hand as he pressed against the half-height brick wall, his prosthetic arm held out at an angle in front of him as he limped up the stairs.
    The vestibule looked much as it always had: clean and Spartan; white walls broken only by a set of f lags, the academy's crest, and the latest portraits of national and military leaders and the school's namesake. He appreciated how much the wood f loor shone, having spent many hours polishing it himself when he was a cadet.
    He remembered the way to the commandant's off ice. As he turned in that direction a pretty woman close to his own age, carrying a fancy new digital workspace—he could not tell what model—entered from the hallway. Miroslav hugged his left arm close to himself when he recognized her.
    "Nastas'ya?" he asked.
    She looked up. "Slava," she said, and beamed at him. Her smile, wide and perfect, was no less bright than her clear blue eyes. She was taller than he remembered, sleek in a white blouse and indigo skirt; her hair was more brown now than