Free Terraplane by Jack Womack

destination."
    "Done," said the car; we rolled upstreet. Oktobriana pressed
next to Jake as if to meld with his flesh; he edged her away.
    "Worktime," he said.
    "Closeness necessary for effective rapport."
    "We're kidnapping you," Jake said, not looking her way, astonishment plain in his voice. "You enjoy?"
    "Is not unpleasant now that initial surprise is done with. And
you did assist me in preventing my assault. I am very grateful."
    More than grateful. I'd been affection's object for those falling
into the Swedish syndrome several times myself, but that affliction
never showed symptoms this soon. Firstsight lust was common
enough, yet what unwound before me seemed a more complex
phenomenon, one of rarest sort; like star's visible birth, or seeing a
picture fall, unaided, from a wall. That she chose to shed suspicion
so easily-if she had choice-I accepted as good fortune. Jake, as
ever, seemed dubious. She stroked her hand over his hair as if to test
his existence; he jerked back.
    "Touch isn't essentialled," he said.
    "You are cold observer of life, Jake."
    "Taker," he corrected. No further messages of import passed our
lips until we'd cleared the soldier line safeguarding the neighborhood from the bitter world without; even then we spoke little and
said less, as if by wording overmuch the world might shake down
upon us. Jake centerlaned upon hitting the main road, floored and
sped free. Traffic's quick colors smeared our roadsides as we shot
along.

    "We're tracked?" Jake asked, eyeing a light flashing at middash.
"Should we evade?"
    Oktobriana judged the readout. "Refrigerator needs defrosting.
Let me examine all systems," she said, fiddling with dials, peering
at screens. "None follow Safe thus far."
    We passed apartment crops rising forty floors from concrete
pastures; unlike American cities Moscow rose highest at the bor-
derwall, shielding the low center from ground assault. True land
showed but briefly amidst the blight, pale gray gnat poking from a
long-worn carpet. The expressway narrowed to fifteen lanes at
the outskirts; on our roadsides now were nothing but brown
evergreens.
    "We take trip to America after all?" Skuratov asked, coming to
full consciousness. "You are apt at impromptu response."
    "We try," I said.
    "Many try," he said. "Few succeed. Is sad thing."
    "That fellow in the tunnel,' A said. "In your employ?"
    "Indirectly, perhaps," he said, shifting to take his back's weight
from his bound wrists. "It was needed to see if Jake, ah, truly
required devitalization. Jake was as heard. Stories passed mouth to
mouth tend to exaggerate. In this case, no-"
    "Wire his jaws, Luther," said Jake, keeping eyes roadward,
flicking looks into the rearview. "Use his tongue for sandwiches."
"Had truth proved rumor, Luther, there was no need to fear. We
had no wish to harm you too soon."
    "Here at right, Jake," said Oktobriana. The car guided us downramp onto a service artery curling away from the mainline. Several
hundred meters more and we righted again, onto a rutted dirt road,
its winter's mud permafrosted. Entwined treelimbs overhead sheltered us from airview.
    "This road's not fit for horsetrade," said Jake as we bounced
along.
    "Servants' entrance, I suspect," said Oktobriana, staring at
Skuratov as if she might sear the skin off his bones. He took all with
disconcerting peace, now that most pain had retreated.
    "Neighborhood's not soldiered?" Jake asked. "No army boys
required?" Oktobriana had again slid closer towards him.

    "To guard people of best type?" asked Skuratov. His was an
attractive neighborhood; the houses and grounds, where visibled,
dripped with the subtle taste expected of Krasnayaviki. Amidst
wooded hills so fully treed that the forest seemed, impossibly, of
original growth, homes' fragments appeared briefly before vanishing, passing like dream's vague-remembered shards. High stone
walls lent further peace to the fearful minds secluded within the
shadows.