Free Totem Poles by Bruce Sterling Page B

dried sausage. The meat within its casing was the flesh of a Przewalski horse. Methodically, the couple chewed their meager rations.
    â€œThat giant saucer worm likes you,” Ida told Kalanin. “You’ve fed it so much trash that it thinks you’re its best friend on Earth.”
    â€œI’ve spoiled the worm, yes,” said Kalinin with a thin smile. “It’s like a decadent intellectual. A lazy gourmand that never spent a day on duty.”
    â€œDon’t hate intellectuals, Kalinin. I’m one too. An artist, don’t you remember?”
    Kalinin’s face reddened with a sudden access of rage. “Why do you ally yourself with decadent parasites? They only want to lord it over those who fight!”
    â€œAre they so wrong?” said Ida gently. “Is war so wonderful?”
    â€œWe should liquidate any wretch who collaborates with the saucers,” cried Kalanin, maddened at the thought of Ida’s impending defection. Below his furry hat-brim, his narrow eyes filled with tears. Wildly he ranted. “Spineless bastards! Double-domes! Where’s their sense of destiny? Life to them is nothing but hashish and vulvas!”
    â€œLet’s suppose the saucers are here to raise everyone’s level, dear Kalanin. Come with me now. Let’s see how our pet saucer worm has grown on its diet of poison rubbish.”
    Kalinin and Ida made their way down from their overlook, following the debris-strewn tracks of the diesel trucks. The ragged lip of the former coal-mine was a variegated crust of crushed and flattened junkyard debris, smoldering like an overbaked pie. Moving with care, Ida and Kalinin tottered close to the unstable edge.
    â€œWhat if a great hero chose this hole as his grave?” mused Ida. “A great man whom the worm loved. Such a hero might single-handedly transform the worm. Just as the mortar-blasted corpse debris transforms the flying saucers.” She gave Kalinin a calculating look. “How much do you love me?”
    â€œWhat are you after?” said Kalanin, stepping back from the hole. The sun was beating on his head. The world seemed to spin around him. The rubble, the fruitless battles, Ida’s betrayal.
    â€œIt’s your best way out of here,” said Ida, nudging him forward once more. “Death in battle is a path to immortality. To resurrection, even. I’ll bring you back to life, and I’ll finally share your bed.”
    They were at the very brink of the mineshaft, with the rubble shifting and rattling beneath their feet. Below them the gigantic worm stirred, liquid, exultant, entirely happy in its garbage.
    Drunk with love, helplessly wanting to impress Ida, Kalinin leapt out into the air and slashed his own throat with his razor-sharp bayonet. He dropped down the shaft amid a spinning gush of blood.
    Kalanin hit the bottom so fast that his substance merged into that of the startled saucer worm. And then—so great was the creature’s revulsion for human death—it explosively shattered into grubs. The sky-darkening plume of eruption was visible for hundreds of miles.
    Ida was unharmed. Quickly and decisively, she took command of the paramilitary rabble—declaring a cease-fire and dismissing them all.
    That night she set off for Mumbai, India. Following Kalinin’s plume.
    *   *   *
    â€œMumbai is the greatest city mankind has ever seen,” Puneet remarked to his business associate, Leela. “We nearly wrecked the planet with filth, but that was just our subcontinental exuberance. And now, thanks to the saucers, all is well. Our business is an integral part of Mumbai’s greatness.”
    Leela had brought in a bright stainless-steel tiffin-box full of free-range saucer grubs, fresh from the Ukraine. The edible grubs had blown in on the monsoon winds. They were unusually tasty. Leela offered one to Puneet, who gobbled it with his usual avidity.
    Leela and Puneet