Free Watson, Ian - Novel 11 by Chekhov's Journey (v1.1)

resentment that
she had tossed an opportunity away. An opportunity to make a
prime fool of herself? But she hardly cared about that. All the minor
frustrations of her life seemed all at once to have reached a climax.
                 ‘That’s
more than can be said for me!’ she thought bitterly.
                 She
came downstairs to a breakfast of black bread, cherry jam and slices of
Dutch-style cheese, to find Felix and Sergey already snapping away at each
other across the table. As nobody else was in the room yet, Sonya went over to
the window to avoid getting involved.
                 Not
one single external object was visible. Not a tree, not a bush, not a stone. A
blank white covering of snow hid what she remembered to be a paved path running
right around the building; the thin even layer was as neat as a newly tucked-in
sheet. As for the rest of the world, well, the Retreat might as well have been
floating in mid-air in the heart of a cumulus cloud. There was only a dense
white mist, woolly and indefinite, unmoving.
                 “What
weather!’’ she exclaimed . . .
                 .
. .just as Dr Kirilenko swept into the dining room,
arm in arm with Mikhail, an elder statesman leading his protege.
                 “I’ve
been giving a lot of thought to our little difficulty,’’ he said without
preamble. “Now, it’s possible to project a hypnotic subject into a future role, as well as a past one. And
when I say ‘future’, naturally I’m referring to the future as foreseen on the
basis of subconsciously available data. The popular journalists might be
tempted to describe this as ‘Reincarnation in the Future’—’’
                 Sergey
glared malevolently.
                 “—though
needless to say it has no connexion with an afterlife in some future body—no
more than yesterday’s work had anything to do with actual reincarnation! And
when I say ‘actual’, I must remind you that no such thing as reincarnation
exists, except in popular fancy. Nevertheless ,
an element of genuine precognition may well be present in such exercises. If it
could be properly developed a superability of this type would make the work of
Futurology less of a guessing game.”
                 “Sod your Futurology,” said Sergey.
“I’ve got a script to get together. Preferably this weekend.”
                 When
Kirilenko first came in, Sonya had quickly sat at table and helped herself to a
slice of cheese. Now she found in her agitation that she was spreading the
cheese with jam . . .
                 “I
think what Gorodsky means ,” said
Felix heavily, “is that while you w'ould win our riveted attention at any other
time, right now we have a more pressing problem on our plate.”
                 “Quite!”
Kirilenko refused to take offence. “So what I propose for our first session
today is to tell Mike that he has already successfully completed his role in Chekhov’s
Journey. In his mind, he will be living in the future. The film will
already be ... in the can. This may, ah, clear the stage . . .”
                 Without
further ado, as though it wasn’t up to Felix to yea or nay this suggestion,
Kirilenko proceeded to sit down and tuck into cherry jam from the orchards down Irkutsk way.
                 “Any
port in a storm,” muttered Sergey direly. “To quote our
beloved Fedotik.”
                 Sonya
discovered that jam spread on cheese was really quite tasty. This was just as
well, since she could hardly scrape it off again, in front of them all.
                 Mikhail
grinned at her. “Onward to the future!”
     

           E LEVEN
     
     
                 CommanderAntonAstrov was astonished to
see a fly drifting midway in the observation pod of the K.E. Tsiolkovsky. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, but the fly