Free Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts Page B

transcendentally-furnaced battleship - or something. ‘The radiation aliens,’ said Frenkel, for the half-dozenth time, such that by sheer force of repetition the word began to acquire familiarity and therefore reality in my mind. ‘They don’t communicate using material means, you see. They possess a form of telepathy, I suppose. They probed my mind, and as they did so I caught glimpses of their plan. They - probed me - very fully.’
    He stopped and looked up. I became aware of Trofim looming over the table. ‘Comrade Frenkel,’ he said. ‘I need to visit the toilet.’
    ‘Can it wait?’
    ‘Not really, comrade.’
    Crossly Frenkel waved him away. ‘Go on, then. Hurry.’ As the big man’s back receded across the caf’ floor I thought again about making a run for it. But, as before, something in the room prevented me. Except that there was nothing in the room. There is either something in a room, or there isn’t something in a room; it can’t be both at once. Why didn’t I run for it? You will perhaps think: did I believe that the radiation aliens were in the room? But I didn’t think that. It was something else. I wasn’t sure what.
    ‘Wake up!’ Frenkel said. ‘Daydreamer!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Wake up! Wake up!’
    ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I really must be going.’
    ‘Put yourself in my position for a moment,’ Frenkel advised me, with a queer expression on his face. ‘Imagine that you had become convinced that this story we invented was coming true. How would you explain it?’
    ‘I’d assume I was dreaming,’ I said, after thinking about it for a moment.
    He glowered at me, and then, oddly, he started laughing. ‘Pinch myself on the cheek!’ he chuckled. ‘And wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Very well; let’s assume we tried that, and it had no effect. Assume you decide you’re awake, and it’s still happening. What then?’
     
    The next thing I remember I was outside on the street. It was late. The buildings, towering in the dark all around looked as granite as giant tombstones, punctured in a few places with rectangles of yellow illumination. Above, in the spaces above the rooftops and between the buildings, the sky was black-grey, with the strangest tints of violet and mauve and an unnatural pink or pale green glow to the west. The streetlights burned fuzzily, a line of alien eyes glowering down upon the road. A car passed.
    Another.
    A small-engine motorcycle buzzed past with a mosquito sound. Mosquito? I reached round to feel the back of my neck. There was a lump.
    I don’t have exactly clear memories of getting out of that place. I suppose I said goodbye to Frenkel, once and for all, and got to my feet and simply walked away. Yes: now that I express my supposition I can locate that memory in my head. There it is. I said goodbye; I got up; I left. That is the way memory works. It follows supposition.
    I started walking along the street, passing the Office of Liaison and Overseas Exchange; shut up now and dark. There was a taxi parked outside the main entrance, and as I walked past the driver got out onto the pavement. He was a medium-sized, middle-aged man. ‘Taxi for Comrade Skvorecky?’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘I was told to wait here for Comrade Skvorecky.’
    ‘How do you know my name?’
    ‘The fare has already been paid.’
    ‘Paid?’ I asked. I was surprised, but I overcame that feeling rapidly enough. I’ll confess the thought of being chauffeur-driven home appealed rather more than joining the evening crush on the Metro.
    ‘I am,’ said the fellow, with a rather prissy exactitude, ‘a licensed taxi driver. My name is Saltykov.’
    ‘Do you always introduce yourself to your fares, Comrade Saltykov.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well - all right. A taxi ride home, then.’ I told him my address, and climbed into the back of his vehicle. It did occur to me to wonder whether accepting Frenkel’s paid-for cab was in some sense compromising myself. But I decided that I was too