Ice Trilogy (88 page)

Three long minutes passed.

The milky-white bulletproof glass door slid open silently. Shua, Uf, Atrii, and Tsefog entered the office. Rim stood up, shook off his stupor, and moved to greet them. The brothers who had entered stopped two steps away from Rim: They were
protecting
their hearts. Rim
understood
this. They had to conserve their hearts’ energy and not expend it on brotherly greetings. Rim stood
stock-still
. Before him stood four of the Mighty. Each of them was responsible for the brothers in his part of the world. Each was a shield for his continent. Shua, the former keeper of the Arsenal, was now, after Dopob’s death, protecting the brothers and sisters of America; Uf — of Russia; Atrii — of Europe; Tsefog — of Australia and Oceania.

The brothers who had just entered
understood
that everything was ready.

Rim walked over to the elevator and pressed the button. They all entered the elevator. It moved upward. There, under the very roof of the silvery-blue skyscrapers, a
secret
room awaited the brothers. One that none of them had ever entered before.

The elevator stopped. The door opened. The brothers entered a small, vaulted room clad in lilac marble. In the middle of the room stood a round table of sky-blue spar. In the center of the table a small circle shone gold.

The brothers sat down at the table in silence.

For a few minutes they sat,
preparing
their hearts. Then Shua spoke.

“You
know
that the Brotherhood has acquired the last three. The search is complete.”

A slight tremor passed through everyone at the table. Of course they
knew
. But they had
restrained
themselves, not permitting any
joy
to disturb the balance of their hearts.

“The time for the Last Achievement has arrived. We must
decide
everything. And eliminate whatever hinders us.”

“The meat is the only thing in our way,” uttered Uf. “It’s
coagulating
, sensing that the end is approaching.”

“The Brotherhood must defend itself,” Rim responded. “We
are able
.”

“We are
ABLE
!” they all declared.

“The meat is counting on
a rift
,” Atrii said. “
We shall move
the shields!”

“
We shall move
the shields!” they all declared, and
confirmed
with the might of their hearts.

“The ships have left their moorings,” said Tsefog. “They will be in transit for six days.”

“During this time the last acquired will
cleanse themselves
through heart crying,” Shua concluded.

“There are eighteen
weak ones
,” said Uf. “I
know
this.”

“They may
grow in number
,” declared Uf. “I
know
this. The meat
in each of them
will begin to resist. But their fear must be
removed
. Four of the
weak
are
flickering
,” Uf continued. “They could
leave
. Then we would have to wait until they reincarnate.”

“We need the
support
of the Mighty,” said Atrii. “Khram and Gorn are not with us, they are on the island.”

“Their hearts
are tired
,” Uf summed up.

“They have
given
so much to the Last Search,” Shua responded.

“They will
support
as well as they can,” Rim declared.

“The Circle of the Mighty is needed,” concluded Tsefog.

“The Circle of the Mighty is needed!” they all
cried out
.

Their hearts
spoke
. Hundreds of the Mighty across the entire Earth
responded
. The hearts of Khram and Gorn
responded
as well.

Forty-four minutes passed.

The Circle of the Mighty
shone
: WE ARE READY!

Distant hearts
were quenched
.

When everyone at the table had
calmed down
, Rim spoke.

“It’s time!”

All five removed delicate gold chains from around their necks. On each chain hung a tiny gold pin. Each took his pin. Five hands holding these pins stretched toward the gold circle in the center of the table. Inside the circle five barely perceptible apertures could be made out. The brothers’ hands fit the pins into the openings, and froze.

An intermittent signal beeped.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

The brothers pressed on the pins. The pins became embedded in the circle. The circle began to move smoothly out of the table. A gold cylinder rose over the table. It stopped. A hologram flashed above it, the emblem of the ICE Corporation: a shining heart flanked by two Ice hammers. The Ice hammers disappeared, the shining heart alone remained. A woman’s voice spoke.

“The Search program is complete. The Transformation program has been launched.”

Everyone around the table cried out. They grabbed one anothers’ hands. Their hearts
flared
. Each of the five knew what the Transformation was. All had participated in its development, each
knew
the role he had played in it, each had contributed his
light
and earthly intelligence to it. They had all been waiting for it, moving toward it, and
craving
it, and their hearts had been
patient
in anticipation of it. They had all
tried
to live until it came to pass. But now each of them simply
felt
it with his heart. The hearts of Rim, Shua, Uf, Atrii, and Tsefog
felt
the signal issuing from the silvery-blue skyscraper to all four corners of the Earth: “Transformation!”

Each of the 23,000 had to receive this signal. He had to go and find each brother, each sister. He had to touch all of them. In thousands of cell phones, in dozens of languages, the word “Transformation” appeared; thousands of faxes printed the word on paper, it lit up on thousands of monitors, the young lips of brothers whispered it to thousands of helpless old people and infants whose hearts were already
prepared
: “Transformation!”

Ten hands interlaced, five hearts
flaming
with the Joy of Anticipating the Main Event of the Brotherhood. The hearts above the gold cylinder shone. The signal was flying to all corners of the Earth: “Transformation!”

Hundred of kilometers away, in the house on the island, Khram’s and Gorn’s eyes opened slowly: their
tired
hearts rejoiced, with a
quiet
jo
y...

On Wednesday
morning, cutting out her 121st strip, Olga hurt her finger, and Horst, the brigade leader, transferred her to the old people. Settling at the table in a corner of the workshop, she began to sort the cut-out strips, placing them in plastic boxes. An older Rumanian woman who didn’t speak English sat next to her; across from her, a gray-haired, trembling Icelander; and next to him, that German, Ernst Wolf. Olga had had lunch and dinner with him several times; he was interesting to her. When Olga ended up in the geriatric corner with a bandaged finger, Wolf smiled and winked at her like an old friend. It seemed to her that over the last month his face had grown even more yellow and withered, but he remained unfailingly cheerful, composed, and collected. He constantly joked with her in his old-fashioned English, learned in confinement. Olga liked the old man for some reason, although she, like her deceased parents, didn’t have much love for Germans. But a kind of enchanting, charming calm radiated from Wolf. His unflappableness reassured Olga, infected her with confidence, which was so missing here in the bunker. Over their meals Wolf had told her a great deal. She knew everything about him and almost everything about the Brotherhood of the Light. And the most surprising thing for Olga was that Wolf believed in the Brotherhood’s mission, he believed in the 23,000, believed that once they gathered, the Brothers of the Light would bring the history of the Earth and humankind to an end. At first Olga laughed at the old man condescendingly, then she argued with him until she was hoarse. But then she began thinking seriously.

“You don’t understand, my dear, to what extent our planet is unique,” Wolf told her. “Believe me, there is and has never been anything like it. All those arguments about brothers in intelligence, about new forms of life on other planets, are utter nonsense. On a billion billion planets there is no life and can be none. The Earth is alone in the Universe, she’s totally unique. And
Homo sapiens
— is twice, thrice unique. And if this is so, then the Earth must be seen as an anomaly, as a strange plant, as a lacuna in the body of the Universe.”

“But perhaps — as a miracle?” Olga objected.

“Miracles are anomalies, Olga. And any anomaly in the Universe is a violation of its equilibrium, the destruction of order. A straight line can be drawn between two points, through three, through thirty-three. But there’s no sense in drawing a straight line through a single point. Because one point is just a point. It’s not a path. It’s not a pattern consistent with natural laws. Therefore you and I, like our entire planet, are a mistake of the Universe. And we have no future.”

“So that means you want the Earth to disappear?”

“I’m not against it, given my age and my present situation.”

“And so you’re on the side of the Brotherhood?”

“Oh, no, Olga, not at all. I am not on the side of the Brotherhood.”

“But why? After all, in your opinion they are striving to correct the Universe’s mistake.”

“And they will try hard to do this, believe me. But I’m not on their side.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know how to speak with the heart. That’s the first thing. The second is that they are physiologically repulsive to me. All in all,” he said, “put it this way — Old Man Wolf is simply jealous of them!”

It was after this conversation that Olga began to think seriously about certain things. Lying on her bunk at night, her thoughts went on, accompanied by the quiet murmur of the air conditioner and the women’s heavy breathing and snoring.

“What if it’s actually true? What do we really know about our world? That the Earth is round? That spring will always follow winter? That humans evolved from the apes? That we’re smarter than animals? In school and at college they told me that the Universe was infinite, that everything derived from the Big Bang, from a spar
k...
something flashed, and the stars and planets were formed. Everyone believes this. And what was before that? A void? Why? And who created the void? Where did it come from? It just appeared all by itself? People believe in what they can agree o
n...
A thousand years ago they believed that the Earth was the center of the Universe. And before that — that the Earth stood on the backs of four elephant
s...
If this Brotherhood really believes — if they are spending huge amounts of money based on what they believe in, committing crimes, kidnapping and killing people, if such a powerful corporation is seriously engaged in this — then perhaps it isn’t the ravings of a sordid bunch of sect members, but the pure truth. And people are in fact divided into the chosen, who are able to speak with the heart, and the rest, who are trash. And the chosen ones will become rays of light at some point, and the Earth will disappear. And we will all die, like idiot
s..
.”

Olga tried to share her thoughts with her neighbors in that cursed bunker. Bjorn listened to her attentively, then in his customary tedious manner refuted Olga’s concerns regarding the Earth’s destruction. He was certain that the kidnappings, the video games with the ice, and all the rest — was only the tip of the iceberg of the ICE Corporation, which was headed by a powerful group of international criminals who were trying to take power in China. Bjorn claimed that ICE was involved in secret experiments with genetic engineering. The goal of these experiments was the creation of a new race founded on entirely new moral principles, an elite that was capable of ruling a powerful country like China, and of achieving world dominance.

“Given its rapid technological progress, China needs only one thing to rule the world — a new ideology,” Bjorn said with conviction. “A new ideology not only for China but for humankind in general.”

Olga listened to this six-foot-seven graduate of his university’s physics and mathematics department, who had grown up in a family of Swedish mathematicians who worshipped theoretical physics, who kept portraits of Bohr, Heisenberg, and Einstein at home, who trusted only formulas and technology; she listened to this giant who dreamed of a career as a great scientist, but who, because of an event that didn’t depend on formulas, had ended up here, in a bunker where he skinned dead dogs, an
d...
she didn’t believe him. Bjorn’s logic was too linear, his arguments were
too
correct. Whereas everything that had happened to him was totally illogical, was
anomalous
, and eluded logical analysis.

But Bjorn held stubbornly to his views.

He immediately swept aside any arguments about the Brotherhood of the Light, without letting Olga finish her thought.

“Olga, since childhood I have believed only in things that are subject to the laws of physics. Light is a directed stream of photons. Do you want me to write down the formula?”

Olga grew tired of arguing with him. She felt like she kept hitting a wall that wouldn’t budge an inch.

“I was taught to believe only in what can be touched or understood logically. What I don’t understand doesn’t exist for me!” he said.

Bjorn’s parents had been confirmed atheists, part of the left-leaning Swedish scientific elite. In the turmoil of ’68 his father had joined with the Swedish Maoists, going to university lectures wearing a yellow armband with the Chinese character that meant “self-criticism” on it and carrying the little red book of the Great Helmsman.

Olga’s parents had also been atheists. And they likewise taught Olga to believe only in what can be understood and touched.

“Whatever doesn’t participate in the exchange of commodities simply doesn’t exist,” the professor of macroeconomics at the university Olga attended like to say.