Chapter 16. Can you see me, Mother Earth?

Above Griegors-Fortlov's head, there were six feet of air,

12 feet of reinforced concrete, and 30 feet of snow. At the Soviet Army listening post,

at the Savini-Anynynynynynynykribez, The winters were long. Longer, it was said, than the

intervals between the arrival of the samovars of lukewarm tea, sweetened with the new state

sweetener that left a taste of bitterness on the tongue akin to poison. It was rumoured that the

after-taste was due to a special ingredient

added to eradicate anti-revolutionary sentiments, especially those that might be induced by

contemplation of the vital parts of women. Grigor Sferdlov rubbed his hands together and looked

round, hopefully for sight of the creature, believed

to be female, who brought the samovar. It was the tea that he was interested in, not the woman.

To look upon her unwholesome appearance was merely to duplicate what the state was trying to achieve

with its bromide. The woman not only discouraged Amherst thoughts, she drove them before

her, like gadderine swine, eager to find any cliff to leap over. It was cold in the bunker.

Not as cold as outside, where the radio masks lifted above the pines and the snowy wastes

reached to the frozen waters of the

Chonskaya Guba, but cold enough to pinch a man's bones as if an undertaker with icy fingers

was counting them. Grigor Svedlov stood up, swung his arms across his body, and strolled down the

room. Another hour before he was off duty,

free to trudge through the banked snow to the log cabin he shared with 11 other radar

operatives. The stove would be nearly out and the airless fug only marginably preferable to

asphyxiation, but it would be warm. It was something

...