Supermind
Petkoff nodded. The headwaiter led the party through the dancers,
snaking slowly along until they reached a large table near the
musicians and at the edge of the dance floor. Her Majesty
automatically took the seat nearest the musicians, which she imagined
to be the head of the table. Lou sat at her left hand, and Malone at
her right, his back against a wall. Petkoff took the foot of the
table, called a waiter over, and ordered for the party. He did a
massive job of it, with two waiters, at last, taking down what seemed
to be his entire memoirs, plus the list of all soldiers in the Red
Army below the rank of Grand Exalted Elk, or whatever it might have
been. Malone had no idea what the major was ordering, except that it
sounded extensive and very, very Russian.
Finally the waiter went on his way. Major Petkoff turned to Malone and
smiled. “Naturally,” he said, “we will begin with vodka, _nyet_?”
Malone considered saying _nyet_, but he didn’t feel that this was the
time or the place. Besides, he told himself grimly, it would be a sad
day when a Petkoff could drink a Malone under the table. His proudest
heritage from his father was an immense capacity, he told himself. Now
was his chance to test it.
“And, naturally, a little caviar to go with it,” Petkoff added.
“Certainly,” Malone said, as if caviar were the most common thing in
the world in his usual Washington saloons.
It wasn’t long before the waiter reappeared, bringing four glasses and
three bottles of vodka chilled in an ice-bucket, like a bouquet of
champagne. Petkoff bowed him out after one bottle had been opened, set
the glasses up and began to pour.
“Oh, goodness,” Her Majesty started to say.
“None for me, thanks,” Lou chimed in.
“Oh, yes,” Her Majesty said. “I don’t think I’ll have any either. An
old lady has to be very careful of her system, you know.”
“You do not look like an old lady,” Petkoff said gallantly.
“Middle-aged, perhaps, to be cruel. But certainly not old. Not over ...
oh, perhaps forty.”
Her Majesty smiled politely at him. Malone began to wonder if it had
been gallantry, after all. From what he’d seen of the Russian women,
it was likely, after all, that Petkoff really thought Her Majesty
wasn’t much over forty at that.
“You’re very flattering, Major,” Her Majesty said. “But I assure you
that I’m a good deal older than I look.”
Malone tried to tell himself that no one else had noticed the stifled
gulp that had followed that remark. It had been his own stifled gulp.
And his face, he felt sure, had aged one hundred and twelve years
within a second or so. He waited for Her Majesty to tell Major Petkoff
just how old she really was....
But she said nothing else. After a second she turned and smiled at
Malone.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Oh, you’re quite welcome,” she said.
Petkoff frowned at both of them, shrugged, and readied the bottle.
“Well, then,” he said. “It seems as if the drinking will be done by
men—and that is right. Vodka is the drink for men.”
He had filled his own glass full of the cold, clear liquid. Now he
filled Malone’s. He stood, glass in hand. Malone also climbed to his
feet.
“To the continued friendship of our two countries!” Petkoff said. He
raised his glass for a second, then downed the contents. Malone
followed suit. The vodka burned its merry way into his stomach. They
sat.
A waiter arrived with a large platter. “Ah,” Petkoff said, turning.
“Try some of this caviar, Mr. Malone. You will find it the finest in
the world.”
Malone, somehow, had never managed to develop a taste for caviar. He
was willing to admit, if pressed, that this made him an uncultured
slob, but caviar always made him think of the joke about the country
bumpkin who thought it was marvelous that you could soften up buckshot
just by soaking it in fish oil.
Now, though, he felt he had to be polite, and he tried some of the
stuff. All things considered, it wasn’t quite as bad as he’d thought
it was going to be. And it did make a pretty good chaser for the
vodka.
Her Majesty also helped herself to some caviar. “My goodness,” she
said. “This reminds me of the old days.”
Malone waited, once again, with bated breath. But, though Her Majesty
may have been crazy, she wasn’t stupid. She said nothing more.
Petkoff, meanwhile, refilled the glasses and looked expectantly at
Malone. This time it was his turn to propose the toast. He thought for
a second, then stood up and raised his glass.
“To the most beautiful woman in all the world,” he said, feeling just
a little like a character in _War and Peace_. “Luba Vasilovna
Garbitsch.”
“Ah,” Petkoff said, smiling approvingly. Malone executed a little bow
in Lou’s direction and followed Petkoff in downing the drink. Two more
glasses of vodka wended their tortuous ways into the interior.
“Tell me, colleague,” Petkoff said as be spooned up some more caviar,
“how are things in the United States?”
Malone shot a glance at Her Majesty, but she was concentrating on
something else, and her eyes seemed far away. “Oh, all right,” he said
at last.
“Of course, you must say so,” Petkoff murmured. “But, as one colleague
to another, tell me: how much longer do you think it will be before
the proletarian uprising in your country?”
There were a lot of answers to that, Malone told himself. But he chose
one without too much difficulty. “Well, that’s hard to judge,” he
said. “I’d hate to make any prediction. I don’t have enough
information.”
“Not enough information?” Petkoff said. “I don’t understand.”
Malone shrugged. “Since our proletariat,” he said, “have shown no sign
of wanting any rebellion at all, how can I predict when they’re going
to rebel?”
Petkoff gave him an unbelieving smile. “Well,” he said. “We must have
patience, eh, colleague?”
“I guess so,” Malone said, watching Petkoff pour more vodka.
By the time the meal came, Malone was feeling a warm glow in his
interior, but no real fogginess. The dance floor had been cleared by
this time, and a group of six costumed professionals glided out and
took places. The musicians broke out into a thunderous and bumpy
piece, and the dancers began some sort of Slavic folk dance that
looked like a combination of a _kazotska_ and a shivaree. Malone
watched them with interest. They looked like good dancers, but they
seemed to be plagued with clumsiness; they were always crashing into
one another. On the other hand, Malone thought, maybe it was part of
the dance. It was hard to tell.
The dinner was as extensive as anything Malone had ever dreamed of:
_borshcht_, beef Stroganoff, smoked fish, vegetables in gigantic
tureens, ices and cheeses and fruits. And always, between the courses,
during the courses and at every available moment, there was vodka.
The drinking didn’t bother him too much. But the food was too much.
Unbelieving, he watched Petkoff polish off a large red apple, a pear
and a small wedge of white, creamy-looking cheese at the end of the
towering meal. Her Majesty was staring, too, in a very polite manner.
Lou simply looked glassy-eyed and overstuffed. Malone felt a good deal
of sympathy for her.
Petkoff finished the wedge of cheese and ripped off a belch of
incredible magnitude and splendor. Malone felt he should applaud, but
managed to restrain himself. Her Majesty looked startled for a second,
and then regained her composure. Only Lou seemed to take the event as
a matter of course, which set Malone to wondering about her home-life.
Somehow he couldn’t picture her wistful little father ever producing a
sound of such awesome magnitude.
“My dear colleague,” Petkoff was saying. Malone turned to him and
tried to look interested. “There is one thing I have wondered for many
years.”
“Really?” Malone said politely.
“That is right,” Petkoff said. “For years, there has never been a
change of name in your organization of secret police.”
“We’re not secret police,” Malone said.
Petkoff gave a massive shrug. “Naturally,” he said, “one must say
this. But surely, one tires of being called FBI all the time.”
“One does?” Malone said. “I don’t know. It gives a person a sort of
sense of security.”
“Ah,” Petkoff said. “But take us, for instance. We pride ourselves on
our ability to camouflage ourselves. GPU, and then OGPU—which were, I
understand, subject for many capitalist jokes.”
Malone tried to look as if he couldn’t imagine such a thing. “I
suppose they might have been,” he said.
“Then we were NKVD,” Petkoff said, “and now MVD. And I understand,
quite between us, Mr. Malone, that there is talk of further change.”
There was a sudden burst of applause. Malone wondered what for, looked
at the dance floor and realized that the six Slavic dancers were
taking bows. As he watched, one of them slipped and nearly fell. The
musicians obliged with a final series of chords and the dancers
trotted away. A waltz began, and couples from the tables began
crowding the floor.
“How can you manage the proletariat,” Petkoff asked, “if you do not
keep them confused?”
“We don’t, exactly,” Malone said. “They more or less manage us.”
“Ha,” Petkoff said, dismissing this with a wave of his hand.
“Propaganda.” And then he, too, turned to watch the dancers. The waltz
was finishing, and a fox-trot had begun. “With your permission, Mr.
Malone,” he said, rising, “I should like to ask so-lovely Miss
Garbitsch to dance with me.”
Malone glanced at the girl. She gave him a quick smile, with just a
hint of nervousness or strain in it, and turned to Petkoff. “I’d be
delighted, Major,” she said. Malone shut his own mouth. As the girl
rose, he got to his feet and gave the couple a small, Victorian bow.
Petkoff and Lou walked to the floor, and Malone, sitting down again,
watched enviously as he took her in his arms and began to guide her
expertly across the floor in time to the music.
Malone sighed. Some men, he told himself, had all the luck. But, of
course, Lou had to be polite, too. She didn’t really like Petkoff, he
told himself; she was just being diplomatic. And he had made some
progress with her on the plane, he thought.
He looked over at Her Majesty, but the Queen was staring abstractedly
at a crystal chandelier. Malone sighed again, took a little caviar and
washed it down with vodka. The vodka felt nice and warm, he thought
vaguely. Vodka was good. It was too bad that the people who made such
good vodka had to be enemies. But that was the way things were, he
told himself philosophically.
Terrible. That’s how things were.
The fox-trot went to its conclusion. Malone saw Petkoff, chatting
animatedly with Lou, lead her off to a small bar at the opposite side
of the room. “Some people,” he muttered, “have too much luck. Or too
much diplomacy.”
Her Majesty was tugging at his arm. That, Malone thought, was going to
be more bad news.
It was.
“Sir Kenneth,” she said softly, “do you realize that this place is
full of MVD men? Of course you don’t; I haven’t told you yet.”
Malone opened his mouth, shut it again, and thought in a hurry. If the
place were full of MVD men, that meant they probably had it bugged.
And that meant several things, all of them unpleasant. Her Majesty
shouldn’t have said anything—she shouldn’t have shown any nervousness
or anxiety in the first place, she shouldn’t have known there were so
many MVD men in the second place—because there was no way for her to
know, except through her telepathy, a little secret Malone did not
want the Russians to find out about. And she should definitely, most
definitely, not have called him “Sir Kenneth.”
“Oh,” Her Majesty said. “I am sorry, Sir—er—Mr. Malone. You’re quite
right, you know.”
“Sure,” Malone said. “Well. My goodness.” He thought of something to
say, and said it at once. “Of course there are MVD men here. This is