Transreal Cyberpunk Read Online Free PDF

miraculous that the 1927 expedition had overlooked. Kulik’s expedition had missed it, but now we were in the atomic age. Or so we told ourselves. It seemed much more plausible on a train with two dozen other explorers, all eager for the great adventure.
    It was an unsought vacation for us hardworking stukachi . Work had been savage throughout our departments, and we KGB had had a tough time keeping track of our comrades’ correctness. Meanwhile, back in Kaliningrad, they were still laboring away, while we relaxed in the dining saloon with pegged chessboards and tall brass samovars of steaming tea.
    Vlad and I shared our own sleeping car. I forgave him for having involved me in this mess. We became friends again. This would be real man’s work, we told each other. Tramping through the savage taiga with bears, wolves, and Siberian tigers! Hunting strange, possibly dangerous relics—relics that might change the very course of cosmic history! No more of this poring over blueprints and formulae like clerks! Neither of us had fought in the Great Patriotic War—I’d been too young, and Vlad had been in some camp or something. Other guys were always bragging about how they’d stormed this or shelled that or eaten shoe leather in Stalingrad—well, we’d soon be making them feel pretty small!
    Day after day, the countryside rolled past. First the endless, grassy steppes, then a dark wall of pine forest, broken by white-barked birches. Khrushchev’s Virgin Lands campaign was in full swing, and the radio was full of patriotic stuff about settling the wilderness. Every few hundred kilometers, especially by rivers, raw and ugly new towns had sprung up along the Trans-Sib line. Prefab apartment blocks, mud streets, cement trucks, and giant sooty power plants. Trains unloaded huge spools of black wire. “Electrification” was another big propaganda theme of 1958.
    Our Trans-Sib train stopped often to take on passengers, but our long section was sealed under orders from Higher Circles. We had no chance to stretch our legs and slowly all our carriages filled up with the reek of dirty clothes and endless cigarettes.
    I was doing my best to keep Vlad’s spirits up when Nina Bogulyubova entered our carriage, ducking under a line of wet laundry. “Ah, Nina Igorovna,” I said, trying to keep things friendly. “Vlad and I were just discussing something. Exactly what does it take to merit burial in the Kremlin?”
    “Oh, put a cork in it,” Bogulyubova said testily. “My money says your so-called spacecraft was just a chunk of ice and gas. Probably a piece of a comet which vaporized on impact. Maybe it’s worth a look, but that doesn’t mean I have to swallow crackpot pseudo-science!”
    She sat on the bunk facing Vlad’s, where he sprawled out, stunned with boredom and strong cigarettes. Nina opened her briefcase. “Vladimir, I’ve developed those pictures I took of you.”
    “Yeah?”
    She produced a Kirlian photograph of his hand. “Look at these spiky flares of suppressed energy from your fingertips. Your aura has changed since we’ve boarded the train.”
    Vlad frowned. “I could do with a few deciliters of vodka, that’s all.”
    She shook her head quickly, then smiled and blinked at him flirtatiously. “Vladimir Eduardovich, you’re a man of genius. You have strong, passionate drives ...”
    Vlad studied her for a moment, obviously weighing her dubious attractions against his extreme boredom. An affair with a woman who was his superior, and also KGB, would be grossly improper and risky. Vlad, naturally, caught my eye and winked. “Look, Nikita, take a hike for a while, okay?”
    He was putty in her hands. I was disgusted by the way she exploited Vlad’s weaknesses. I left him in her carnal clutches, though I felt really sorry for Vlad. Maybe I could scare him up something to drink.
    §
    The closest train-stop to Tunguska is near a place call Ust-Ilimsk, two hundred kilometers north of Bratsk, and three thousand