wouldn't give you any trouble.'
'One place,' Yura said, 'looked like some of the Chinese tried to fight back. Didn't do them any good.'
'Your people,' Logan said, 'they knew about this?'
'Someone knew something. Stories going around, that's how I heard. Not many villages left around here,' Yura said. 'Most of the people moved out back when they started the logging. Or the loggers drove them out.'
'Any idea how long it's been going on?'
'From what I heard, from the way the bodies looked at a couple of places,' Yura said, 'maybe a year.'
Logan and Misha looked at each other.
'I think,' Logan said, 'there's someone we should go see.' **** 'Chinks?' Yevgeny Lavrushin said incredulously. 'This is about fucking Chinks?'
He rubbed the back of his hand against the raw spot on his face, where Yura had peeled the duct tape off his mouth. He did it clumsily; his wrists were still taped together.
Beside him in the back seat of the car, Logan said, 'Not entirely. We were already planning to have a talk with you.'
'Hey,' Yevgeny said, 'I don't blame you guys for being pissed off, I'd be pissed off too. I swear I didn't know it was going to get fucked up like that.'
His voice was higher than usual and his words came out very fast. There was a rank smell of fear-sweat coming off him, so strong Logan was tempted to open a window despite the chill of the early-morning air.
'There's a lot of people pissed off about what happened,' he said. 'Some pretty heavy people. If they thought I had anything to do with what went down that night, I wouldn't be alive right now talking to you guys. Trust me.'
'Trust you?' Misha said over his shoulder. 'The way those Chinese did?'
'Oh, shit. What's the big deal? Look,' Yevgeny said, 'you gotta understand how it works. Used to be you could bring in as many Chinks as you could haul and nobody cared, it's a big country and the big shots were glad of the cheap labor and the cops were cool as long as they got their cut.'
Misha swerved the old Toyota to miss a pothole. Yevgeny lost his balance and toppled against Yura, who cursed and shoved him away. 'God damn,' Yevgeny cried. 'Come on, you guys, can't you at least take this tape off?
'No,' Logan said. 'You were saying?'
'Huh? Oh, right. See, everything's tightened up now. You can still bring in a few now and then, like those suits you guys picked up. But if I started running Chinks in any kind of numbers,' Yevgeny said, 'enough to make a profit, man, the shit would come down on me like you wouldn't believe. A bunch of them get caught, they talk, it's my ass.'
'So you take their money,' Logan said, 'and you load them into the truck and take them out into the woods and shoot them.'
'For Chrissake,' Yevgeny said. His voice had taken on an aggrieved, impatient note; his facial expression was that of a man trying to explain something so obvious that it shouldn't need explaining. 'They're Chinks! '
'They're human beings,' Misha said.
'The fuck they are. A Chink ain't a man. Anyway,' Yevgeny said, looking at Logan, 'like you never killed anybody? I heard what you did up in Yakutsk--'
His voice died away. 'Sorry,' he said almost in a whisper.
Logan looked out the windows. 'Almost to the airport,' he said. 'Now you're not going to give us any trouble, are you, Yevgeny? You're going to go along with us without any noise or fuss, right? Yura, show him.'
Yura reached out with one hand and turned Yevgeny's head to face him. With the other hand he held up his big belt knife, grinning.
'Okay, okay. Sure.' Yevgeny's face was paler than ever. 'No problem… hey, where are we going?'
'You'll see,' Logan told him. 'It's a surprise.' **** Going up the logging road, watching Yevgeny lurching along ahead of him, Logan considered that maybe they should have let him put on a jacket or something. He'd come to the door of his apartment, in answer to their knock, wearing only a grubby sweat suit that he'd evidently been sleeping in; and they'd let him put on his shoes, but by the time anyone thought about a coat they'd already taped his wrists and it was too difficult to get one onto him.
Now he was shivering in the cold breeze that blew across the ridge; and Logan didn't really care about that, but he was getting tired of listening to Yevgeny complaining about it. Well, it wouldn't be much longer.
Up ahead, Misha turned off the overgrown road and up the trail toward the crest of the ridge. 'That way,' Logan said to Yevgeny.
'Shit,' Yevgeny whined. 'What's all this about? I'm telling you guys, if you found some stiffs or something out here, it's got nothing to do with me. I never operated anywhere near here. I never even been anywhere near here.'
'Shut up,' Logan said, prodding him with the muzzle of the Kalashnikov. 'Just follow Misha and shut up.'
It was a long slow climb up the ridge and then down the other side. Yevgeny was incredibly clumsy on the trail; he stumbled frequently and fell down several times. At least he had stopped talking, except for occasional curses.
When they finally reached the little clearing he leaned against a tree and groaned. 'Jesus,' he said. 'You guys do this all the time? What are you, crazy?'
Logan looked at him and past him, studying the tree. It wasn't the one he'd had in mind, but it would do just fine. He turned and nodded to the others.
'So,' Yevgeny said, 'are you gonna tell me now--hey, what the fuuuu--'
His voice rose in a yelp as Logan and Yura moved up alongside him and grabbed him from either side, slamming him back hard against the trunk of the tree. Misha moved in quickly with the roll of duct tape.
'Hey. Hey, what, why--' Yevgeny was fairly gobbling with terror now. 'Come on, now--'
' Harasho,' Misha said, stepping back. 'Look at that. Neat, huh?'
Logan walked around the tree, examining the bonds. 'Outstanding,' he said. 'Very professional job.'
Misha held up the rest of the roll of tape. 'Want me to tape his mouth again?'
Yevgeny was now making a dolorous wordless sound, a kind of drawn-out moan. Logan started to tell Misha to go ahead and gag him, but then he changed his mind and shook his head.
Yura had already disappeared up the narrow game trail on the far side of the clearing. Now he came back, carrying a small cloth bag from which he sprinkled a thick greenish-brown powder along the ground. When he reached the tree where Yevgeny hung in his tape bonds he pulled the mouth of the bag wide open and threw the rest of the contents over Yevgeny's face and body.
'Now you smell good,' he told Yevgeny.
Yevgeny had begun to blubber, 'Oh God, oh Jesus,' first in English and then in Russian, again and again. Logan didn't think he was praying, but who knew?
'All right,' Logan said, 'let's go.'
They made better time going back over the ridge, without Yevgeny to slow them down. They were halfway down the other side when they heard it: a deep, coughing, basso roar, coming from somewhere behind them.
They stopped and looked at each other. Yura said, ' Amba sounds hungry.'
They moved on down the trail, hurrying a little now. Just as they reached the logging road they heard the roar again, and then a high piercing scream that went on and on.
Copyright (c) 2005 William Sanders
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Mary Rosenblum
From Gardner Dozois - The Year's Best Science Fiction 23rd Annual Collection (2006) One of the most popular and prolific of the new writers of the nineties, Mary Rosenblum made her first sale, to Asimov's Science Fiction, in 1990, and has since become one of its most frequent contributors, with almost thirty sales there to her credit. She has also sold toThe Magazine of Fantasy d 1 Science Fiction, Science Fiction Age, Pulphouse, New Legends, and elsewhere.
Rosenblum produced some of the most colorful, exciting, and emotionally powerful stories of the nineties, earning her a large and devoted following of readers. Her linked series of 'Drylands' stories have proved to be one
