“It is most curious, is it not,” says Defense, “that each of these attacks has taken place in daylight and somehow left behind a significant number of survivors. This beast that can outswim a destroyer and tear open a steel hull always attacks at a pace just sufficiently relaxed to allow men to abandon ship.”
“If these incidents are a fabrication, eyewitness accounts would be essential to that fabrication!” says Medium Machine Building.
“Have you any idea what a pain in the balls prepared witnesses are?” State Security jabs the smoky air. “Every one of them needs ideological clearance, briefing, rehearsal, follow-up scrutiny. Don’t get me started. Using hundreds of them would be madness. Our comrade Minister of Defense is correct to point out that this beast seems to
“But it could—”
“Comrade Minister of Medium Machine Building, if these were the bad old days, now would be the point at which I note that Siberia is lovely at this time of your life. Fortunately we have all recently stumbled into a more forgiving world. Also, I brought something with me that settles the issue.”
There is a series of rustling, swishing noises as aides flick documents onto the table before each minister. The men must have sonar, to operate so precisely in this haze.
“Two hours ago,” says State Security, “the American resident in Moscow made contact with the offices of both the First Secretary and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. You have his letter there. The President of the United States urgently demands formal clarification that this ‘anomalous entity’ didn’t hatch out of an egg from any basket of ours. ‘Anomalous entity,’ his words, on the diplomatic record. This would invite a historic humiliation for the Americans if they did not have absolute confidence this thing is real.”
“I still worry that Eisenhower has moved from bourbon to antifreeze.” The Minister of Communications speaks for the first time. “If we had a sea monster under our control, why would we use it to sink fishing boats in Micronesia?”
“Because proving its soundness of function would damage their narrative of global preeminence. And create the implication it might be sent somewhere more interesting,” says Defense. “Pearl Harbor, for instance. Or Chesapeake Bay.”
“Very well, comrades,” sniffs Communications. “Assuming it was an act of deliberate genius on our part to recruit the Loch Ness Monster and send it to eat palm trees, that’s still immaterial, because we don’t actually have a sea monster, do we?”
Defense and State Security are both silent.
“Are you fucking
“My people didn’t make a sea monster,” blurts the goggle-eyed old stick from the State Committee for the Introduction of New Technologies. “We don’t even have an applicable basis in theory! So who did? Comrade Lysenko?”
Not bloody likely, thinks the Minister of the Maritime Fleet. If the aquatic beast is alive, that’s sufficient disproof of Lysenko’s involvement. This is not the sort of opinion one shares; he takes a long drag on his cigarette, as though forcing the thought back into the depths of his skull, away from the daylight into which it must never stray.
“Comrades,” says Defense. He uses a familiar, grandfatherly tone of voice that implies a train is leaving the station and everyone present is expected aboard. “Let us not get hung up on the question of whether or not we possess a…sea monster. Of course we don’t. The real issue is, now that sea monsters are a recognized factor, the current strategic calculus does not allow the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to fully disavow the possibility that it possesses or could some day possess a…sea monster.”
“So we merely
“Jesus,” says State Security. “You must come to my office to play cards sometime. Bring a lot of money. Be sensible, comrade.”
“We would be very excited to get our hands on a current-generation American atomic device,” says Defense. “We are less interested in receiving several hundred at once. So no, we will not be claiming any direct responsibility for sinking their fucking warships.”
“Also, if we claimed we had a monster, our fraternal socialist comrades in North Korea would claim they had a bigger one,” says Foreign Affairs. “Yap yap yap, those bastards.”
“So…we disavow responsibility for this specific entity,” says the Minister of the Maritime Fleet, slowly, believing he gets the idea. “Yet simultaneously imply that its existence is no surprise to us…and we may already be experimenting with the deployment of a similar…asset?”
“Precisely,” says State Security. “To be ominous yet unverifiable. That is living the dream, comrades.”
“And what will the Micronesians or the Japanese think about all this?” says Communications.