In the deep autumn of 1991, Northern Siberia, at an unnamed port.
The port was situated in the northernmost part of Siberia, facing the vast Arctic Ocean. It couldn't be found on nautical charts, and even American spy satellites couldn't detect it. Like the surrounding permafrost, it was a grayish-white place, giving off very little heat signal.
There shouldn't have been a port here at all, surrounded by desolate wilderness. The nearest city was Verkhoyansk, which in the Tsarist era was a place of exile for political prisoners—a city designed to crush hope. In the long, harsh winters, political prisoners often succumbed to despair and took their own lives. And Verkhoyansk was still 340 kilometers south of the unnamed port. It took five days by dogsled to reach the port from Verkhoyansk. This was a place even forgotten by the gods, where the only vegetation was lichen and moss, and the occasional visitors were hungry polar bears.
A rusted cast-iron pier extended onto the frozen sea, and a young sentinel stood at the pier's end, shouldering a "PPSh-41 submachine gun" with a five-pointed star embedded on his bearskin hat. From his epaulets, it was clear he was a sergeant of the Soviet Red Army.
The sun at the horizon was sluggish, resembling a soft-boiled egg, failing to warm the ground. But this was the last sunlight of the year; the polar night would soon begin, and for the next few months, the sun wouldn't rise again. The sentinel gazed into the distance, towards the icy sea, where the cold wind swept across the surface.
The ship hadn't arrived yet. Typically, this sea was impassable—dangerous ice floes and jagged reefs beneath the surface made sure that any ship attempting to approach would meet its end. But there were exceptions: in the summer, when the ice melted and cracked, sailors familiar with the route could pilot icebreakers around the reefs to reach the unnamed port. This perilous, intermittent route was the port's lifeline, as all supplies depended on it.
Each year, the Lenin would arrive, sometimes early, sometimes late, but it had never missed. It was an aging nuclear-powered icebreaker, with a red star emblazoned on its white bow. No matter the day of its arrival, it would become a festival for the unnamed port. The soldiers would wave their bearskin hats and rush to the pier, gathering to watch the enormous silhouette of the ship rise over the horizon! The Lenin would majestically plow through the ice floes, leaving a brilliant blue channel in its wake. That was the power of the Soviet Union—the iron fist, unstoppable. But this year, it was late—too late. The sea had already frozen over, and the ice was thickening, growing downward. In a few weeks, the route would be completely closed, and not even the Lenin could open a path.
Could something have gone wrong in Moscow? The sentinel bit down on a "Moskvich" cigarette, lost in thought. His lighter wouldn't ignite—most likely the kerosene inside had frozen.
"Damn it!" The sentinel took off his gloves, cupping the lighter in his hands to warm it.
Suddenly, he turned his head, alert, staring out at the end of the icy sea. The wind was picking up, and a mass of dark clouds was rolling in from the north. In this high-latitude region, rainfall was rarer than in the Sahara Desert, but when black cumulonimbus clouds appeared, the weather could change in an instant, burying the port under heavy snow. Snow dust was being swept up from the sea, like a white sandstorm, rising dozens of meters into the air.
The area covered by the clouds was pitch black, while the other half was a bleak, icy white. The boundary between black and white was razor sharp. The sentinel stumbled toward the iron frame, striking a brass bell, its sound scattering across the desolate snowfield.
It was a warning of the incoming blizzard.
After sounding the warning, the sentinel pulled his bearskin hat down and ran back, but an unbelievable sight appeared in his field of vision. A vague shadow was gliding under the clouds, nimbly weaving around the icebergs, approaching at high speed.
A skier?
The sentinel couldn't believe his eyes. Who would come to a place like this to ski? If the person had come from the south, it could have been a border guard stationed in Verkhoyansk, but this figure was coming from the north, where there was nothing—only the Arctic. The sentinel bit his cigarette, his teeth chattering. He couldn't make sense of the situation. Was it an American special forces team infiltrating under cover of the blizzard? But how could they dare take such a huge risk? If the figure slowed even slightly, they'd be swallowed by the storm.
There was no time to think. The sentinel tugged at his strap, and the PPSh's barrel swung out from under his arm—he had the right to shoot any intruders, as this was a military zone. But at that moment, the skier waved two small red-and-white flags. They were the universal signal flags of the Soviet Navy, spelling out a name—"Lenin." Every year when the Lenin arrived, the sailors would wave these flags, signifying they were envoys from Moscow, bringing greetings from the Soviets to the garrison at the unnamed port. Had Moscow changed its strategy this year? Sent someone skiing to deliver supplies? The sentinel couldn't wrap his head around it, but regardless, he couldn't shoot now—the signal was the passcode, granting the skier the right to enter the unnamed port.
With a flurry of snow swirling around him, the skier came to a sudden stop in front of the sentinel, removed his goggles, and tossed them into the snow. He was a striking man, handsome and tall, with neatly slicked iron-gray hair set with hair gel, and his muscular body was clad only in military shorts and a sleeveless vest. In the minus 10-degree wind, steam rose from his body. The man pulled a lighter from his shorts and lit a cigarette with a flourish. The silver casing of the lighter was etched with the hammer and sickle and the words "70th Anniversary of the October Revolution."
The sentinel couldn't refuse the man's generosity and leaned in to light his own cigarette.
"Keep it," the man tossed the lighter to the sentinel. "In a place this cold, you need low-freezing-point aviation fuel. Save yours for the summer."
The sentinel suddenly realized he was still holding his useless lighter. The man's insight was razor sharp. What's more, anyone else in his situation would have been desperately seeking shelter to rest. This also showed that even after skiing in such extreme weather, the man still had strength to spare. The man then retrieved a deep gray officer's uniform from his military backpack. Moments later, fully dressed, he solemnly pinned a "Red Banner Order" on his chest. A minute ago, he was just a skier, but now, with his steely gaze, he was every bit the young authority figure from Moscow.
"KGB Major Bondarev, I'm from Moscow," the man presented his credentials. "Take me to Dr. Herzog, and tell him this is a moment of life and death."
"Yes, Major!" The sentinel saluted.
With the simplest words, the man had clarified his identity: he was an envoy from Moscow, an agent of the secret intelligence service. In the Tsarist era, such men were known as "Imperial Commissioners."
The underground room was as warm as spring. An old-fashioned gramophone played Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake." An elderly man unscrewed a bottle of vodka, pouring half a glass for both of them, each glass filled with pristine ice cubes. He handed one to Major Bondarev: "Red Label Vodka, the kind of liquor that can set a man's blood on fire. Wasting a drop would be a sin. Every year, the icebreaker brings me a crate—this is the last bottle from last year."
"To our country, and to you, Major," the elderly man raised his glass. "Every piece of ice in your glass is over ten thousand years old, from the depths of our great motherland's permafrost, symbolizing the purity and strength of our friendship!"
"To our country, Dr. Herzog," Bondarev clinked glasses with him, and the two downed their drinks in one go.
Bondarev toyed with his glass, studying the elderly man with interest. He couldn't pinpoint the exact age of this "Dr. Herzog," who had the qualities of both an eighty-year-old man and a twenty-year-old youth. His woolen military uniform fit his upright figure perfectly, the crease in his trousers sharp, and a purple silk scarf was tucked neatly at his collar. His silver hair was slicked back, giving him the dashing appearance of someone in his twenties. But he was indeed old, the deep lines in his eyes betraying the passage of time. Gazing at his still-handsome face, it felt like watching a fresco slowly peel away.
The doctor refilled the glasses. "Every year, the Lenin comes here, bringing us a year's worth of supplies—food, equipment, fuel… and, of course, stockings for the ladies and vodka for the men. It's as cold as the edge of the world here. Without outside supplies, people would die. But this year, it's not the Lenin that has come, but a KGB major. Do you have the entire year's worth of supplies for Black Swan Bay in your uniform pocket?"
"Unfortunately, there are no supplies, and there won't be anymore," Bondarev looked directly into the doctor's eyes. "Our great motherland is facing disaster. The situation in Moscow is chaotic."
The doctor was taken aback. "Chaotic?"
"To be precise, the Soviet Union will cease to exist. There was once a great revolutionary friendship between our member republics, but now that friendship has crumbled to dust. People are questioning whether we can still reach communism on the current path. In each republic, there are calls for independence. Meanwhile, the country's economic situation continues to deteriorate, the military is under-supplied, and the factories are underproducing. The morale of the people is unstable, and the country no longer has the resources to supply this port on the edge of the Arctic Ocean."
"Will the country collapse?"
"It probably won't last through the year."
The doctor sighed softly, "Though I had a sense that the political situation would change, I didn't expect it to happen so quickly. To be honest, we have no contact with the outside world—no telephone lines, no radio. Our only way of understanding the outside is by reading newspapers. Every year, the Lenin brings us a whole year's worth of newspapers, so my information is at least a year behind. A year ago, I still believed that communism was indestructible and that all difficulties would pass. And now, a year later, I suddenly hear that the country will cease to exist. Even Shakespeare couldn't have written a tragedy like this… What will the country do with us?"
"The country's assets will be divided among the republics, including fighter jets, aircraft carriers, and even nuclear weapons. This port is no exception. I was sent here to inventory and appraise the assets. It may be allocated to one of the republics. But first, I need to figure out what this port is used for. It's quite mysterious—each year, it costs the state an enormous sum of money, yet no department knows its purpose."
The doctor was silent for a moment and then smiled, "The KGB found a port on the map but doesn't know what it's used for. Your superiors must be quite frustrated."
"Yes, even the highest secret organization, the KGB, doesn't have the authority to know the truth about this port."
"You must have tried investigating this port, right? Did you find anything?" The doctor narrowed his eyes slightly.
"There was very little information to be found. What we could confirm is that this port is not actually called Black Swan Bay—that's just what you all call it. It has no official name, only the code 'δ.' Every institution in the country has records, and the KGB has backups of all of them. But yours were missing. That means someone removed your files from the archives, leaving only the code 'δ.' That's not something an ordinary person could do. You must have powerful connections."
"Science is inherently more mysterious than politics," the doctor said indifferently.
"Some influential figures have embezzled billions of rubles of state funds under various pretexts to support you scientists. You must have extraordinary value. Otherwise, why wouldn't those influential figures use that money to keep mistresses?" Bondarev smiled. "Since you have value, that simplifies things. Valuable people are respected in any era."
The doctor studied Bondarev through the glass of his liquor for a long time, then suddenly burst into laughter.
"Are you mocking me?" Bondarev wasn't offended.
"People who work in secret tend to exaggerate things," the doctor said, finishing his drink. "Comrade Bondarev, you've guessed completely wrong. Black Swan Bay is not engaged in any shady research projects. Our work is to establish the largest gene bank in the Soviet Union." The doctor nodded, "We collect the genes of various ethnic groups within the Soviet Union to build a massive database. Once this database is complete, even if a nuclear war breaks out and humanity faces extinction, we can revive humanity through cloning technology. The δ Project chose this base location not because we have some unspeakable secret, but because Siberia is a natural ice cellar. Even without electricity, we can preserve the genetic samples here for hundreds of thousands of years."
"That's all there is to it?" Bondarev frowned.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but that's really all there is to it. I've worked on this project for decades and have developed a deep attachment to it. But if the state wants to terminate the project, I'll immediately arrange for my assistants to help you inventory the assets. I'll finally be able to lay down my burdens and leave this place." The doctor sighed, "I'd like to find a place by the southern seaside to spend my twilight years."
The door opened, and the kindly head nurse walked in. "Doctor, the blizzard has passed. We'll have a few hours of clear weather, so I've asked the nurses to take the children outside for some fresh air. After this, there'll be several more days of storms."
"Children?" Bondarev asked in surprise.
"We have an orphanage here, where we've taken in some children with genetic defects. They're all our research subjects, but they've been abandoned by their parents and have nowhere else to go. Comrade Major, why don't you meet the children? We don't get many visitors here, and the children would love to hear about the outside world from you." The doctor stood up and opened the office door.
The lawn was full of children playing and chasing each other, ranging from three or four years old to about eleven or twelve. They wore neatly tailored white cotton one-piece outfits, with mittens embroidered with their respective identification numbers. Their eyes sparkled, their faces were rosy, and they ran with astonishing speed. Clearly, they were well taken care of—nothing like the ragged children one would expect in a typical orphanage. Medical staff chased after them, calling their names, taking their temperatures, and measuring their blood pressure. After each checkup, the children were rewarded with cotton candy.
"I didn't expect to see grass in a place this cold," Bondarev said. "I thought there'd be nothing but moss and lichen here."
The doctor smiled proudly, "That's thanks to the design of the buildings. When I designed Black Swan Bay, I placed the buildings close together and connected them with underground passageways. The outer walls of each building are a meter thick with cement, and there are triple-pane windows with small openings to retain heat. This lawn is enclosed by the building complex, so the cold wind doesn't penetrate as easily. We planted a cold-resistant variety of grass, so for most of the year, you can see greenery."
"You're the designer of Black Swan Bay? So, you've always been in charge here?"
"Yes, I'm fortunate to have had that responsibility." The doctor waved and greeted each child by name.
"You seem like their father," Bondarev said.
"When I mentioned the orphanage, you probably imagined a stern head nurse leading a group of sickly, pale children. Perhaps you thought we drew blood from them every day for experiments?" The doctor laughed heartily. "That wouldn't be an orphanage—that would be a Nazi concentration camp."
"Speaking of the Nazis, forgive me for being direct, but your name is Herzog, which is a German surname," Bondarev said.
"Yes, I once served Hitler's Third Reich. Back then, I was the youngest doctor at the Imperial Institute of Biology. I graduated from the University of Munich at sixteen, and people called me a genius." The doctor spoke with a touch of nostalgia. "In 1945, I was captured by the Soviet Red Army and sent to Moscow. After a year of interrogation, I was sent here by dogsled to take charge of the δ Project, and I've never left since." The doctor paused, "I have a question: what will happen to the children when the project ends?"
"I suppose they'll be sent to orphanages across the country," Bondarev said. "You're quite compassionate."
"When there are so few people here, we cherish each other," the doctor said with a sigh. "I'm already an old man. Aside from my research, nothing is more important to me than talking to the children every day. At the edge of this cold, desolate world, we pass warmth to one another. I hope they will be happy in the future, even though I may not be able to see it."
He walked forward, lifting a little girl who had fallen in the snow and brushing off the snow from her clothes. Bondarev had noticed the girl earlier. Some people are naturally drawn to the outliers in a crowd, especially if they are outliers themselves. The little girl stood out, not playing with the others or chasing after the nurses for cotton candy. She clutched a cloth bear, walking alone along the walls, searching through the corners like a lost puppy. She wasn't particularly pretty, with a few small freckles, a body as frail as a paper doll, and a pale face devoid of color. But she had a striking head of platinum blonde hair, her skin was as white as snow, and her eyes were deep and quiet.
"My little Renata, you look so beautiful today. Tell me, what are you looking for?" the doctor gently stroked the girl's cheek.
"I wanted to see if there are still any flowers blooming," Renata whispered softly, sounding very obedient.
Her platinum blonde hair was braided into a single plait, with a yellow plastic butterfly tied to the end. In this frozen world, where everything was either white or black, or the gray of military uniforms and the red of five-pointed stars, the bright color of the plastic butterfly was heartwarming.
The doctor gently patted her head, sighed, and turned to Bondarev, saying, "It's too cold here. Only Arctic poppies can bloom. Their blooming season is like a holiday for the girls. But it only lasts for two months, and now the season is long over. Major, I hope you can send these girls to a warmer place, where they can see colorful flowers."
"I'll do my best," Bondarev replied.
Renata watched the backs of Dr. Herzog and Bondarev in silence. Only after they were far away did she turn back to continue searching in the corner. She stepped over every inch of the grass, carefully checking each suspicious mark along the base of the wall.
She wasn't actually looking for Arctic poppies. She had just lied without batting an eye. Contrary to her appearance, Renata was a habitual liar. Here, everyone had to learn to lie because the consequences of telling the truth were dire. Renata was more talented at lying than anyone else. When she lied, her face remained expressionless, and there wasn't the slightest flicker in her eyes. The nurses called her a "paper doll," believing that Renata, like a paper doll, had no expressions, no heart, and didn't even cry when beaten. The nurses had stopped bothering to punish her physically because, to them, if a child didn't cry during punishment, it meant the punishment had no effect. No one was interested in whipping a paper doll—inflicting pain on it was pointless.
Renata actually did feel pain, but she knew to hold back her tears when being hit because the more she cried, the more they'd hit her. She was looking for traces left by the black serpent. She couldn't remember when it started, but on every full moon night, she dreamt of a black giant serpent. It rampaged through Black Swan Bay like a wild dragon, shaking the port to its foundations, and finally coiled atop the church, gazing out over the Arctic Ocean.
It was a wonderful dream. In the dream, her locked door would open, and Renata could go wherever she wanted. The dream felt incredibly real. She would walk through the empty corridors, moonlight streaming through small windows, every turn, every detail was as vivid as real life. She could even enter the forbidden zones where the children were never allowed. She would go to the library, sit down, take a large book from the shelf, and read in peace for as long as she liked, without anyone disturbing her. She could go to the kitchen, where bread was always baking on the stove. No matter when she went, the bread was always perfectly baked. Gradually, Renata began to look forward to full moon nights, eagerly awaiting a whole night of freedom.
Then one day, she started to wonder if it wasn't a dream but reality. That day, the nurses took the children to visit the library, a place they were never allowed to enter. Renata was shocked to find that the library's layout was exactly as she had seen in her dream. The book she had read on a full moon night was still in the same spot on the shelf. Renata remembered clearly placing it back next to the thick almanac after she had finished reading.
Renata tried staying awake on a full moon night, and sure enough, at midnight, she heard the sound of castanets in the darkness. She climbed up to the small window and saw that the window was filled with black scales. Just when she thought she had discovered the greatest secret of this port, the next morning, she woke up in her small bed, and everything seemed like just a dream. The strange dream and reality had blended together. Renata clearly remembered pinching her finger in the middle of the night to make sure she wasn't asleep, and then suddenly hearing the sound of iron castanets. It seemed that once the sound of the castanets began, reality turned into a dream.
None of the other children knew about the black serpent. Even though they were present in the dream, they only stood silently behind their doors, their eyes vacant, like lifelike puppets. Their doors never opened. The black serpent only opened Renata's door because she would loudly call out to it.
Renata suspected that the black serpent was real and not just part of a dream, but she carefully kept this secret to herself. She didn't tell anyone. If she mentioned the black serpent to the other children, they would secretly tell the nurses, and the nurses would think she was hysterical and lock her up in solitary confinement. Renata hated being confined. The solitary room had only a single lonely chair and smooth walls. She would sit on the chair and imagine herself slowly dying, like a little mushroom drying up.
The small window in the confinement room was only 20 centimeters wide—too small for even a child to crawl through. It wasn't designed for heat preservation but for imprisoning the person inside.
This port was a cage, a lonely fortress at the end of the world. No one who came here could leave. The only exception was the black serpent, which was unparalleled and unstoppable. One day, it would grow angry and whip its long tail, smashing everything to pieces—Black Swan Bay, the snowy ice fields, Siberia… even the entire world.
"When the thousand years are up, Satan will be let loose from his cell, and will launch again his old work of deceiving the nations, searching out victims in every nook and cranny of earth, even Gog and Magog! He'll talk them into going to war and will gather a huge army, millions strong. They are as numerous as the grains of sand in the sea."
Renata still remembered the chanting that echoed around Black Swan Bay on full moon nights. She had never seen the frenzied chanter, but she felt that he regarded the frozen sea as a stage, upon which he was performing his unparalleled masterpiece.
The nurses took out black wooden clappers and began to strike them. The children, who had been running and playing, stopped in their tracks, standing in the snow like puppets. The ball they had been chasing kept rolling forward, but their eyes gradually turned white, losing all expression.
The black iron door in the corner swung open. The nurse with the clapper led the way, and the children followed behind her. Their movements were stiff, hands resting on the shoulders of the child in front, forming a long line. Another nurse stood by the door, tallying the numbers on their sleeves, checking them off on a list to ensure that none of these precious "samples" were missing.
As Renata passed the door, the nurse yanked the yellow butterfly from her braid and said coldly, her eyes peering over her glasses, "If you wet the bed again, you'll have to wear this!"
The yellow butterfly wasn't a symbol of spring's warmth. It signified that a child had made a mistake and would be locked in solitary confinement. Renata had been confined again last night because she wet the bed.