Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Roadside Picnic


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   © Arkady and Boris Strugatsky 
   © Translated from Russian by Antonina W. Bouis 
   © MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc, New York 
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INTRODUCTION

   Good science fiction is good fiction 
   This assertion is one which must be made again, and over again, until the general reader and the "serious" critic cease to associate science fiction solely with girls in brass brassieres being rescued from the advances of bug-eyed monsters by zap-gun-toting heroes in space armor. There is as much of a spectrum of excellence in science fiction as there is in any other field. Mickey Spillane is not Dorothy Sayers or Ngaio Marsh. Hopalong Cassidy is not Shane or True Grit. And the best of science fiction is quite as good as the best of any literature. 
   It happens also to be the most explosively popular genre on the current scene. American and English science fiction is widely read in France, Italy, and Scandinavia, increasingly in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America, and is attaining new peaks in Germany and the Netherlands. New writers are appearing in Europe, especially in France and Italy, and the translations are beginning to Bow the other way into the English-speaking world. And the rise in printed science fiction is reflected in the increasing number of cinema and television productions in the field 
   There are several reasons--and a great many more hypotheses-- for this upsurge, but they are not within the purview of these remarks and can be left to the dozens of postgraduate theses being written on the subject and to the teachers of high-school and college courses in science fiction (of which there are, at this writing, over 1,500 in the U.S.A. alone). Suffice it to say that there has never been a field of literature so limitless, so flexible, so able to evoke astonishment and wonder, so free of the boundaries of time and space and that arbitrary fantasy we call reality, as science fiction. Not since the invention of poetry. 
   What is not generally known to the readers of science fiction in English is that the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world is not Heinlein or Bradbury or Clarke, but Stanislaw Lem, a Pole; that the largest science-fiction section of a writers' union is in Hungary; that excellent science fiction is being produced in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and especially in the Soviet Union. Some Of this--far too little--is beginning to trickle into the English-speak- ing world, and, sad to say, a certain portion suffers from execrable translation. Some works have had the hazards of translation more than doubled by passing from the original to a second language before being rendered from that into English, a process in which the style and character of even a laundry list could hardly be expected to survive. Keeping that in mind, however, the discerning reader will find, even in the most brutalized of translations, a strength and inventiveness marvelous to behold. 
   In the highest echelon of Soviet science-fiction writers stand the names of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. I first encountered these talented brothers in a novel called Hard to Be a Cod Remarkable, purely as a novel, for structure, characterization, pacing, and its perceptive statements of the human condition, it touches also on almost every single quality most avidly sought by the science-fiction reader. It has space flight and future devices; it has that wondrous "what if ... ?" aspect in its investigation into sociology; by its richly detailed portraiture of an alien culture it affords a new perspective on the nature of ours and ourselves; it even has that exciting hand-to- hand conflict so dear to the hearts of that cousin of science fiction called swords-and-sorcery. And among its highest virtues is this: though there are battles and fights and blood and death where the narrative calls for them, the super-potent protagonist never kills any- body. Writers everywhere, keeping in mind in these violent times their responsibility for their influence, should take note. It can be done, and done well, at no expense to tension and suspense. 
   And now comes Roadside Picnic. . . . In the so-called Golden Age of American science fiction, when the late John W. Campbell, editor extraordinary, gathered around him in a handful of months the great- est stable of science fiction talent ever seen, he would throw out challenges to his writers, like: "Write me a story about a man who will die in twenty-four hours unless he can answer this question: 'How do you know you're sane?' "; and this one--surely one of the most provocative of all: "Write me a story about a creature that thinks as well as a man but not like a man." (The answer "Woman" is disallowed as too obvious a rejoinder.) 
   The Strugatskys posit that the Earth experiences a brief visit from extraterrestrials, who leave behind them--well, call it litter, such as might be left by you and me (in one of our less socially conscious moments) after a roadside picnic. The nature of these discards, pro- ducts of an utterly alien technology, defies most earthly logic, to say nothing of earthly analytical science, and their potential is limitless. Warp these potentials into all-too-human goals--the quest for pure knowledge for its own sake, the search for new devices, new techniques, to achieve new heights in human well-being; the striving for profit, with its associated competitiveness; and the ravening thirst for new and more terrible weapons--and you have the framework of this amazing short novel. Add the Strugatskys' deft and supple handling of loyalty and greed, of friendship and love, of despair and frustration and loneliness, and you have a truly superb tale, ending most poignantly in what can only be called a blessing. You won't forget it. 
   Tale of a Troika is a very different thing indeed--so different that it might have been written by quite different authors--which is the highest possible tribute to the authors' versatility. How much you like it will depend on your taste for satire and lampoon. It is, in nature, reminiscent of Lem's Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, with (and here I confess to a highly subjective evaluation) one important difference: Lem's approach and style are, in comparison, unleavened, no matter how deeply he plunges into the surrealistic and the absurd. The cumulative effect is Kafkaesque horror. The Strugatsky fury--and it is fury: disgust with hypocrisy, with bureaucratic bumbling, with self-serving, self-saving distortions of logic and of truth and of initially decent human motivations--their fury is laced with laughter, rich with scorn, effervescent with the comic spirit. One has to search back to Alice's tea party to find a scene as mad as the chamber of the Troika; yet, in retrospect, one realizes that one has experienced a profoundly serious work, since every bent line illuminates a straight one, all illogic signifies the purity from which it has departed. 
   A word of appreciation must be extended to Ms. Antonina W. Bouis, the translator of these short novels. Russian I do not know; fiction I do; and I must honor anyone who can so deftly pass emotion, character dimension, even conversational idiom, through so formidable a barrier. Theodore Sturgeon San Diego, California 1976 

   Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Translated from Russian by Antonina W. Bouis MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc, New York 


   Roadside Picnic 

   You have to make the good out of the bad because that is all you have got to make it out of. * Robert Penn Warren 


FROM AN INTERVIEW BY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT FROM HARMONT RADIO WITH
DOCTOR VALENTINE PILMAN, RECIPIENT OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS FOR 19.. 

   "I suppose that your first serious discovery, Dr. Pilman, should be considered what is now called the Pilman Radiant?" 
   "I don't think so. The Pilman Radiant wasn't the first, nor was it serious, nor was it really a discovery. And it wasn't completely mine, either." 
   "Surely you're joking, doctor. The Pilman Radiant is a concept known to every schoolchild." 
   "That doesn't surprise me. According to some sources, the Pilman Radiant was discovered by a schoolboy. Unfortunately, I don't re member his name. Look it up in Stetson's History of the Visitation --it's described in full detail there. His version is that the radiant was discovered by a schoolboy, that a college student published the coordinates, but that for some unknown reason it was named after me." 
   "Yes, many amazing things can happen with a discovery. Would you mind explaining it to our listeners, Dr. Pilman?" 
   "The Pilman Radiant is simplicity itself. Imagine that you spin a huge globe and you start firing bullets into it. The bullet holes would lie on the surface in a smooth curve. The whole point of what you call my first serious discovery lies in the simple fact that all six Visitation Zones are situated on the surface of our planet as though someone had taken six shots at Earth from a pistol located somewhere along the Earth-Deneb line. Deneb is the alpha star in Cygnus. The Point in the heavens from which, so to speak, the shots came is the Pilman Radiant." 
   "Thank you, doctor. My fellow Harmonites! Finally we have heard a clear explanation of the Pilman Radiant! By the way, the day before yesterday was the thirtieth anniversary of the Visitation. Dr Pilman, would you care to say a few words to Your fellow townsmen on the subject?" 
   "What in particular interests you? Remember, I wasn't in Harmont at the time." 
   "That makes it even more interesting to hear what you felt when your hometown became the site of an Invasion from a supercivilization from space." 
   "To tell the truth, I first thought it was a hoax. It was hard to imagine that anything like that could possibly happen In our little Harmont. Gobi or Newfoundland seemed more likely than Harmont." 
   "Nevertheless, you finally had to believe it." 
   "Finally--yes." 
   "And then?" 
   "It suddenly occurred to me that Harmont and the other five Visitation Zones--sorry, my mistake, there were only four other sites known at the time-that all of them fit on a very smooth curve. I calculated the coordinates and sent them to Nature. " 
   "And you weren't at all concerned with the fate of your hometown?" 
   "Not really. You see, by then I had come to believe in the Visitation, but I simply could not force myself to believe the hysterical reports about burning neighborhoods and monsters that selectively devoured only old men and children and about bloody battles between the invulnerable invaders and the highly vulnerable but steadfastly courageous Royal Tank Units." 
   "You were right. I remember that our reporters really botched the story. But let's return to science. The discovery of the Pilman Radiant was the first, but probably not the last, of your contributions to our knowledge of the Visitation!" 
   "The first and last." 
   "But surely you have been carefully following the international research in the Visitation Zones?" 
   "Yes. Once in a while I read the Reports. " 
   "You mean the Reports of the International Institute of Extraterrestrial Cultures?" 
   "Yes." 
   "And what, in your opinion, has been the most important discovery in these thirty years?" 
   "The fact of the Visitation itself." 
   "I beg your pardon?" 
   "The fact of the Visitation itself is the most important discovery not only of the past thirty years but of the entire history of mankind. It's not so important to know just who these visitors were. It's not important to know where they came from, why they came, why they spent so little time here, or where they disappeared to since. The important thing is that humanity now knows for sure: we are not alone in the universe. I fear that the Institute of Extraterrestrial Cultures will never be fortunate enough to make a more fundamental discovery." 
   "This is very fascinating, Dr Pilman, but actually I was thinking more of advances and discoveries of a technological nature. Discoveries that our earth scientists and engineers could use. After all, many very important scientists have proposed that the discoveries made in the Visitation Zones are capable of changing the entire course of our history." 
   "Well, I don't subscribe to that point of view. And as for specific discoveries--that's not my field." 
   "Yet for the past two years you've been Canadian consultant to the UN Commission on Problems of the Visitation." 
   "Yes. But I have nothing to do with the study of extraterrestrial cultures. On the commission my colleagues and I represent the inter national scientific community when questions come up on implementing UN decisions regarding the internationalization of the Zones. Roughly speaking, we make sure that the extraterrestrial marvels found in the Zones come into the hands of the International Institute." 
   "Is there anyone else after these treasures?" 
   "Yes." 
   "You probably mean stalkers!" 
   "I don't know what they are." 
   "That's what we in Harmont call the thieves who risk their lives in the Zone to grab everything they can lay their hands on. It's become a whole new profession." 
   "I understand. No, that's not within our competence." 
   "I should think not. That's police business. But I would be interested in knowing just what does fall within your competence, Dr. Pilman." 
   "There is a steady leak of materials from the Visitation Zones into the hands of irresponsible persons and organizations. We deal with the results of these leaks." 
   "Could you be a little more specific, doctor?" 
   "Can't we talk about the arts instead? Wouldn't the listeners care to know my opinion of the incomparable Godi Muller?" 
   "Of course! But I would like to Finish with science first. As a scientist, aren't you drawn to dealing with the extraterrestrial treasures yourself?" 
   "How can I put it? I suppose so." 
   Then, we can hope that one fine day Harmonites will see their famous fellow citizen on the streets of his home town?" 
   "It's not impossible." 





1. REDRICK SCHUHART, AGE 23,

   BACHELOR, LABORATORY ASSISTANT AT THE HARMONT BRANCH OF THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL CULTURES 

   The night before, he and I were in the repository--it was already evening, all I had to do was throw off my lab suit and I could head for the Borscht to put a drop or two of the stiff stuff into my system. I was just standing there, holding up the wall, my work all done and a cigarette in my hand. I was dying for a smoke--it was two hours since I'd had one, and he was still puttering around with his stuff. He had loaded, locked, and sealed one safe and was loading up the other one--taking the empties from the transporter, examining each one from every angle (and they're heavy little bastards, by the way, fifteen pounds each), and carefully replacing them on the shelf. 
   He had been struggling with those empties forever, and the way I see it, without any benefit to humanity or himself. In his shoes, I would have said screw it long ago and gone to work on something else for the same money. Of course, on the other hand, if you think about it, an empty really is something mysterious and maybe even incomprehensible. I've handled quite a few of them, but I'm still surprised every time I see one. They're just two copper disks the size of a saucer, -about a quarter inch thick, with a space of a foot and a half between 
   There's nothing else. I mean absolutely nothing, just empty space. You can stick your hand in them, or even your head, if you're so knocked out by the whole thing-just emptiness and more emptiness, thin air. And for all that, of course, there is some force between them, as I understand it, because you can't press them together, and no one's been able to pull them apart, either. 
   No, friends, it's hard to describe them to someone who hasn't seen them. They're too simple, especially when you look close and finally believe your eyes. It's like trying to describe a glass to someone: you end up wriggling your fingers and cursing in frustration. OK, let's say you've got it, and those of you who haven't get hold of a copy of the institute's Reports--every issue has an article or. the empties with photos. 
   Kirill had been beating his brains out over the empties for almost a year. I'd been with him from the start, but I still wasn't quite sure what it was he wanted to learn from them, and, to tell the truth, I wasn't trying very hard to find out. Let him figure it out for himself first, and then maybe I'd have a listen. For now, I understood only one thing: he had to figure out, at any cost, what made one of those empties tick--eat through one with acid, squash it under a press, or melt it in an oven. And then he would understand everything and be hailed and honored, and world science would shiver with ecstasy. For now, as I saw it, he had a long way to go. He hadn't gotten anywhere yet, and he was worn out. He was sort of gray and silent, and his eyes looked like a sick dog's-they even watered. If it had been anyone else, I would have gotten him roaring drunk and taken him over to some hard-working girl to unwind. And in the morning I'd have boozed him up again and taken him to another broad, and in a week he would have been as good as new--bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Only that wasn't the medicine for Kirill. There was no point in even suggesting it--he wasn't the type. 
   So there we were in the repository. I was watching him and seeing what had happened to him, how his eyes were sunken, and I felt sorrier for him than I ever had for anyone. And that's when I decided. I didn't exactly decide, it was like somebody opened my mouth and made me talk. 
   "Listen," I said. "Kirill." 
   And he stood there with his last empty on the scales, looking like he was ready to climb into it. 
   "Listen," I said, "Kirill! What if you had a full empty, huh?" 
   "A full empty?" He looked puzzled. 
   "Yeah. Your hydromagnetic trap, whatchamacallit . . . Object 77b. It's got some sort of blue stuff inside." 
   I could see that it was beginning to penetrate. He looked up at me, squinted, and a glimmer of reason, as he loved to call it, appeared behind the dog tears. 
   "Hold on," he said. "Full? Just like this, but full?" 
   "Yes, that's what I'm saying." 
   "Where?" 
   My Kirill was cured. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. 
   "Let's go have a smoke." 
   He stuffed the empty into the safe, slammed the door, and locked it with three and a half turns, and we went back into the lab. Ernest pays 400 in cash for an empty empty, and I could have bled him dry, the son of a bitch, for a full one, but believe it or not, I didn't even think about it, because Kirill came back to life before my eyes and bounded down the steps four at a time, not even letting me finish my smoke. In short, I told him everything: what it was like, and where it was, and the best way to get at it. He pulled out a map, found the garage, put his finger on it, and stared at me. Of course, he immediately figured it out about me--what was there not to understand? 
   "You dog, you," he said and smiled. "Well, let's go for it. First thing in the morning. I'll order the passes and the boot for nine and we'll set off at ten and hope for the best. All right?" 
   "All right," I said. "Who'll be the third?" 
   "What do we need a third for?" 
   "Oh no," I said. "This is no picnic with ladies. What if something happens to you? It's in the Zone," I said. "We have to follow regulations." 
   He gave a short laugh and shrugged. 
   "As you wish. You know better." 
   You bet I did! Of course, he was just trying to humor me. The third would be in the way as far as he was concerned. We would run down, just the two of us, and everything would be hunky-dory, no one would suspect anything about me. Except for the fact that I knew that people from the institute didn't enter the Zone in two's. The rule is: two do the work and the third watches, and when they ask him about it later, he tells. 
   "Personally, I would take Austin," Kirill said. "But you probably don't want him. Or is it all right?" 
   "Nope," I said. "Anybody but Austin. You can take Austin an- other time." 
   Austin isn't a bad guy, he's got the right mix of courage and cowardice, but I feel he's doomed. You can't explain it to Kirill, but I can see it. The man thinks he knows and understands the Zone completely. That means he's going to kick off soon. He can go right ahead, but without me, thanks. 
   "All right, then," Kirill said. "How about Tender?" Tender was his second lab assistant. An all-right kind of guy, on the quiet side. 
   "He's a little old," I said. "And he has kids. 
   "That's all right. He's been in the Zone before." 
   "Fine," I said. "Let's take Tender. 
   He stayed to pore over the map and I made a beeline for the Borscht, because I was starving and my throat was parched. 
   I got back to the lab in the morning as usual, around nine, and showed my pass. The guard on duty was the lanky bean pole of a sergeant that I beat the hell out of last year when he made a drunken pass at Guta. 
   "Fine thing," he said to me. "They're looking for you all over the institute, Red." I interrupted him right there, polite-like. 
   "I'm not Red to you," I said. "Don't try that palsy-walsy stuff on me, you Swedish dolt." 
   "God, Red! Everybody calls you that. 
   I was all wound up before going into the Zone and cold sober to boot. I hauled him up by his shoulder belt and told him in precise detail just what he was and what maternal line he was descended from. He spat on the floor, returned my pass, and said without any of the niceties: 
   "Redrick Schuhart, your orders are to appear immediately before Chief of Security Captain Herzog. 
   "That's better," I said. "That's the ticket. Keep plugging away, sergeant, you'll make lieutenant yet. 
   Meanwhile I was thinking, what was this curve coming my way? What did Captain Herzog need me for during working hours? All right, I went off to make my appearance. His office was on the third floor, a nice office, with bars on the windows just like a police station. Willy was sitting at his desk, puffing on his pipe, and typing some kind of gibberish. Some little sergeant was digging through the metal file cabinet in the corner. A new guy I'd never seen. We have more sergeants at the institute than at division headquarters. They're all well-built healthy fellows. They don't have to go into the Zone and they don't give a damn about world issues. 
   "Hello," I said. "You called for me?" Willy looked right through me, moved away from the typewriter, laid a hefty file on the desk, and started leafing through it. 
   "Redrick Schuhart?" 
   "The same, I answered, feeling a nervous laugh welling up. I couldn't help it, it was funny. 
   "How long have you been with the institute?" 
   "Two years, starting my third." 
   "Family?" 
   "I'm alone," I said. "An orphan." 
   Then he turned to his little sergeant and gave him an order in a stern tone. 
   "Sergeant Lummer, go to the files and bring back case number one-fifty. 
   The sergeant saluted and disappeared, and Willy slammed the file shut and asked gloomily: 
   "Up to your old tricks again?" 
   "What old tricks?" 
   "You know what tricks. There's new material on you here." 
   So, I thought. 
   "Where from?" 
   He frowned and banged his pipe against the ashtray in irritation. 
   "That doesn't concern you," he said. "As an old friend, I'm warning you. Knock it off, knock it off for good. If they get you a second time, you won't get off with six months. And they'll kick you out of the institute once and for all, understand?" 
   "I understand," I said. "That I can understand. I just don't under stand what bastard could have squealed. 
   But he was looking through me again, puffing on his empty pipe and flipping through the file. That meant that Sergeant Lummer had returned with case #150. 
   "Thank you, Schuhart, said Capt. Willy Herzog, also known as the Hog. "That's all I wanted cleared up. You're Free to go. 
   So I went to the locker room, pulled on my lab clothes and lit up. All along I kept thinking where the rumor could have come from. It had to be all lies if it came from within the institute, because nobody there knew anything about me and there was no way that anyone could. If it had been a report From the police--again, what could they know there except for my old sins? Maybe they had gotten Buzzard? That bastard, he'd drown his own grandmother to save his skin. But even Buzzard didn't know anything about me now. I thought and thought and didn't come up with anything very pleasant. So I decided the hell with it. The last time I had gone into the Zone at night was three months ago, and I had gotten rid of most of the stuff and had spent almost all of the money. They hadn't caught me with the goods, and I was too slippery for them to catch me now. 
   But then, just as I was heading up the stairs, I suddenly saw the light, and saw it so well that I had to go back to the locker room, sit down, and have another cigarette. It meant that I couldn't go into the Zone today. Nor tomorrow, nor the day after. It meant that those toads had their eye on me again, that they hadn't forgotten me, or if they had forgotten, then somebody had reminded them. And now it no longer mattered who had done the reminding. No stalker, unless he was completely off his rocker, would go near the Zone even at gunpoint, not if he knew that he was being watched. I should have been burrowing into the deepest, darkest corner at that very moment. Zone? What Zone? I hadn't been in any Zone, even with a pass, for months! What are you harassing an honest lab worker for? 
   I thought the whole thing through and even felt a sense of relief that I wouldn't be going into the Zone that day. But what would be the nicest way of informing Kirill of the fact? 
   I told him straight out. 
   "I'm not going into the Zone. What instructions do you have?" 
   At first, of course, he just stared at me bug-eyed. Then he seemed to understand. He led me by the elbow into his little office, sat me down at his desk, and sat on the windowsill facing me. We lit up. Silence. Then he asked me, careful-like: 
   "Has something happened, Red?" 
   What could I tell him? 
   "No," I said. "Nothing happened. Yesterday I blew twenty bills at poker--that Noonan is a great player, the louse." 
   "Wait a minute," he said. "Have you changed your mind?" 
   I made a choking noise from the tension. 
   "I can't," I said to him through clenched teeth. "I can't, do you understand? Herzog just had me up in his office." 
   He went limp. He got that pathetic look again and his eyes looked like they were a sick poodle's again. He shuddered, lit a new cigarette with the butt of the old one, and spoke softly. 
   "You can trust me, Red. I didn't breathe a word to anyone." 
   "Skip it," I said. "Nobody's talking about you." 
   "I haven't even told Tender yet. I made out a pass in his name, but I haven't even asked him if he'll go." 
   I said nothing and went on smoking. It was funny and sad. The man didn't understand a thing. 
   "What did Herzog say to you?" 
   "Nothing in particular," I said. "Someone squealed on me, that's all." 
   He looked at me kind of strange, hopped off the sill, and started walking up and down. He ran around his office and I sat blowing smoke rings in silence. I was sorry for him, of course, and I felt bad that things hadn't worked out better. Some cure I came up with for his melancholy. And whose fault was it? My own. I tempted a baby with a cookie, but the cookie was in a hiding place, and the hiding place was guarded by mean men. . . . Then he stopped pacing, came up close to me, and looking off to the side somewhere, asked awkwardly: 
   "Listen, Red, how much would a full empty cost?" 
   At first I didn't understand him. I thought at first that he was hoping to buy one somewhere. Where would you buy one? Maybe it was the only one in the world and besides he couldn't possibly have enough dough for that. Where would he get the money from? He was a foreign scientist, and a Russian one at that. And then the thought struck me. So the bastard thinks that I'm doing it for the greenbacks? You so and so, I thought to myself, what do you take me for? I opened my mouth to tell him off. And I shut up. Because, actually, what else could he take me for? A stalker is a stalker. The more green stuff the better. He trades his life for greenbacks. And so it looked to him that yesterday I had cast my line and today I was reeling him in, trying to raise my price. 
   The thought made me tongue-tied. And he kept staring at me intently, without blinking. And in his eyes I saw not contempt but a kind of understanding, I guess. Then I calmly explained it to him. 
   "No one with a pass has ever gone to the garage before. They haven't laid the tracks to it yet. You know that. So here we come back from the Zone and your Tender brags to everybody how we headed straight for the garage, picked up what we needed, and came right back. Like we just went down to the warehouse or something. And it will be perfectly clear to everyone," I said, "that we knew ahead of time what we wanted there. And that means that someone set us on to it. And which of us three that could have been--well, there's no point in spelling it out for you. Do you understand what's in store for me here?" 
   I finished my little speech. We sat staring into each other's eyes, saying nothing. Suddenly he clapped his hands, rubbed his palms together, and announced in a hearty tone: 
   "Well, if you can't, you can't. I understand you, Red, and I can't pass judgment. I'll go alone. Maybe it'll go fine. It won't be the first time." 
   He spread out the map on the windowsill, leaned on his hands, and bent over it. All his heartiness seemed to evaporate before my eyes. I could hear him muttering. 
   "Forty yards, maybe forty-one, another three in the garage itself. No, I won't take Tender along. What do you think, Red? Maybe I shouldn't take Tender? He does have two kids, after all." 
   "They won't let you out alone," I said. 
   "They will," he muttered. "I know all the sergeants and all the lieutenants. I don't like those trucks! They've been exposed to the elements for thirty years and they're just like new. There's a gasoline carrier twenty feet away and it's completely rusted out, but they look like they've just come off the assembly line. That's the Zone for you!" 
   He looked up from the map and stared out the window. And I stared out the window, too. The glass in our windows is thick and leaded. And beyond the windows--the Zone. There it is, just reach out and you can touch it. From the thirteenth Boor it looks like it could fit in the palm of your hand. 
   When you look at it, it looks like any other piece of land. The sun shines on it like on any other part of the earth. And it's as though nothing had particularly changed in it. Like everything was the way it was thirty years ago. My father, rest his soul, could look at it and not notice anything out of place at all. Except maybe he'd ask why the plant's smokestack was still. Was there a strike or something? yellow ore piled up in cone-shaped mounds, blast furnaces gleaming in the sun, rails, rails, and more rails, a locomotive with flatcars on the rails. In other words, an industry town. Only there were no people. Neither living nor dead. You could see the garage, too: a long gray intestine, its doors wide open. The trucks were parked on the paved lot next to it. He was right about the trucks--his brains were functioning God forbid you should stick your head between two trucks. You have to sidle around them. There's a crack in the asphalt, if it hasn't been overgrown with bramble yet. Forty yards. Where was he counting from? Oh, probably from the last pylon. He's right, it wouldn't be further than that from there. Those egghead scientists were making progress. They've got the road hung all the way to the dump, and cleverly hung at that! There's that ditch where Slimy ended up, just two yards from their road. Knuckles had told Slimy: stay as far away from the ditches as you can, jerk, or there won't be anything to bury. When I looked down into the water, there was nothing. This is the way it is with the Zone: if you come back with swag--it's a miracle; if you come back alive--it's a success; if the patrol bullets miss you--it's a stroke of luck. And as for anything else --that's fate. 
   I looked at Kirill and saw that he was secretly watching me. And the look on his face made me change my mind. The hell with them all, I thought. After all, what can those toads do to me? He really didn't have to say anything, but he did. 
   "Laboratory Assistant Schuhart," he says. "Official-and I stress official--sources have led me to believe that an inspection of the garage could be of great scientific value. I am suggesting that we inspect the garage. I guarantee a bonus." And he beamed like the June sun. 
   "What official sources?" I asked, and smiled like a fool myself. 
   "They are confidential. But I can tell you." He frowned. "Let's say, I found out from Dr. Douglas." 
   "Oh," I said. "From Dr. Douglas. What Dr. Douglas?" 
   "Sam Douglas," he said dryly. "He died last year." 
   My skin crawled. You so-and-so fool. Who talks about such things before setting out? You can beat these eggheads over the head with a two-by-four and they still don't catch on. I stabbed the ashtray with my cigarette butt. 
   "All right. Where's your Tender? How long do we have to wait for him?" 
   In other words, we didn't touch on the subject again. Kirill phoned PPS and ordered a flying boot. I looked over his map to see what was on it. It wasn't bad. It was a photographic process--aerial and highly enlarged. You could even see the ridges on the cover that was lying by the gates to the garage. If stalkers could get their hands on a map like that ... but it wouldn't be of great use at night when the stars look down on your ass and it's so dark you can't even see your own hands. 
   Tender made his entrance. He was red and out of breath. His daughter was sick and he had gone for the doctor. Apologized for being late. Well, we gave him his little present: we're off into the Zone. He even stopped puffing and wheezing at first, he was so scared. "What do you mean the Zone?" he asked. "And why me?" However, talk of a double bonus and the fact that Red Schuhart was going too got him breathing again. 
   So we went down to the "boudoir" and Kirill went for the passes. We showed them to another sergeant, who handed us special outfits. Now they are handy things. Just dye them any other color than their original red, and any stalker would gladly pay 500 for one without blinking an eye. I swore a long time ago that one of these days I would figure out a way to swipe one. At first glance it didn't seem like anything special, just an outfit like a diving suit with a bubble-top helmet with a visor. Not really like a diver's--more like a jet pilot's or an astronaut's. It was light, comfortable, without binding any where, and you didn't sweat in it. In a little suit like that you could go through fire, and gas couldn't penetrate it. They say even a bullet can't get through. Of course, fire and mustard gases and bullets are all earthly human things. Nothing like that exists in the Zone and there is no need to fear things like that in the Zone. And anyway, to tell the truth, people drop like flies in the special suits too. It's another matter that maybe many many more would die without the suits. The suits are too percent protection against the burning fluff, for example, and against the spitting devil's cabbage.... All right. 
   We pulled on the special suits. I poured the nuts and bolts from the bag into my hip pocket, and we trekked across the institute yard to the Zone entrance. That's the routine they have here, so that everyone will see the heroes of science laying down their lives on the altar of humanity, knowledge, and the holy ghost. Amen. And sure enough--all the way up to the fifteenth floor sympathetic faces watched us off. All we lacked were waving hankies and an orchestra. 
   "Hup two," I said to Tender. "Suck in your gut, you flabby platoon! A grateful mankind will never forget you!" 
   He looked at me and I saw that he was in no shape for joking around And he was right, this was no time for jokes. But when you're going out into the Zone you can either cry or joke--and I never cried, even as a child. I looked at Kirill. He was holding up under the strain, but was moving his lips, like he was praying. 
   "Praying?" I asked. "Pray on, pray. The further into the Zone the nearer to Heaven." 
   "What?" 
   "Pray!" I shouted. "Stalkers go to the head of the line into Heaven." 
   He broke out in a smile and patted me on the back, as if to say don't be afraid, nothing will happen as long as you're with me, and if it does, well, we only die once. He sure is a funny guy, honest to God. 
   We turned in our passes to the last sergeant, only this time, for a change of pace, it was a lieutenant. I know him, his father sells grave borders in Rexopolis. The flying boot was waiting for us, brought by the fellows from PPS and left at the passageway. Everyone else was waiting, too. The emergency first-aid team, and firemen, and our valiant guards, our fearless rescuers--a bunch of overfed bums with a helicopter. I wish I had never set eyes on them! 
   We got up into the boot, and Kirill took the controls and said: 
   "OK, Red, lead on." 
   Coolly, I lowered the zipper on my chest, pulled out a flask, took a good long tug, and replaced the flask. I can't do it without that. I've been in the Zone many times, but without it--no, I just can't. They were both looking at me and waiting. 
   "So," I said. "I'm not offering any to you, because this is the first time we're going in together, and I don't know how the stuff affects you. This is the way we'll do things. Anything that I say you do immediately and without question. If someone starts fumbling or asking questions I'll hit whatever I reach first. I'll apologize now. For example, Mr. Tender, if I order you to start walking on your hands you will immediately hoist your fat ass into the air and do what I tell you. And if you don't, maybe you'll never see your sick daughter again. Got it? But I'll make sure that you do get to see her." 
   "Just don't forget to give me the order," Tender wheezed. He was all red and sweating and chomping his lips, "I'll walk on my teeth, not just on my hands, if I have to. I'm not a greenhorn." 
   "You're both greenhorns as far as I'm concerned," I said. "And I won't Forget to give the orders, don't worry. By the way, do you know how to drive a boot?" 
   "He knows," Kirill said. "He's a good driver. 
   "All right then," I said. "Then we're off, Godspeed. Lower your visors. Low speed ahead along the pylons, altitude three yards. Halt at the twenty-seventh pylon." 
   Kirill raised the boot to three yards and went ahead in low gear. I turned around without being noticed and spit over my left shoulder. I saw that the rescue squad had climbed into their helicopter, the firemen were standing at attention out of respect, the lieutenant at the door of the passage was saluting us, the jerk, and above all of them fluttered the huge, faded banner: "Welcome, Visitors." Tender looked like he was about to wave to them, but I gave him such a jab in the ribs that he immediately dropped all ideas of such ceremonious bye-byes. I'll show you how to say good-bye. You'll be saying good-bye yet! We were off. The institute was on our right and the Plague Quarter on our left. We were traveling from pylon to pylon right down the middle of the street. It had been ages since the last time someone had walked or driven down this street. The asphalt was all cracked, and grass had grown in the cracks. But that was still our human grass. On the sidewalk on our left there was black bramble growing, and you could tell the boundaries of the Zone: the black growth ended at the curb as if it had been mown. Yeah, those visitors were well-behaved. They messed up a lot of things but at least they set themselves clear limits. Even the burning fluff never came to our side of the Zone--and you would think that a stiff wind would do it. 
   The houses in the Plague Quarter were chipped and dead. How ever, the windows weren't broken. Only they were so dirty that they looked blind. At night, when you crawl past, you can see the glow inside, like alcohol burning with blue tongues. That's the witches' jelly breathing in the cellars. just a quick glance gives you the impression that it's a neighborhood like any other, the houses are like any others, only in need of repair, but there's nothing particularly strange about them. Except that there are no people around. That brick house, by the way, was the home of our math teacher. We used to call him The Comma. He was a bore and a failure. His second wife had left him just before the Visitation, and his daughter had a cataract on one eye, and we used to tease her to tears, I remember. When the panic began he and all his neighbors ran to the bridge in their underwear, three miles nonstop. Then he was sick with the plague for a long time. He lost all his skin and his nails. Almost everyone who had lived in the neighborhood was hit, that's why we call it the Plague Quarter. Some died, mostly the old people, and not too many of them. I, for one, think that they died from fright and not from the plague. It was terrifying. Everyone who lived here got sick. And people in three neighborhoods went blind. Now we call those areas: First Blind Quarter, Second Blind, and so on. They didn't go completely blind, but got sort of night blindness. By the way, they said that it wasn't any explosion that caused it, even though there were plenty of explosions; they said they were blinded from a loud noise. They said it got so loud that they immediately lost their vision. The doctors told them that that was impossible and they should try to remember. But they insisted that it was a powerful thunderbolt that blinded them. By the way, no one else heard the thunder at all. 
   Yes, it was as though nothing had happened here. There was a glass kiosk, unharmed. A baby carriage in a driveway -- even the blankets in it looked clean. The antennas screwed up the effect though--they were overgrown with some hairy stuff that looked like cotton. The eggheads had been cutting their teeth on this cotton problem for some time. You see, they were interested in looking it over. There wasn't any other like it anywhere. Only in the Plague Quarter and only on the antennas. And most important, it was right there, under their very windows. Finally they had a bright idea: they lowered an anchor on a steel cable from a helicopter and hooked a piece of cotton. As soon as the helicopter pulled at it, there was a pssst! We looked and saw smoke coming from the antenna, from the anchor, and from the cable. The cable wasn't just smoking--it was hissing poisonously, like a rattler. Well, the pilot was no fool--there was a reason why he was a lieutenant--he quickly figured what was what and dropped the cable and made a quick getaway. There it was, the cable, hanging down almost to the ground and overgrown with cot ton. 
   So we made it to the end of the street and the turn nice and easy. Kirill looked at me: should he turn? I signaled: as slow as possible! Our boot turned and inched over the last feet of human earth. The sidewalk was coming closer and the boot's shadow was falling on the bramble. That's it. We were in the Zone! I felt a chill. Each time I feel that chill. And I never know if that's the Zone greeting me or my stalker's nerves acting up. Each time I think that when I get back I'll ask if others have the same feeling or not, and each time I forget. 
   All right, so there we were crawling quietly over what used to be gardens. The engine was humming evenly under our feet, calmly-- it didn't care, nothing was going to hurt it here. Then old Tender broke. We hadn't even gotten to the first pylon when he started gabbing. All the greenhorns usually run off at the mouth in the Zone: his teeth were chattering, his heart thumping, his memory fading, and he was embarrassed and yet he couldn't control himself. I think it's like a runny nose with them. It doesn't depend on the person at all--it just flows and flows. And what nonsense they babble! They flip out over the landscape or they express their views on the Visitors, or they talk about things having no relation to the Zone--like Tender, who got all wound up over his new suit and couldn't stop. How much he had paid for it, how fine the wool was, how the tailor changed the buttons for him.... 
   "Shut up." 
   He looked at me pitifully, flopped his lips, and went on: how much silk it took for the lining. The gardens had ended by now, the clayey lot that used to be the town dump was under us. And I felt a light breeze. Except there was no wind at all, and suddenly there was a gust and the tumbleweed scattered, and I thought I heard something. 
   "Shut up, you bastard!" I said to Tender. 
   No, he couldn't shut himself up. He was on the pockets now. I had no choice. 
   "Stop the boot!" I said to Kirill. 
   He braked immediately. Good reflexes, I was proud of him. I took Tender by the shoulder, turned him toward me, and smacked him in the visor. He cracked his nose, poor guy, against the glass, closed his eyes, and shut up. And as soon as he was quiet, I heard it. Trrr, trrr, trrr... · Kirill looked over at me, jaws clenched, teeth bared. motioned for him to be still. God, please be still, don't move a muscle. But he also heard the crackle, and like all greenhorns, he had the urge to do something immediately, anything. "Reverse?" he whispered. I shook my head desperately and waved my fist right under his visor -cut it out. Honest to God, with these greenhorns you never know which way to look, at the field or at them. And then I forgot about everything. Over the pile of old refuse, over broken glass and rags, crawled a shimmering, a trembling, sort of like hot air at noon over a tin roof. It crossed over the hillock and moved on and on toward us, right next to the pylon; it hovered for a second over the road-- or did I just imagine it?--and slithered into the field, behind the hushes and the rotten fences, back there toward the automobile graveyard. 
   Damn those eggheads! Some thinking to lay the road over the dump! And I had been really sharp myself--what was I thinking of when I raved over their stupid map? 
   "Low speed forward," I said to Kirill. 
   "What was that?" 
   "The devil knows. It was, and now it's gone. Thank God. And shut up, please, you're not a human being now, do you understand? You are a machine, my steering wheel." I suddenly realized that I was running off at the mouth. 
   "Enough. Not another word." 
   I wanted another drink. Let me tell you, these diving suits were nonsense. I lived through so much without a damn suit and will live through so much more, but without a big glug at a moment like this --well, enough of that! 
   The breeze seemed to have died down and I didn't hear anything bad. The only sound was the calm, sleepy hum of the motor. It was very sunny and it was hot. There was a haze over the garage. Every- thing seemed all right, the pylons sailed past, one after the other, Tender was quiet, Kirill was quiet. The greenhorns were getting a little polish. Don't worry, fellows, you can breathe in the Zone, too, if you know what you're about. We got to Pylon 27; the metal sign had a red circle with the number 27 in it. Kirill looked at me, I nodded, and our boot stopped moving. 
   The blossoms had fallen off and it was the time for berries. Now the most important thing for us was total calm. There was no rush. The wind was gone, the visibility good. It was as smooth as silk. I could see the ditch where Slimy had kicked off. There was something colored in it--maybe his clothes. He was a lousy guy, God rest his soul. Greedy, stupid, and dirty. Just the type to get mixed up with Buzzard Burbridge. Buzzard sees them coming a mile away and gets his claws into them. In general, the Zone doesn't ask who the good guys are and who the bad ones are. So thanks to you, Slimy. You were a damned fool, and no one remembers your real name, but at least you showed the smart people where not to step.... Of course, our best bet would have been to get onto the asphalt. The asphalt is smooth and you can see what's on it, and I know that crack well. I just didn't like the looks of those two hillocks! A straight line to the asphalt led right between them. There they were, smirking and waiting. Nope, I won't go between them. A stalker commandment states that there should be at least a hundred feet of clear space either on your left or your right. So, we can go over the left hillock. Of course, I didn't know what was on the other side. There didn't seem to be anything on the map, but who trusts maps? 
   "Listen, Red," whispered Kirill, "why don't we jump over? Twenty yards up and then straight down, and we're right by the garage. Huh?" 
   "Shut up, you jerk," I said. "Don't bother me." 
   He wants to go up. And what if something gets you at twenty yards? They'll never find all your bones. Or maybe the mosquito mange would appear somewhere around here, then there wouldn't even be a little damp spot left of you. I've had it up to here with these risk-takers. He can't wait: let's jump, he says. It was clear how to get to the hillock. And then we'd stay there for a bit and think about the next move. I pulled out a handful of nuts and bolts from my pocket. I held them in my palm and showed them to Kirill. 
   "Do you remember the story of Hansel and Gretel? Studied it in school? Well, we're going to do it in reverse. Watch!" I threw the first nut. Not far, just like I wanted, about ten yards. The nut got there safely. "Did you see that?" 
   "So?" he said. 
   "Not 'so.' I asked if you saw it?" 
   "I saw it." 
   "Now drive the boot at the lowest speed over to the nut and stop two feet away from it. Got it?" 
   "Got it. Are you looking for graviconcentrates?" 
   "I'm looking for what I should be looking for. Wait, I'll throw another one. Watch where it goes and don't take your eyes off it again." 
   The second nut also went fine and landed next to the first one. 
   "Let's go." 
   He started the boot. His face was calm and clear. Obviously he understood. They're all like that, the eggheads, the most important thing for them is to find a name for things. Until he had come up with a name, he was too pathetic to look at--a real idiot. But now that he had some label like graviconcentrate, he thought that he understood everything and life was a breeze. 
   We passed the first nut, and the second, and a third. Tender was sighing and shifting from foot to foot and yawning nervously--he was feeling trapped, poor fellow. It would do him good. He'd knock off ten pounds today, this was better than any diet. I threw a fourth nut. There was something wrong with its trajectory. I couldn't explain what was wrong, but I sensed that it wasn't right. I grabbed Kirill's hand. 
   "Hold it," I said. "Don't move an inch." 
   I picked up another one and threw it higher and further. There it was, the mosquito mange! The nut flew up normally and seemed to be dropping normally, but halfway down it was as if something pulled it to the side, and pulled it so hard that when it landed it disappeared into the clay. 
   "Did you see that?" I whispered. 
   "Only in the movies." He was straining to see and I was afraid he'd fall out of the boot. "Throw another one, huh?" 
   It was funny and sad. One! As though one would be enough! Oh, science. So I threw eight more nuts and bolts until I knew the shape of this mange spot. To be honest, I could have gotten by with seven, but I threw one just for him smack into the middle, so that he could enjoy his concentrate. It crashed into the clay like it was a ten-pound weight instead of a bolt. It crashed and left a hole in the clay. He grunted with pleasure. 
   "OK," I said, "we had our fun, now let's go. Watch closely. I'm throwing out a pathfinder, don't take your eyes off it." 
   So we got around the mosquito mange spot and got up on the hillock. It was so small that it looked like a cat turd. I had never even noticed it before. We hovered over the hillock. The asphalt was less than twenty feet away. It was clear. I could see every blade of grass, every crack. It looked like a snap. Just throw the nut and be on with it. 
   I couldn't throw the nut. 
   I didn't understand what was happening to me, but I just couldn't make up my mind to throw that nut. 
   "What's the matter?" asked Kirill. "Why are we just standing here?" 
   "Wait," I said. "Just shut up." 
   I thought I'd toss the nut and then we'll quietly move along, like coasting on melted butter, without disturbing a blade of grass. Thirty seconds and we're on the asphalt. And suddenly I broke out in a sweat! My eyes were blinded by it. And I knew that I wouldn't be throwing the nut there. To the left, as many as you want. The road was longer that way, and there was a bunch of pebbles that didn't seem too cozy, but I was ready to throw in that direction. But not straight ahead. Not for anything. So I threw the nut to the left. Kirill said nothing, turned the boot, and drove up to the nut. Then he looked over at me. I must have looked pretty bad because he looked away immediately. 
   "It's all right," I said. "The path around is faster." I tossed the last nut onto the asphalt. 
   It was a lot simpler after that. I found the crack, and it was still clean, not overgrown with any garbage, and unchanged in color. I just looked at it and rejoiced in silence. It led us to the garage door better than any pylons or signposts. 
   I ordered Kirill to descend to four feet. I lay Bat on my belly and looked into the open doors. At first I couldn't see anything because of the bright sunlight. Just blackness. Then my eyes grew accustomed and I saw that nothing seemed to have changed in the garage since the last time. The dump truck was still parked over the pit, in perfect shape, without any holes or spots. And everything was still the same on the cement Boor--probably because there wasn't too much witches' jelly in the pit and it hadn't splashed out since that time. There was only one thing that I didn't like. In the very back of the garage, near the canisters, I could see something silvery. That hadn't been there before. Well, all right, so there was something silvery, we couldn't go back now just because of that! I mean it didn't shine in any special way, just a little bit and in a calm, even a gentle way. I just got up, brushed myself off, and looked around. There were the trucks on the lot, just like new. Even newer than they had been the last time I was here. And the gasoline truck, the poor bastard was rusted through and ready to fall apart. There was the cover on the ground, just like on that map of theirs. 
   I didn't like the looks of that cover. Its shadow wasn't right. The sun was at our backs, yet its shadow was stretching toward us. Well, all right, it was far enough away from us. It seemed OK, we could get on with our work. But what was the silvery thing shining back there? Was it just my imagination? It would be nice to have a smoke now and sit for a spell and mull it all over--why there was that shine over the canisters, why it didn't shine next to them, why the cover was casting that shadow. Buzzard Burbridge told me something about the shadows, that they were weird but harmless. Something happens here with the shadows. But what was that silvery shine? It looked just like cobwebs on the trees in a forest. What kind of spider could have spun it? I had never seen any bugs in the Zone. The worst part was that my empty was right there, two steps from the canisters. I should have stolen it that time. Then we wouldn't be having any of these problems now. But it was too heavy. After all, the bitch was full, I could pick it up all right, but as for dragging it on my back, in the dark, on all fours... . If you haven't carried an empty around, try it: it's like hauling twenty pounds of water without a pail. It was time to go. I wished I had a drink. I turned to Tender. 
   "Kirill and I are going into the garage now. You stay here. Don't touch the controls without my orders, no matter what, even if the earth catches fire under you. If you chicken out, I'll find you in the hereafter." 
   He nodded at me seriously, as if to say, I won't chicken out. His nose looked like a plum, I had really given him a solid punch. I lowered the emergency pulley ropes carefully, checked out the silvery glow one more time, waved Kirill on, and started down. On the asphalt, I waited for him to come down the other rope. 
   "Don't rush," I said. "No hurry. Less dust." 
   We stood on the asphalt, the boot swaying next to us, and the ropes wriggling under our feet. Tender stuck his head over the rail and looked at us. His eyes were full of despair. It was time to go. 
   "Follow me step for step, two steps behind me, keep your eyes on my back, and stay alert." 
   I went on. I stopped in the doorway to look around. It's a hell of a lot easier working in the daylight than at night! I remember lying in that same doorway. It was pitch black and the witches' jelly was shooting tongues of flame up from the pit, pale blue, like burning alcohol. It didn't make things any lighter. In fact, the bastards made it seem even darker. And now, it was a snap! My eyes had gotten used to the murky light, and I could even see the dust in the darkest corners. And there really was something silvery over there--there were silvery threads stretching to the ceiling from the canisters. They sure looked like a spider's web. Maybe that's all it was, too, but I was going to keep away from it. That's where I made my mistake. I should have stood Kirill right next to me, waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the light, too, and then pointed out the web to him. Point it out to him. But I was used to working alone. I saw what I had to see, and I forgot all about Kirill. 
   I stepped inside and went straight for the canisters. I crouched over the empty. There didn't seem to be any web on the empty. I picked up one end and said to Kirill: 
   "Here, grab one, and don't drop it--it's heavy." 
   I looked up and felt a catch in my throat. I couldn't utter a sound. I wanted to shout "Stop! Freeze!" but I couldn't. And I probably wouldn't have had time, anyway, it all happened so fast. Kirill stepped over the empty, turned his back to the canisters, and got his whole back into the silver web. I shut my eyes. I went numb and the only thing I heard was the web tearing. It was a weak crackly noise. I was crouched there with my eyes shut, unable to feel my arms or my legs, when Kirill spoke. 
   "Well, shall we get on with it?" 
   "Let's go." 
   We picked up the empty and headed for the door, walking side- ways. It was terrifically heavy, the bitch, it was hard for the two of us to drag it. We came out into the sun and stopped by the boot. Tender reached out for it. 
   "OK," said Kirill. "One, two...." 
   "No," I said. "Let's wait a sec. Put it down first." 
   We set it down. 
   "Turn around. Let's see your back." 
   He turned without a single word. I looked--there was nothing on his back. I turned him this way and that, but there was nothing. I looked back at the canisters, and there was nothing there either. 
   "Listen," I said to Kirill, still looking at the canisters. "Did you see the spider web?" 
   "What web? Where?" 
   "All right. We were lucky." 
   But to myself I thought: actually, there's no way of knowing that yet. 
   "All right, let's heave-ho." 
   We stuffed the empty into the boot and fixed it so that it wouldn't move around. There it was, the pussycat, shiny new and clean, the copper gleaming in the sun. Its blue filling sifted cloudily in slow streams between the disks. We could see that it wasn't an empty at all, but something like a vessel, like a glass jar with blue syrup. We looked at it some more and then clambered into the boot and set off on the return trip without messing around. 
   These scientists sure have it easy! First of all, they work in daylight. And second, the only hard part is getting into the Zone, On the way back, the boot drives itself. In other words, it has a mechanism, a coursograph, I guess you'd call it, that controls the boot and drives it exactly along the course it took coming in. As we floated back, it repeated all our maneuvers, stopping and hovering for a bit, and then continuing. We went over each of my nuts and bolts. I could have gathered them up if I had wanted to. 
   My greenhorns were in a great mood, of course. They were turning their heads every which way and their fear was almost all gone. They started gabbing. Tender was waving his arms around and threatening to come right back after dinner to lay the road to the garage. Kirill plucked at my sleeve and started explaining his graviconcentrate phenomenon to me--that is, the mosquito mange spot. Well, I set them straight, but not right away. I calmly told them about all the jerks who blew it on the way back. Shut up, I told them, and keep your eyes peeled, or the same thing will happen to you that happened to Shorty Lyndon. That worked. They didn't even ask what had happened to Shorty Lyndon. We floated along in silence and I only thought about one thing. How I would unscrew the cap. I was trying to picture my first gulp, but the web kept glistening before my eyes. 
   In short, we got out of the Zone, and we were sent into the delouser--the scientists call it the medical hangar--along with the boot. They washed us in three different boiling vats and in their alkaline solutions, smeared us with some gunk, sprinkled us with some powder, and washed us again, then dried us off and said, OK, friends, you're free! Tender and Kirill dragged the empty. There were so many people who had come to gawk that you couldn't push your way through them. And it was so typical. They were all just watching and grunting words of welcome, but not one was brave enough to lend a hand to the tired returnees. All right, that was none of my business. Now nothing concerned me any more. 
   I pulled off my special suit, threw it on the floor--let the bastard sergeants pick it up--and headed straight for the showers, because I was sopping wet from head to toe. I locked myself in a stall, got my flask, unscrewed the cap, and attached myself to it like a lamprey. I sat on the bench, my knees empty, my head empty, my soul empty. Gulping down the strong stuff like it was water. Alive. The Zone had let me out. It let me out, the bitch. The damn, treacherous bitch. I was alive. The greenhorns could never appreciate that. Only a stalker could. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, from the booze or what, I don't know. I sucked the flask dry. I was wet, and the flask was dry. It didn't have that one last gulp that I needed, of course. But that could be fixed. Everything could be fixed now. Alive. I lit a cigarette. I sat there and felt that I was coming round. The bonus pay came into my mind. That was a good deal we had at the institute. I could go right now and pick up the envelope. Or maybe they'd bring it to me here in the showers. 
   I started undressing slowly. I took off my watch, and saw that we had spent five hours in the Zone. My God! Five hours. I shuddered. God, there really is no time in the Zone. Five hours. But if you think about it, what's five hours to a stalker? A snap. How about twelve? Or how about two days? If you don't manage in one night, you spend the whole day face down on the ground. And you don't even pray, but mutter deliriously, and you don't know if you're dead or alive. And then you finish up the second night and get to the patrol point with your swag. The guards are there with their machine guns. And those bastards, those toads really hate you. There's no great joy in arresting you, they're terrified that you're contaminated. All they want to do is bump you off and they've got all the aces-go prove that you were killed illegally. So that means you bury your face in the dirt again and pray until dawn and until dark again. And the swag lies next to you and you don't know whether it's just lying there or slowly killing you. Or you could end up like Knuckles Itzak, who got stuck at dawn in an open space. He got off the track and ended up between two ditches. He couldn't go right or left. They shot at him for two hours, but couldn't hit him. For two hours he made believe he was dead. Thank God, they finally believed it and left. I saw him after that. I couldn't even recognize him. He was a broken man, no longer human. 
   I wiped my tears and turned on the water. I showered for a long lime. First hot, then cold, then hot again. I used up a whole bar of soap. Then I got bored. I turned off the shower. Someone was banging on the door. Kirill was shouting: 
   "Hey, you stalker! Come on out of there! There's a scent of the green around here. 
   Greenbacks, that's always good. I opened the door. He was standing there, half naked, in his shorts. He was ecstatic, his melancholy gone. He handed me the envelope. 
   "Here," he said. "From a grateful humanity. 
   "I spit on your humanity. How much is there?" 
   "In view of your bravery beyond the call of duty, and as an exception, two months' pay!" 
   Yes, I could live on that kind of money. If I could get two months' pay for every empty, I could have sent Ernest packing a long time ago. 
   "Well, are you pleased?" He was glowing, positively radiant, grinning from ear to ear. 
   "Not bad. And you?" He didn't answer. He hugged my neck, pressed me to his sweaty chest, pushed me away, and disappeared into the next stall. 
   "Hey!" I shouted after him. "How's Tender? Washing out his underpants, I bet?" 
   "No way. Tender is surrounded by reporters. You should see him. He's such a big shot. He's telling them authoritatively... ." 
   "How is he telling them?" 
   "Authoritatively." 
   "OK, sir. Next time I'll bring my dictionary along, sir." Then it was like an electric shock. "Wait, Kirill. Come out here." 
   "I'm naked." 
   "Come out. I'm not a dame." 
   He came out. I took him by the shoulders and turned his back toward me. Nope. I must have imagined it. His back was clean. The rivulets of sweat dried up. 
   "What's with you and my back?" he asked. 
   I kicked him in his bare can and dove into my stall and locked the door. Damn my nerves. I was seeing things there, and now I was seeing them here. The hell with it all! I'd get tanked up tonight. I'd really like to beat Richard, that's what I'd like. That bum can really play cards. Can't beat him with any hand. I tried reshuffling, even blessing them under the table. 
   "Kirill," I shouted. "Are you going to the Borscht tonight?" 
   "It's not the 'Borscht,' it's pronounced 'Borshch.' How many times do I have to tell you." 
   "Skip it. It's spelled B-O-R-S-C-H-T Don't bug us with your customs. Are you going or not? I'd love to beat Richard." 
   "Oh, I don't know, Red. You simple soul, you don't understand what it is we've brought back." 
   "And I suppose you do?" 
   "Well, I don't either. That's true. But now for the First time we know what the empties are for, and if my bright idea works, I'll write a monograph. I'll dedicate it to you personally: To Redrick Schuhart, honored stalker, with respect and gratitude." 
   "And they'll put me away for two years." 
   "But you'll go down in science. That's what they'll call it, 'Schuhart's jar.' Like the sound of it?" 
   While we were bulling, I dressed. put the empty Bask in my pocket, counted my money, and left. 
   "Good luck, you complicated soul." 
   He didn't answer. The water was making a lot of noise. 
   There was Tender in person in the corridor. Red and puffed up like a turkey. Surrounded by coworkers, reporters, and 3 couple of sergeants (fresh from eating and picking their teeth), he was babbling on and on. "The technology that we command," he blathered, "al- most completely guarantees success and safety." Then he saw me and dried up a bit. He smiled and made little waving motions with his hand. Well, I'd better split, I thought. I made for the door, but they caught me. I heard footsteps behind me. 
   "Mr. Schuhart! Mr. Schuhart! A few words about the garage!" 
   "No comment." I broke into a run. But there was no getting away. 
   There was one with a mike on my right, and another with a camera on my left. 
   "Did you see anything strange in the garage. Just two words!" 
   "No comment!" I said, trying to keep the back of my head to the camera. "It's just a garage." 
   "Thank you. How do you feel about turboplatforms?" 
   "Most wonderful." I started edging toward the john. 
   "What do you think about the Visitation?" 
   "Ask the scientists," I said, and slid behind the bathroom door. 
   I could hear them scratching at the door. So I called out: "I heartily recommend that you ask Mr. Tender how his nose came to look like a beet. He's too modest to bring it up, but that was our most interesting adventure there." 
   They shot down the corridor. Faster than racehorses. I waited a minute. Silence. Stuck out my head. Nobody. And I went on my way, whistling a tune. I went down to the lobby, showed my pass to the bean-pole sergeant, and saw that he was saluting me. I guess I was the hero of the day. 
   "At ease, sergeant," said. "I'm pleased." 
   He showed so many teeth, you'd think I was flattering him beyond all reason. 
   "Well, Red, you sure are a hero. I'm proud to know you," he said. 
   "So now you'll have something to tell the girls about back in Sweden?" 
   "You bet! They'll just melt in my arms!" 
   I guess he's right. To tell the truth, I don't like guys who are that tall and rosy-cheeked. Women go nuts over them, and I don't know why. Height is not the important thing. I was walking down the street and thinking along these lines. The sun was shining and there was no one around. And suddenly I wanted to sec Guta right then and there. just like that. To look at her and hold her hand a while. After the Zone that's about all you can manage--to hold hands. Especially when you think of those stories about what stalkers' children turn out like.... Who needs Guta now? What I really needed was a bottle, at least a bottle, of the hard stuff. 
   I went past the parking lot. There was a checkpoint there. There were two patrol cars in all their glory--low-slung and yellow, armed with searchlights and machine guns, the toads. And of course, the cops had blue helmets, too. They were blocking the whole street. There was no way to get through. I kept walking with my eyes lowered, because it would be better for me not to see them right now. Not in daylight. There's two or three characters there that I'm afraid to recognize, because if I do, that'll be the end of them. It was a good thing for them that Kirill lured me into working for the institute. Otherwise, by God, I would have found the snakes and finished them off. 
   I shouldered my way through the crowd, I was almost past it when I heard someone shout "Hey, stalker!" Well, that had nothing to do with me, so I went on, rummaging for a cigarette in my pocket. Someone caught up with me and took me by the sleeve. I shook off the hand and half turned toward the man and said politely: 
   "What the hell do you think you're doing, mister?" 
   "Hold it, stalker," he said. "Just two questions. 
   I looked up at him. It was Captain Quarterblad. An old friend. He was all dried up and kind of yellow. 
   "Ah, greetings, captain. How's the liver?" 
   "Don't try to talk your way out of this, stalker." He was angry and his eyes bored into me. "You'd be better off telling me why you don't stop immediately when you're called." 
   And right behind him were two blue helmets, hands on holsters. You couldn't see their eyes, just their jaws working under the helmets. Where in Canada do they find these guys? Have they been sent out here to breed? In general I have no fear of the patrol guards in daytime, but they could search me, the toads, and I wasn't too crazy about the idea just then. 
   "Were you calling me, captain?" I said. "You were calling some stalker." 
   "Are you trying to tell me that you're not a stalker?" 
   "Once the time I spent thanks to you was over, I went straight. Quit stalking. Thanks to you, captain, my eyes were opened. If it hadn't been for you.... 
   "What were you doing in the Prezone Area?" 
   "What do you mean, what? I work there. Two years now. 
   To bring the unpleasant conversation to a close, I showed Captain Quarterblad my papers. He took my hook and examined it page by page, sniffing and smelling every stamp and seal on it. He returned the book and I could see how pleased he was. His eyes lit up and there was color in his cheeks. 
   "Forgive me, Schuhart," he said. "I didn't expect it of you. I'm glad to see that my advice wasn't wasted on you. Why, that's marvelous. You can believe me or not, but even back then I knew that you would turn out all right. I just couldn't believe that a fellow like you...." He went on and on like a record. Looked like I had saddled myself with another cured melancholic. Of course, I listened, eyes lowered modestly, nodding, spreading my arms innocently, and if I recall, shyly scuffing the sidewalk with my foot. The gorillas behind the captain's back listened a bit, and then got bored and went off some place more exciting. Meanwhile the captain was painting glorious vistas for my future: education was the light, ignorance was darkness, and the Lord loves and appreciates honest labor, and so on and so forth. He was slinging the same bull the priest used to give us in prison every Sunday. And I really needed a drink--toy thirst wouldn't wait. All right, I thought to myself, Red, you can put up with this too. You have to, so be patient. He can't keep it up for much longer Look, he's losing his breath al ready. A lucky break. One of the patrol cars started signaling. Captain Quarterblad looked around, heaved a sigh of dismay, and gave me his hand. 
   "Well, I'm glad I met you, Honest Mr. Schuhart. I would have been happy to drink to this acquaintance. I can't have whiskey, doctor's orders, but I would have enjoyed a beer. But, duty calls. We'll meet again," he said. God forbid. But I shook his hand and blushed and shuffled my feet, just like he wanted me to. He finally left me and I headed swift as an arrow for the Borscht. 
   It's always empty that time of day in the Borscht. Ernest was behind tile bar, wiping glasses, and holding them up to the light. It's amazing, by the way, that whenever you come in, bartenders are always wiping glasses, as though their salvation depended on it or something. He'll just stand there all day--pick up a glass, squint at it, hold it up to the light, breathe on it, and start rubbing. He'll rub and rub, look it over again (this time from the bottom) and then rub some more. 
   "Hi, Ernie! Leave the poor thing alone. You'll rub a hole through it." 
   He looked at me through the glass, muttered something indistinct and without a further word poured me four fingers of vodka. I climbed up on a stool, took a sip, made a face, shook my head, and had another sip. The refrigerator was humming, the jukebox was playing something soft and low, Ernest was laboring over another glass. It was peaceful. I finished my drink and put the glass back down on the bar. Ernest immediately poured me another four fingers. 
   "A little better?" he muttered. "Coming round, stalker?" 
   "Stick to your wiping, why don't you. You know, one guy rubbed until he got a genie. Ended up on easy street." 
   "Who was that?" Ernest asked suspiciously. 
   "It was another bartender here. Before your time." 
   "What happened?" 
   "Nothing. Why do you think the Visitation happened. It was all his rubbing. Who do you think the Visitors were?" 
   "You're a bum," Ernie said with approval. 
   He went to the kitchen and came back with a plate of grilled hot dogs. He put the plate in front of me, moved the catsup over toward me, and went back to his glasses. Ernest knows his stuff. His trained eye recognizes a stalker returned from the Zone with swag and he knows what a stalker needs after a visit to the Zone. Good old Ernie. A humanitarian. 
   I finished the hot dogs, lit a cigarette, and started calculating how much Ernie must make on us. I'm not sure of the prices the loot goes for in Europe, but I'd heard that an empty can get almost 2,500, and Ernie only gives us 400· Batteries there cost at least too and we're lucky if we can get to from him. Of course, shipping the loot to Europe must cost plenty. Grease this palm and that one.... and the stationmaster must be on his payroll too. When you think about it, Ernest really doesn't make that much, maybe fifteen or twenty per- cent, no more. And if he gets caught, it's ten years at hard labor. 
   Here my honorable meditations were interrupted by some polite type. I hadn't even heard him walk in. He announced himself next to my elbow, asking permission to sit down. 
   "Don't mention it. Please do." 
   He was a skinny little guy with a sharp nose and a bow tie. His face looked familiar, but I couldn't place him. He climbed up on the stool next to me and said to Ernest. 
   "Bourbon, please!" And then turned to me. "Excuse me, but don't I know you? You work in the International Institute, don't you?" 
   "Yes. And you?" 
   He speedily whipped out his business card and set it in front of me. 
   "Aloysius Macnaught, Agent Plenipotentiary of the Emigration Bureau." 
   Well, of course, I knew him. He bugs people to leave the city. As it is, there's hardly half the population left in Harmont, yet he has to clear the place of us completely. I pushed away his card with my fingernail. 
   "No thanks. I'm not interested. My dream is to die in my home- I town." 
   "But why?" he jumped in quickly. "Forgive my indiscretion, but what's keeping you here?" 
   "What do you mean? Fond memories of childhood. My first kiss in the municipal park. Mommy and daddy. My first time drunk, right here in this bar. The police station so dear to my heart...." I took a heavily used handkerchief from my pocket and dabbed my eyes. 
   "No, I can't leave for any amount!" 
   He laughed, took a tiny sip of bourbon, and spoke in a thoughtful way. 
   "I just can't understand you Harmonites. Life is tough in the city. There's military control. Few amenities. The Zone right next to you --it's like sitting on a volcano. An epidemic could break out any day. Or something worse. I can understand the old people. It's hard for them to leave. But you, how old are you? Twenty-two, twenty-three? Can't you understand that the bureau is a charitable organization, we don't profit by this in any way. We just want people to leave this hellhole and get back into the mainstream of life. We underwrite the move, find you work. For young people like you, we pay for an education. No, I just don't understand!" 
   "Do you mean nobody wants to leave?" 
   "Not nobody. Some are leaving, particularly the ones with families. But the young folk and the old people--what do you people want in this place? It's a hick town, a hole." 
   I let him have it. 
   "Mr. Aloysius Macnaught! You're absolutely right. Our little town is a hole. It always has been and still is. But now it is a hole into the future. We're going to dump so much through this hole into your lousy world that everything will change in it. Life will be different. It'll be fair. Everyone will have everything that he needs. Some hole, huh? Knowledge comes through this hole. And when we have the knowledge, we'll make everyone rich, and we'll fly to the stars, and go anywhere we want. That's the kind of hole we have here." 
   I broke off here, because I noticed Ernest watching me in amazement. I felt uncomfortable. I don't usually like using other people's words, even when I agree with them. Besides, it was coming out kind of funny. When Kirill speaks, you listen and forget to close your mouth. And even though I seem to be saying the same things, it doesn't come out the same. Maybe it's because Kirill never slipped Ernest any loot under the counter.... 
   Ernie snapped to attention and hurriedly poured me six fingers of booze at once, as if to bring me back to my senses. The sharp-nosed Mr. Macnaught took another sip of his bourbon. 
   "Yes, of course. Eternal batteries, the blue panacea. But do you really believe things will be the way you described them?" 
   "It's none of your business what I really believe. I was speaking for the city. As for myself, what do you have in Europe that I haven't seen? I know about your boredom. You knock yourself out all day, and watch TV all night." 
   "It doesn't necessarily have to be Europe." 
   "It's all the same, except that it's cold in Antarctica." 
   The amazing part was that I believed it in my guts as I said it to him. Our Zone, the bitch, the killer, was a hundred times dearer to me at that second than all of their Europes and Africas. And I wasn't drunk yet, I had just pictured for a minute how I would drag myself home in a herd of cretins just like myself, how I would be pushed and squeezed in the subway, and how I was sick and tired of everything. 
   "And what about you?" he asked Ernest. 
   "I have a business," he replied self-importantly. "I'm no punk. I've invested all my money in this business. The base commander himself comes in once in a while, a general, you understand? Why should I leave here?" 
   Mr. Aloysius Macnaught tried to make some point, quoting a lot of figures. But I wasn't listening. I took a good long gulp, pulled out a lot of change from my pocket, got off the stool and pumped the jukebox. There's a song on there: "Don't Come Back If You're Not Sure." It has a good effect on me after a trip to the Zone. The jukebox was howling and rocking. I had taken my glass into the corner where I was hoping to even old scores with the one-armed bandit. And time flew like a bird. I was putting in my last nickel when Richard Noonan and Gutalin crashed into the hospitable arms of the bar. Gutalin was blotto, rolling his eyes and looking for a place to rest his fist. Richard Noonan was tenderly holding him by the elbow and distracting him with jokes. A pretty pair! Gutalin is a huge black ape with knuckles down to his knees, and Dick is a small round pink creature that all but glows. 
   "Hey!" shouted Dick. "There's Red! Come over and join us!" 
   "R-r-right!" roared Gutalin. "There are only two real men in this whole city--Red and me! All the rest are pigs or Satan's children. Red, you also serve the devil, but you're still human." 
   I came over with my glass. Gutalin peeled off my jacket and seated me at the table. 
   "Sit down, Red! Sit down, Satan's servant. I like you. Let's have a cry over the sins of mankind. A good long bitter wail." 
   "Let's wail," I said. "Let's drink the tears of sin." 
   "For the day is nigh," Gutalin announced. "For the white steed is saddled and his rider has put his foot in the stirrup. And the prayers of those who have sold themselves to Satan are in vain. Only those who have renounced him will be saved. You, children of man who were seduced by the devil, who play with the devil's toys, who dig up Satan's treasures--I say unto you: you are blind! Awake, you bastards, before it's too late! Trample the devil's trinkets!" He stopped, as though he had forgotten what came next. "Can I get a drink here?" he suddenly asked in a different voice. "You know, Red, I've been canned again. Said I was an agitator. I keep explaining to them: Awake, blind ones, you're falling into the pit and taking others with you! They just laughed. So I punched the shop leader in the nose and split. They'll arrest me now. And for what?" Dick came over and put the bottle on the table. 
   "It's on me today!" I called to Ernest. 
   Dick gave me a sidelong look. 
   "It's perfectly legal," I said. "We're drinking my bonus check." 
   "You went into the Zone?" Dick asked. "Bring anything out?" 
   "A full empty," I said. "For the altar of science. Are you going to pour that or not?" 
   "An empty!" Gutalin echoed in sorrow. "You risked your life for some empty! You survived, but you brought another devil's artifact into the world. How do you know, Red, how much of sorrow and sin. . . ." 
   "Can it, Gutalin," I said severely. "Drink and rejoice that I came back alive. To success, my friends." 
   It went over well, the toast to success. Gutalin fell apart completely. He was weeping, the tears streaming like water from a spout. I know him well. It's just a phase. Weeping and preaching that the Zone is the devil's temptation. That we should take nothing out of it and return everything that we've taken. And go on living as though the Zone were not there. Leave the devil's things to the devil. I like him. Gutalin, I mean. I usually like weirdos. When he has money, he buys up the swag without haggling, for whatever price the stalkers ask, and totes it back at night into the Zone and buries it. He was waiting. But he would be stopping soon. 
   "What's a full empty?" Dick asked. "I know what a plain empty is, but this is the first time I've ever heard of a full one." 
   I explained it to him. He nodded and smacked his lips. 
   "Yes, that's very interesting. Something new. Who did you go with? The Russian?" 
   "Yes, with Kirill and Tender. You know, our lab assistant." 
   "They must have driven you crazy." 
   "Nothing of the kind. They behaved quite well. Especially Kirill. He's a born stalker. He just needs a little more experience, to break him of his hurrying, and I'd go into the Zone every day with him." 
   "And every night?" he asked with a drunken smirk. 
   "Drop it. A joke's a joke." 
   "I know. A joke's a joke, but it can get me into a lot of trouble. I owe you one." 
   "Who gets one?" Gutalin got excited. "Which one is it?" 
   We grabbed him by the arms and got him back in his chair. Dick stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. We calmed him down. Meanwhile more and more people were coming in. The bar was crowded and many of the tables were taken. Ernest had gotten his girls and they were bringing drinks to the customers--beer, cocktails, vodka. I noticed that there were a lot of new faces in town lately, mostly young punks with long bright scarves hanging to the Boor. I mentioned it to Dick. Dick nodded. 
   "What do you expect? They're starting a lot of construction. The institute is putting up three new buildings and besides that they're planning to wall off the Zone from the cemetery to the old ranch. The good times are over for the stalkers." 
   "When were the good old days for stalkers?" I said. There you go, I thought, what's all this new stuff? I guess I won't be able to make a few bucks on the side any more. Maybe it's for the best. Less temptation. I'll go into the Zone in the daytime, like a decent citizen. The money's not the same, of course, but it's a lot safer. The boot, the special suit, and so on, and no worries with the border patrol. I can live on my salary, and I'll booze it up on the bonuses. Then I got really depressed. Penny-pinching again: I can afford this, I can't afford that. I'd have to save up to buy Guta the crummiest rag, no more bars, just cheap movies. It was bleak. Every day was gray, and every evening, and every night. I was sitting there thinking, and Dick was yelling in my ear. 
   "Last night at the hotel I went into the bar for a nightcap. There were some new guys there. I didn't like their looks at all. One comes over to me and starts a conversation in a roundabout way, lets me know that he knows me, knows what I do, where I work, and hints that he's ready to pay good money for various services." 
   "An informer," I said. I wasn't very interested. I've had my fill of informers and little talks about services. 
   "No, buddy, not an informer. Listen. I chatted for a bit, carefully, of course, led him on. He's interested in certain objects in the Zone. Serious ones, at that. Batteries, itchers, black sprays, and other such baubles do nothing for him. He only hinted at what he did want. 
   "What was it?" 
   "Witches' jelly, as far as I could understand," Dick said and looked at me strangely. 
   "Oh, so he wants the witches' jelly, does he? How about some death lamps while he's at it?" 
   "I asked him the same thing. 
   "And?" 
   "Would you believe that he wants some, too." 
   "Yes?" I said. "Well, let him go get it himself. It's a snap. There are cellars full of witches' jelly. Let him take a bucket and bail out as much as he wants. It's his funeral." 
   Dick said nothing and watched me without even smiling. What the hell was he thinking? Was he thinking of hiring me? And then I got it. 
   "Hold on," I said. "Who was that guy? You're not allowed to study the jelly even at the institute. 
   "Right." Dick was speaking slowly and watching me. "It's research that holds potential danger for mankind. Now do you understand who that was?" 
   I understood nothing. 
   "The Visitors, you mean?" He laughed, patted my hand, and said: 
   "Why' don't we just have a drink instead. You're such a simple soul!" 
   "OK by me," I said. But I was angry. The sons of bitches think I'm such a simpleton, eh? "Hey, Gutalin," I said. "Gutalin! Wake up, let's drink!" 
   Gutalin was fast asleep. His black cheek lay on the black tabletop and his hands drooped down to the floor. Dick and I had a drink without him. 
   "All right, now," I said. "Simple soul or complicated, I'll tell you what I would do about that guy. You know how much love I have for the police, but I'd turn him in. 
   "Sure. And the police would ask you why this guy turned to you rather than someone else. Then what?" I shook my head. 
   "It doesn't matter. You, you fat jerk, you've only been in the city three years and haven't been in the Zone once. You've only seen the witches' jelly in the movies. You should see it in real life and what it does to a human being. It's a horrible thing and it shouldn't be brought out of the Zone. You know yourself that stalkers are a rough bunch, all they want is money and more money, but even the late Slimy wouldn't have gone in on a deal like that. Buzzard Burbridge wouldn't go for it either. I hate to think who would need witches jelly and for what. 
   "Well, you're right about all that," said Dick. "But you see, I'd hate to be found one morning in bed having committed suicide. I'm not a stalker, but I am a practical person anyway, and I like living, you know. I've been doing it for a long time and I've gotten into the habit." 
   Ernest shouted from the bar: 
   "Mr. Noonan! Telephone!" 
   "What the hell!" Dick said angrily. "Must be Shipping Adjustment again. They find you everywhere. Excuse me, Red." 
   He got up and went to the phone. I stayed behind with Gutalin and the bottle, and since Gutalin was of no help at all, I attacked the bottle on my own. Goddamn that Zone. You can't get away from it. Wherever you go, whoever you talk to, it's always the Zone, the Zone, the Zone. It's easy for Kirill to talk about the eternal peace and harmony that will come from the Zone. Kirill is a fine fellow and no fool -- on the contrary, he's really bright--but he doesn't know a damn thing about life. He can't even imagine what kind of scum and criminals hang around the Zone. Now somebody wants to get his hands on the witches' jelly. Gutalin may be a drunk and a religious nut, but maybe he's got something there. Maybe we should leave the devil's things to the devil? Hands off. 
   Some punk in a bright scarf sat in Dick's chair. 
   "Mr. Schuhart?" 
   "So what?" 
   "My name is Creon. I'm from Malta. 
   "So how are things in Malta?" 
   "Things are fine in Malta, but that's not what I wanted to talk about. Ernest put me on to you. 
   So, I thought. That Ernest really was a bastard. Not a drop of pity in him. Here's this young guy--tan, and clean, and pretty. Hasn't ever shaved or kissed a girl. But Ernest doesn't care. He just wants to send more people into the Zone. One out of three will come back with swag, and that's money for him. 
   "So how's old Ernest?" I asked. 
   He looked over at the bar. 
   "He looks well. I wouldn't mind trading places with him." 
   "I would. Want a drink?" 
   "Thanks, I don't drink." 
   "A smoke?" 
   "Forgive me, but I don't smoke, either." 
   "Damn you then. What the hell do you need the money for?" 
   He blushed and stopped smiling. 
   "Probably," he said in a low voice, "that concerns only me, doesn't it, Mr. Schuhart?" 
   "You're absolutely right," I said and poured myself another four fingers. My head was beginning to buzz and I was feeling a nice looseness in my limbs. The Zone had let go of me completely. "I'm drunk right now. I'm celebrating, as you can see. I went into the Zone and came back alive and with money. It doesn't happen very often that people come back alive and even more rarely that they come back with money. So why don't we postpone any serious discussions." 
   He jumped up and excused himself. I saw that Dick was back. He was standing by his chair and I could see in his face that something had happened. 
   "Your tanks losing their vacuum again?" 
   "Yep," he said. "Again." 
   He sat down, poured himself a drink, freshened mine, and I could see that whatever it was, it had nothing to do with faulty goods. To tell the truth, he couldn't care less about the shipments--a model worker! 
   "Let's have a drink, Red." Without waiting for me he gulped down his drink and poured himself another. "You know Kirill Panov died." 
   I was so stoned that I didn't quite understand. Someone died. So what. 
   "Well, let's drink to the departed." 
   He looked at me with his round eyes and only then did I feel as if a string had snapped inside my body. I remember that I got up and leaned against the table. I looked down at him. 
   "Kirill?" The silver web was before my eyes and I could hear it cracking again as it tore. And through the eerie sound of the cracking I could hear Dick's voice as though he were in another room. 
   "Heart attack. They found him in the shower, naked. Nobody knows what's happened. They asked about you. I told them you were in perfect shape." 
   "What's to understand? It's the Zone." 
   "Sit down. Sit down and have a drink." 
   "The Zone," I repeated. I couldn't stop saying it. "The Zone, the Zone. . . ." 
   I couldn't see anything around me except for the silver web. The whole bar was caught in the web and as people moved around, the web crackled softly as they touched it. The Maltese boy was standing in the middle. His childlike face was surprised--he didn't understand a thing. 
   "Little boy," I said gently. "How much do you need? Will a thousand be enough? Here, take it. Take it!" I shoved the money at him and started shouting: "Go to Ernest and tell him that he's a bastard and scum. Don't be afraid! Tell him! He's a coward, too. Tell him and then go straight to the station and buy a ticket for Malta! Don't stop anywhere." I don't remember what else I shouted. I do remember ending up in front of the bar and Ernest giving me a glass of soda. 
   "You're in the money today?" he asked. 
   "Yes, I've got some." 
   "How about a little loan? I have to pay my taxes tomorrow." 
   I realized that I had a bundle of money in my hand. I looked at the wad and muttered: 
   "That means he didn't take it. Creon of Malta is a proud young man, it seems. Well, it's out of my hands. Whatever happens now is fate." 
   "What's the matter with you?" my pal Ernie asked. "Had a little too much?" 
   "Nope, I'm fine," I said. "Perfect shape. Ready for the showers." 
   "Why don't you head on home? You've had a little too much." 
   "Kirill died." I said to him. 
   "Which Kirill? The one-armed one?" 
   "You're one-armed yourself, you bastard. You couldn't make one man like Kirill from a thousand like you. You rat, you son of a bitch, you lousy scum bastard. You're dealing in death, you know that? You bought us all with your dough. You want to see me tear your little shop apart?" 
   And just when I reared back to lay a good one on him I was grabbed and hauled off somewhere. I couldn't understand anything then and I didn't want to. I was shouting and fighting and kicking and when I came to I was in the john, all wet, and my face was in lousy shape. I didn't even recognize myself in the mirror. My cheek was twitching, I'd never had that before. Outside I could hear a racket, dishes breaking, the girls squealing, and Gutalin roaring louder than a grizzly: 
   "Repent, you good-for-nothings! Where's Red? What have you done with him, you seeds of the devil?" And the wail of the police siren. 
   As soon as I heard it, everything became crystal clear in my brain. I remembered everything, knew everything, and understood every- thing. And there was nothing left in my soul but icy hatred. So, I thought, I'll give you a party! I'll show you what a stalker is, you lousy bloodsucker! I pulled out an itcher from my watch pocket. It was brand new, never used. I squeezed it a couple of times to get it going, opened the door into the bar and tossed it quietly into the spittoon. Then I opened the window and climbed out into the street. I really wanted to stick around and see it all happen, but I had to get out of there as fast as possible. The itchers give me nosebleeds 
   I ran across the backyard. I could hear my itcher working full blast. First all the dogs in the neighborhood started howling and barking --they sense the itcher before humans do. Then someone in the bar started yelling so loud that my ears clogged even at that distance. I could just see the crowd going wild in there--some fall into deep depression, others freak out, and some panic with fear. The itcher is a terrifying thing. Ernest will have a long wait before he can get a full house in his place again. The bastard will guess of course that it was me, but I don't give a damn. It's over. There is no more stalker named Red. I've had enough. Enough of risking my own life and teaching other fools how to risk theirs. You were wrong, Kirill, my old buddy. I'm sorry, but you were wrong and Gutalin was right. This was no place for humans. The Zone was evil. 
   I climbed over the fence and headed home. I was biting my lip. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. All I saw was emptiness and sadness. Kirill, my buddy, my only friend, how could it have happened? How will I get on without you? You painted vistas for me, about a new world, a changed world. And now what? Someone in far-off Russia will cry for you, but I can't. And it was all my fault. No one else but me, a good-for-nothing. How could I take him into the garage when his eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark? I'd lived my whole life like a wolf, caring only about myself. And suddenly I decided to be a benefactor and give him a little present. Why the hell did I ever mention that empty to him? When I thought about it, I felt a pain in my throat and I wanted to howl. Maybe I did. People were avoiding me on the street. And then things got easier: I saw Guta coming. 
   She was coming toward me, my beauty, my darling girl, walking with her pretty little feet, her skirt swaying over her knees. Eyes followed her from every doorway. But she was walking a straight line, looking at no one, and I realized that she was looking for me. 
   "Hello," I said. "Guta, where are you going?" She took me in in one glance--my bashed-in face, my wet jacket, my scraped hands--but she didn't say a thing. 
   "Hello, Red. I was just coming to see you." 
   "I know. Let's go to my place." 
   She turned away and said nothing. Her head is so pretty on her long neck, like a young mare's, proud but submissive to her master. 
   "I don't know, Red. You may not want to see me any more." 
   My heart contracted. What now? But I spoke calmly. 
   "I don't understand what you're getting at, Guta. Forgive me, I'm a little drunk today, so I'm not thinking straight. Why wouldn't want to see you any more?" 
   I took her hand and we walked slowly toward my place. Everybody who had been eyeing her before was hurrying to hide his mug now. I've lived on this street all my life and everybody knows Red very well. And anyone who doesn't will get to know me fast enough, and he can sense that. 
   "Mother wants me to have an abortion," she said suddenly. "I don't want to." I had walked several steps before I understood what she was saying. 
   "I don't want an abortion. I want to have your child. You can do what you want, go off to the four corners of the world. I won't keep you. 
   I listened to her and watched her get heated up. And I was feeling more and more stunned. I just couldn't make head or tail of it. There was this nonsensical thought buzzing in my head: one man less, one man more. 
   "She keeps telling me that a baby by a stalker will be a freak, that you're a wanderer, that we'll have no real family. Today you're free, tomorrow you're in jail. But I don't care, I'm ready for anything. I can do it alone. I'll have him alone, I'll raise him alone, and make him into a man alone. I can manage without you, too. But don't you come around to me any more. I won't let you through the door." 
   "Guta, my darling girl," I said. "Wait a minute...." I couldn't go on talking. A nervous, idiotic laugh was welling and breaking me up. "My honeypie, why are you chasing me away then?" 
   I was laughing like a village idiot, and she was bawling on my chest. 
   "What will happen to us now, Red?" she asked through her tears. 
   "What will happen to us now?" 

2. REDRICK SCHUHART, AGE 28,

   MARRIED, NO PERMANENT OCCUPATION 

   Redrick Schuhart lay behind a gravestone and looked at the road through a branch of the ash tree. The searchlights of the patrol car were combing the cemetery and once in a while one caught him in the eyes. Then he would squint and hold his breath. 
   Two hours had passed and things were still the same on the road. The car was still parked, its motor throbbing evenly, and kept scanning with its three searchlights the rundown graves, the lopsided, rusty crosses and headstones, the overgrown bushy ash trees, and the crest of the ten-foot-thick wall that broke off on the left. The border patrol guards were afraid of the Zone. They didn't even get out of the car. Near the cemetery, they were even too scared to shoot. Redrick could hear their lowered voices once in a while, and once in a while he could see the light of a cigarette butt fly out of the car window and roll down the highway, skipping along and scattering weak red sparks. It was very damp, it had just rained, and Redrick could feel the dank cold through his waterproof jumpsuit. 
   He carefully released the branch, turned his head, and listened. Somewhere to the right, not too far, but not too close either, there was someone else in the cemetery. The leaves rustled there once more and soil crumbled, and then there was the soft thud of something hard and heavy falling. Redrick started crawling backward, carefully and without turning around, hugging the wet grass. The beam of light swung over his head. He froze, following its silent movement, and he thought he saw a man in black sitting motionless on a grave between the crosses. He was sitting there openly, leaning against a marble obelisk, turning his white face with its black sunken holes toward Redrick. Actually Redrick did not see him clearly, nor was it possible in the split second he had, but he filled in the details with his imagination. He crawled away a few more steps and felt for his flask inside his jacket. He pulled it out and lay with its warm metal against his cheek for a while. Then still holding onto the flask, he crawled on. He stopped listening and looking around. 
   There was a break in the wall and Burbridge was lying there in a lead-lined raincoat with a bullet hole in it. He was still on his back, Pulling at the collar of his sweater with both hands and moaning painfully. Redrick sat next to him and unscrewed the flask's cap. He carefully held Burbridge's head, feeling the hot, sticky, sweaty bald spot with his palm, and brought the Bask to the old man's lips. It was dark, but in the weak reflections of the searchlights Redrick could see Burbridge's wide-open, glassy eyes and the dark stubble that covered his cheeks. Burbridge greedily took several gulps and then nervously felt for his sack with the swag. 
   "You came back.... Good fellow.... Red. You won't leave an old man to die." 
   Redrick threw back his head and took a deep swallow. 
   "It's still there. Like it was nailed to tile highway. 
   "it's no accident," Burbridge said. He spoke in spurts, on the exhale. "Someone must have squealed. They're waiting for us" 
   "Maybe, said Redrick. "Want another swallow?" 
   "No. That's enough for now. Don't abandon me. If you don't leave me, I won't die. You won't be sorry. You won't leave me, will you? Red?" 
   Redrick did not answer. He was looking over at the highway and the flashes of light. He could see the marble obelisk, but he couldn't tell if he was sitting there or not. 
   "Listen, Red. I'm not fooling. You won't be sorry Do you know why old Burbridge is still alive? Do you know? Bob tile Gorilla blew it. Pharaoh the Banker kicked the bucket. And what a stalker he was! And he was killed. Slimy, too. And Norman Four-Eyes. Culligan. Pete the Scab. AII of them. I'm the only who's survived. Why? Do you know?" 
   "You were always a rat, said Red, never taking his eyes off the road. "A son of a bitch." 
   "A rat. That's true. You can't get by without being one. But all of them were. Pharaoh. Slimy. But I'm the only one left. Do you know why?" 
   "I know," said Red to end the conversation. 
   "You're lying. You don't know. Have you heard about the Golden Ball?" 
   "Yes. 
   "You think it's a fairy tale?" 
   "You'd better keep quiet. Save your strength. 
   "It's all right. You'll carry me out. We've gone to the Zone so many times. Could you abandon me? I knew you when. You were so small. Your father.... 
   Redrick said nothing. He wanted a cigarette badly. He took one out, crumpled the tobacco in his hand, and sniffed it. It didn't help. 
   "You have to get me out. I got burned because of you. You're the one who wouldn't take the Maltese. 
   The Maltese was itching to go with them. He had treated them all evening, offering a good percentage, swore that he would get a special suit, and Burbridge, who was sitting next to him, kept winking to Red behind his leathery hand. Let's take him, we won't go wrong. Maybe that was why Red said no. 
   "You got it because you were greedy," Red said coldly. "I had nothing to do with it. You'd better be quiet. " 
   For a while, Burbridge moaned. He had his fingers in his collar again and his head was thrown back. 
   "You can have all the swag," he gasped. "just don't leave me. 
   Redrick looked at his watch. There wasn't much time until dawn, and the patrol car was still there. Its spotlights were still searching the bushes, and their camouflaged jeep was quite close to the police car. They could find it any minute. 
   "The Golden Ball," said Burbridge. "I found it. There were so many tales about it. I spun a few myself. That it would grant your every wish. Any wish, hah! If that were true, I sure wouldn't be here. I'd be living high on the hog in Europe. Swimming in dough." 
   Redrick looked down at him. In the flickering blue light Bur- bridge's upturned face looked dead. But his glassy eyes were fixed on Redrick. 
   "Eternal youth--like hell I got it. Money--the hell with that, too. But I got health. And good children. And I'm alive. You can only dream about the places I've been. And I'm still alive." He licked his lips. "I only ask for one thing. Let me live. And give me health. And the children. 
   "Will you shut up?" Red finally said. "You sound like a dame. If I can, I'll get you out. I'm sorry for your Dina. She'll have to hit the streets. 
   "Dina," the old man whispered hoarsely. "My little girl. My beauty. They're spoiled, Red. I've never refused them anything. They'll be lost. Arthur. My Artie. You know him, Red. Have you ever seen anything like him?" 
   "I told you: if I can I'll save you." 
   "No," Burbridge said stubbornly. "You'll get me out no matter what. The Golden Ball. Do you want me to tell you where it is?" 
   "Go ahead." Burbridge moaned and stirred. 
   "My legs.... Feel how they are." 
   Redrick reached out and moved his hand down his leg below the knee. 
   "The bones...." He moaned. "Are the bones still there?" 
   "They're there. Stop fussing." 
   "You're lying. Why lie? You think I don't know, I've never seen it happen?" 
   Actually all he could feel was the kneecap. Below, all the way to the ankle, the leg was like a rubber stick. You could tie knots in it. 
   "The knees are whole," Red said. 
   "You're probably lying," Burbridge said sadly. "Well, all right. just get me out. I'll give you everything. The Golden Ball. I'll draw you a map. Show you all the traps. I'll tell you everything." 
   He promised other things, too, but Redrick wasn't listening. He was looking at the highway. The spotlights weren't racing across the shrubbery any more. They were frozen. They converged on that obelisk. In the bright blue fog Redrick could see the bent black figure wandering among the crosses. The figure seemed to be moving blindly, straight into the lights. Redrick saw it bump into a huge cross, stumble, bump into the cross again, walk around it, and continue on, its arms outstretched before it, fingers spread wide. Then it suddenly disappeared, as though it fell underground; it surfaced a few seconds later, to the right and farther away, stepping with a bizarre, inhuman stubbornness, like a wind-up toy. 
   Suddenly the lights went out. The transmission squealed, the engine roared, and the blue and red signal lights showed through the shrubs. The patrol car tore away, accelerated wildly, and raced toward town. It disappeared behind the wall. Redrick gulped and unzipped his jump suit. 
   "They've gone away." Burbridge muttered feverishly. "Red, let's go. Hurry!" We shifted around, felt for and found his bag, and tried to get up. "Let's go, what are you waiting for?" 
   Redrick was still looking toward the road. It was dark now, and nothing could be seen, but somewhere out there he was stalking, like an automaton, stumbling, falling, bumping into crosses, getting tangled in the shrubs. 
   "All right," Red said out loud. "Let's go." 
   He lifted Burbridge. The old man clamped onto his neck with his left hand. Redrick, unable to straighten up, crawled with him on all fours through the hole in the wall, grabbing the wet grass. 
   "Let's go, let's go," Burbridge whispered hoarsely. "Don't worry, I've got the swag, I won't let go. Come on!" 
   The path was familiar, but the wet grass was slippery, the ash branches whipped him in the face, the bulky old man was unbearably heavy, like a corpse, and the bag with the booty, clinking and clanging, kept getting caught, and he was afraid of running into him, who could be anywhere in the dark. 
   When they got out onto the highway, it was still dark, but you could tell that dawn was coming. In the little wood across the road, birds were making sleepy and uncertain noises, and the night gloom was turning blue over the black houses in the distant suburbs. There was a chilly damp breeze coming from there. Redrick put Burbridge on the shoulder of the road and like a big black spider scuttled across the road. He quickly found the jeep, swept off the branches from the hood and fenders, and drove out onto the asphalt without turning on the headlights. Burbridge was there, holding the bag in one hand and feeling his legs with the other. 
   "Hurry up! Hurry. My knees, I still have my knees. If only we could save my knees!" 
   Redrick picked him up, and gritting his teeth from the strain, shoved him over the side. Burbridge landed on the back seat and groaned. He hadn't dropped the bag. Redrick picked up the lead- lined raincoat and covered him with it. Burbridge had even managed to get the coat out. 
   Redrick took out a flashlight and checked the shoulder for tracks. There weren't too many traces. The jeep had Battened some of the tall grasses as it came onto the road, but the grass would stand up in a couple of hours. There were an enormous number of butts around the spot where the patrol car had parked. That reminded Redrick that he wanted a smoke. He lit one up, even though what he wanted more was to get the hell out of there and drive as fast as he could. But he couldn't do that yet. Everything had to be done slowly and consciously. 
   "What's the matter?" Burbridge whined from the car. "You haven't spilled the water, and the finishing gear is dry. What are you waiting for? Come on, hide the swag!" 
   "Shut up! Don't bug me! We'll head for the southern suburbs." 
   "What suburbs? Are you crazy? You'll ruin my knees, you bastard! My knees!" 
   Redrick took a last drag and put the butt in his matchbox. 
   "Don't be a jerk, Buzzard. We can't go straight through town. There are three roadblocks. We'll get stopped once for sure." 
   "So what?" 
   "They'll take one look at your feet and it's curtains." 
   "What about my legs? We were fishing, I hurt my legs, and that's that." 
   "And what if they feel your legs?" 
   "Feel them. I'll yell so loud that they'll never try feeling a leg again." 
   But Redrick had already decided. He lifted the driver's seat, flashing his light, opened a secret compartment, and said: 
   "Let me have the stuff." 
   The gas tank under the seat was a dummy. Redrick took the bag and stuffed it inside, listening to the clinking and clanging in the bag. 
   "I can't take any risks," he muttered. "I don't have the right. 
   He put the cover back on, covered it up with rubbish and rags, and replaced the seat. Burbridge was moaning and groaning, begging him to hurry, and promising him the Golden Ball again. He twisted and shifted in his seat, staring anxiously into the growing light. Redrick paid no attention to him. He tore open the plastic bag of water with the fish in it, poured out the water over the fishing gear, and put the flopping fish into the basket. He folded up the plastic bag and put it in his pocket. Now everything was in order. Two fishermen coming back from a not very successful trip. He got behind the wheel and started the car. 
   He drove all the way to the turn without putting on the lights. The vast ten-foot wall stretched to the left of them, hemming in the Zone, and on their right there were occasional abandoned cottages, with bearded windows and peeling paint. Redrick could see well in the dark, and it wasn't that dark any more anyway, and besides, he knew that it was coming. So when the bent figure, striding rhythmically, appeared before the car, he didn't even slow down. He hunched over the wheel. He was walking in the middle of the road--like all of them, he was headed for town. Redrick passed him from the left and speeded up. 
   "Mother of God!" Burbridge muttered in the back seat. "Red, did you see that?" 
   "Yes." 
   "God! That's all we need!" Suddenly Burbridge broke into a loud prayer. 
   "Shut up!" Redrick shouted at him. 
   The turn should have been right around there somewhere. Redrick slowed down, staring at the row of sinking houses and fences on the right. The old transformer hut, the pole with the supports, the rotting bridge over the culvert. Redrick turned the wheel. The car tossed and turned. 
   "Where are you going?" Burbridge wailed. "You'll ruin my legs, you bastard!" 
   Redrick turned around for a second and slapped the old man's face, feeling his prickly stubbled cheek. Burbridge sputtered and fell silent. The car was bouncing and the wheels slipped in the fresh mud from last night's rain. Redrick turned on the lights. The white bouncing light illuminated overgrown old ruts, huge puddles, and rotten, leaning fences. Burbridge was crying, sobbing, and snuffling. He wasn't promising anything any more. He was complaining and threatening, but in a very quiet and indistinct voice, so that Redrick heard only isolated words. Something about legs, knees, and his darling Archie. Then he shut up. 
   The village stretched along the western edge of the city. There once had been summer houses, gardens, orchards, and the summer villas of the city fathers and plant directors. Green, pleasant places with small lakes and clean sandy beaches, translucent birch groves, and ponds stocked with carp. The stink and pollution from the plant never reached this verdant glade--nor did the city plumbing system. But now everything here was abandoned and they passed only one inhabited house--the window shone yellow through the drawn blinds, the wash on the line was wet from the rain, and a huge dog rushed out at them furiously and chased the car through the mud thrown up by the wheels. 
   Redrick carefully drove over an old rickety bridge. When he could see the turnoff to Western Highway, he stopped the car and turned off the motor. Then he got. out and went on the road without looking back at Burbridge, his hands stuffed into the damp pockets of his jumpsuit. It was light. Everything around them was wet, still, and sleepy. He walked over to the highway and peered from the bushes. The police: checkpoint was easily visible from his vantage point: a little trailer house, with three lighted windows. The patrol car was parked next to it. It was empty. Redrick stood watching for some time. There was no action at the checkpoint; the guards must have gotten cold and wornout during the night and were warming up in the trailer. Dreaming over cigarettes stuck to their lower lips. "The toads," Redrick said softly. He found the brass knuckles in his pocket, slipped his fingers into the oval holes, pressed the cold metal into his fist, and still hunched up against the chill and with his hands still in his pockets, he went back. The jeep, listing slightly to one side, was parked among the bushes. It was a lost, quiet spot. Probably nobody had looked at it in the last ten years. 
   When Redrick reached the car, Burbridge sat up and looked at him, his mouth open. He looked even older than usual, wrinkled, bald, unshaven, and with rotten teeth. They stared at each other silently, and then Burbridge said distinctly: 
   "The map . . . all the traps, everything. . . . You'll find it and you won't be sorry." 
   Redrick listened to him without moving; then he loosened his fingers and let the brass knuckles fall into his pocket 
   "All right. All you have to do is lie there in a faint. Understand? Moan and don't let anyone touch you." 
   He got behind the wheel and started the car. 
   Everything went well. No one got out of the trailer when the jeep drove slowly past, obeying all the signs and making all the correct signals. It accelerated and sped into town through die southern end. It was six A.M. The streets were empty, the pavement wet and shiny black, and the traffic lights winked lonely and unneeded at the intersections. They drove past the bakery with its high, brightly lit windows, and Redrick was engulfed in a wave of the warm, incredibly delicious smell of baking bread. 
   "I'm starved," Redrick said and stretched his stiffened muscles by pushing his hands into the wheel. 
   "What?" Burbridge asked frightenedly. 
   "I'm starved, I said. Where to? Home or straight to the Butcher?" 
   "To the Butcher, and hurry." Burbridge was ranting, leaning forward and breathing hotly on Redrick's neck. "Straight to his house. Come on! He still owes me seven hundred. Will you drive faster? You're crawling like a louse in a puddle." He started cursing impotently and angrily, sputtering, panting. It ended in a coughing fit. 
   Redrick did not answer. He had neither the time nor the energy to pacify Buzzard when he was going at full speed. He wanted to Finish up as soon as possible and get an hour or so of sleep before his appointment at the Metropole. He turned onto Sixteenth Street, drove two blocks, and parked in front of a gray, two-story private house. 
   The Butcher came to the door himself. He had just gotten up and was on his way to the bathroom. He was wearing a luxurious robe with gold tassels and was carrying a glass with his false teeth. His hair was disheveled and there were dark circles under his eyes. 
   "Oh, itsh Red? Sho how are you?" 
   "Put in your teeth and let's go." 
   "Uh-huh." He nodded him into the waiting room and hurried off to the bathroom, scuffing along in his Persian slippers. 
   "Who is it?" he asked from there. 
   "Burbridge." 
   "What?" 
   "His legs." 
   Redrick could hear running water, snorting, splashing, and some- thing fall and roll along the tile floor in the bathroom. Redrick sank exhaustedly into an armchair and lit a cigarette. The waiting room was nice. The Butcher didn't skimp. He was a highly competent and very fashionable surgeon, influential in both city and state medical circles. He had gotten mixed up with the stalkers not for the money, of course. He collected from the Zone: he took various types of swag, which he used for research in his practice; he took knowledge, since he studied stricken stalkers and the various diseases, mutilations, and traumas of the human body that had never been known before; and he took glory, becoming famous as the first doctor on the planet to be a specialist in nonhuman diseases of man. He was also not averse to taking money, and in great amounts. 
   "What specifically is wrong with his legs?" he asked, appearing from the bathroom with a huge towel around his neck. He was carefully drying his sensitive fingers with the corner of the towel. 
   "Landed in the jelly," Redrick said. The Butcher whistled. 
   "Well, that's the end of Burbridge. Too bad, he was a famous stalker." 
   "It's all right," Redrick said, leaning back in the chair. "You'll make artificial legs for him. He'll hobble around the Zone on them." 
   "All right." The Butcher's face became completely businesslike. 
   "Wait a minute, I'll get dressed." 
   While he dressed and made a call--probably to his clinic to pre- pare things for the operation--Redrick lounged immobile in the armchair and smoked. He moved only once to get his flask. He drank in small sips because there was only a little on the bottom, and he tried to think about nothing. He simply waited. 
   They both walked out to the car. Redrick got in the driver's seat, the Butcher next to him. He immediately bent over the back seat to palpate Burbridge's legs. Burbridge, subdued and withdrawn, muttered pathetically, promising to shower him with gold, mentioning his deceased wife and his children repeatedly, and begging him to save at least his knees. When they got to the clinic, the Butcher cursed at not finding the orderlies waiting at the driveway and jumped out of the moving car to run inside. Redrick lit another cigarette. Burbridge suddenly spoke, clearly and calmly, apparently completely calm at last: 
   "You tried to kill me. I won't forget." 
   "I didn't kill you, though," Redrick said. 
   "No, you didn't...." He was silent. "I'll remember that, too." 
   "You do that. Of course, you wouldn't have tried to kill me." He turned and looked at Burbridge. The old man was nervously moving his lips. "You would have abandoned me just like that," said Redrick. 
   "You would have left me in the Zone and thrown me in the water. Like Four-eyes." 
   "Four-eyes died on his own," Burbridge said gloomily. "I had nothing to do with it. It got him." 
   "You bastard," Redrick said dispassionately, turning away. "You son of a bitch." 
   The sleepy rumpled attendants ran out onto the driveway, unfurling the stretcher as they came to the car. Redrick, stretching and yawning, watched them extricate Burbridge from the back seat and trundle him off on the stretcher. Burbridge lay immobile, hands folded on chest, staring resignedly at the sky. His huge feet, cruelly eaten away by the jelly, were turned out unnaturally. He was the last of the old stalkers who had started hunting for treasure right after the Visitation, when the Zone wasn't called the Zone, when there were no institutes, or walls, or UN forces, when the city was paralyzed with fear and the world was snickering over the new newspaper hoax. Redrick was ten years old then and Burbridge was still a strong and agile man--he loved to drink when others paid, to brawl, to catch some unwary girl in a corner. His own children didn't interest him in the least, and he was a petty bastard even then; when he was drunk he used to beat his wife with a repulsive pleasure, noisily, so that everyone could hear. He beat her until she died. 
   Redrick turned the jeep and, disregarding the lights, sped home, honking at the few pedestrians on the streets and cornering sharply. 
   He parked in front of the garage, and when he got out he saw the superintendent coming toward him from across the little park. As usual, the super was out of sorts, and his crumpled face with its swollen eyes mirrored extreme distaste, as though he were walking on liquid manure instead of the ground. 
   "Good morning," Redrick said politely. 
   The super stopped two feet in front of him and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. 
   "Is that your handiwork?" he asked. You could tell that those were his first words of the day. 
   "What are you talking about?" 
   "The swings, was it you who set them up?" 
   "I did." 
   "What for?" 
   Redrick did not answer and went over to unlock the garage door. The super followed. 
   "I asked you why you set up the swings. Who asked you to?" 
   "My daughter," he answered very calmly. He rolled back the door. 
   "I'm not asking you about your daughter!" He raised his voice. 
   "That's another question. I'm asking you who gave you permission? I mean who let you take over the park?" 
   Redrick turned to him and stared at the bridge of his nose, pale and covered with spidery veins. The super stepped back and spoke more softly. 
   "And don't you repaint the terrace. How many times have I...." 
   "Don't bother. I'm not going to move out." 
   He got back in the car and started the engine. As he took the wheel, he saw how white his knuckles were. Then he leaned out the window and no longer controlling himself, said: 
   "But if I am forced to move, you creep, you'd better say your prayers." 
   He drove into the garage, turned on the light, and closed the door. He pulled the swag from the false gas tank, fixed up the car, put the bag in an old wicker basket, put the fishing gear, still damp and covered with grass and leaves, on top, and put the fish that Burbridge had bought in a store in the suburbs last night on top of everything. Then he checked the car one more time. Out of habit. A flattened cigarette butt had stuck to the right rear fender. Redrick pulled it away--it was Swedish. He thought about it and put it into the matchbox. There were three butts in it already. 
   He didn't meet anyone on the stairs. He stopped in front of his door and it flew open before he had time to get his keys. He walked in sideways, holding the heavy basket under his arm, and immersed himself in the warmth and familiar smells of home. Guta threw her arms around his neck and froze with her face on his chest. He could feel her heart beating wildly even through his jumpsuit and heavy shirt. He didn't rush her--he stood patiently and waited for her to calm down, even though he fully sensed for the First time just then how tired and worn out he was. 
   "All right," she finally said in a low husky voice and let go of him. She turned on the light in the entry and went into the kitchen. "I'll have the coffee ready in a minute," she called. 
   "I've brought some fish," he said in an artificially hearty tone. "Fry it up, won't you, I'm starved." 
   She came back, hiding her face in her loosened hair; he set the basket on the floor, helped her take out the net with the fish, and they both carried the net to the kitchen and dumped the Fish into the sink. 
   "Go wash up," she said. "By the time you're ready, the fish will be done. 
   "How's Monkey?" Redrick asked, pulling off his boots. 
   "She was babbling all evening," Guta replied. "I barely got her to go to bed. She keeps asking, where's daddy, where s daddy? She wants her daddy all the time." 
   She moved swiftly and quietly in the kitchen, strong and graceful. The water was boiling in the pan on the stove and the scales were flying under her knife, and the butter was sizzling in the largest pan, and there was the exhilarating smell of fresh coffee in the air. 
   Redrick walked in his bare feet to the entry hall, took the basket and brought it to the storeroom. Then he looked into the bedroom. Monkey was sleeping peacefully, her crumpled blanket hanging on the floor. Her nightie had ridden up. She was warm and soft, a little animal breathing heavily. Redrick could not resist the temptation to stroke her back covered with warm golden fur, and was amazed for the thousandth time by the fur's silkiness and length. He wanted to pick up Monkey badly, but he was afraid it would wake her up-- besides, he was as dirty as hell and permeated with death and the Zone. He came back into the kitchen and sat down at the table. 
   "Pour me a cup of coffee. I'll wash up later. A bundle of evening mail was on the table: The Harmont Gazette. Sports, Playboy--there was a whole bunch of magazines--and the thick gray-covered Reports of the International Institute of Extraterrestrial Cultures, issue 56. Redrick took a mug of steaming coffee from Guta and reached for the Reports. Squiggles and markings, blueprints of some kind, and photographs of familiar objects from strange angles. Another posthumous article by Kirill: "An Unexpected Property of the Magnetic Trap Type-77b." The surname Panov was framed in black and below in tiny type it said: "Dr. Kirill A. Panov, USSR, perished tragically during an experiment in April 19.." Redrick tossed away the journal, gulped some coffee, burning his mouth, and asked: "Did anyone drop by?" 
   "Gutalin was here," Guta said, after a slight pause. She was standing by the stove and looking at him. "He was stinking drunk, I sobered him up." 
   "How about Monkey?" 
   "She didn't want to let him go, of course. She started bawling. But I told her that Uncle Gutalin wasn't feeling very well. And she told me, 'Gutalin's smashed again.'" 
   Redrick laughed and took another sip. Then he asked another question. 
   "What about the neighbors?" 
   Guta hesitated again before answering. 
   "Like always," she finally said. 
   "All right, don't tell me." 
   "Ah!" she said, waving her hand in disgust. "The woman from below knocked at our door last night. Her eyes were bulging and she was practically spitting with anger. Why are we sawing in the bath- room in the middle of the night?" 
   "The dangerous old bitch," Redrick said through his teeth. "Listen, maybe we should move? Buy a house somewhere out in the country, where there's no one else, some old abandoned cottage?" 
   "What about Monkey?" 
   "God, don't you think the two of us could make her life good?" 
   Guta shook her head. 
   "She loves children. And they love her. It's not their fault that. . . ." 
   "No, it's not their fault." 
   "There's no use talking about it!" Guta said. "Somebody called you. Didn't leave a name. I told him you were out fishing." 
   Redrick put down the mug and got up. 
   "OK. I'll go wash up. I've got lots of things to take care of." 
   He locked himself in the bathroom, threw his clothes in the pail, and placed the brass knuckles, the remaining nuts and bolts, and his cigarettes on the shelf. He turned himself under the boiling hot shower for a long time, rubbing his body with a rough sponge until it was bright red. He shut off the shower and sat on the edge of the tub, smoking. The pipes were gurgling and Guta was clattering dishes out in the kitchen. Then there was the smell of frying fish and Guta knocked, bringing him fresh underwear. 
   "Hurry it up," she ordered. "The fish is getting cold." 
   She was completely back to normal--and back to being bossy. Redrick chuckled as he dressed--that is, put on hi shorts and T-shirt --and went to the table. 
   "Now I can eat," he said as he seated himself. 
   "Did you put your underwear in the pail?" 
   "Uh-huh," he said with his mouth full. "Good fish." 
   "Did you cover it with water?" 
   "No-ope. Sorry, sir, it won't happen again, sir. Will you sit still? Forget it!" He caught her hand and tried to pull her into his lap, but she pulled away and sat across from him. 
   "You're neglecting your husband," Redrick said, his mouth full again. "Too squeamish?" 
   "Some husband you are now. You're just an empty bag, not a husband. You have to be stuffed first." 
   "What if I could?" Redrick asked. "Miracles do happen, you know." 
   "I haven't seen miracles like that from you before. How about a drink?" Redrick played with his fork indecisively. 
   "N-no, thanks." He looked at his watch and got up. "I'm off now. Get my dress-up outfit ready. First class. A shirt and tie." 
   Enjoying the sensation of the cool Boor under his clean bare feet, he went into the storeroom and barred the door. He put on a rubber apron and rubber gloves up to his elbows and started unloading the swag on the table. Two empties. A box of pins. Nine batteries. Three bracelets. Some kind of hoop, sort of like the bracelets, but of white metal, lighter, and bigger in diameter by an inch. Sixteen black sprays in a polyethylene case. Two marvelously preserved sponges the size of a fist. Three itchers. A jar of carbonated clay. There was still a heavy porcelain container carefully wrapped in Fiberglass in the bag, but Redrick didn't touch it. He smoked and examined the wealth spread out on the table. 
   Then he opened a drawer and took out a piece of paper, a pencil stump, and a calculator. He kept the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and squinting in the smoke, he wrote number after number, making three columns in all. He added up the first two. The numbers were impressive. He put out the butt in an ashtray and carefully opened the box and spilled out the pins on the paper. In the electric light the pins looked slightly blue and occasionally sputtered with other colors--yellow, red, and green. He picked up a pin and carefully squeezed it between his thumb and index finger, avoiding being pricked. Then he put out the light and waited a bit, getting accustomed to the dark. But the pin was silent. He put it aside and found another one, which he also squeezed. Nothing. He squeezed harder, risking a pinprick, and the pin spoke: weak red Bashes ran along the pin and were suddenly replaced by slower green pulses. Redrick enjoyed this strange light play for a few seconds. He had learned from the Reports that the lights were supposed to mean something, maybe something very important. He put the pin in a different spot from the first and picked up another. 
   He ended up with seventy-three pins, twelve of which spoke. The rest were silent. Actually they too could speak, but fingers were not enough to get them started. You needed a special machine the size of the table. Redrick put on the light and added two more numbers to his list. And only then did he decide to do it. 
   He stuck both hands into the bag and holding his breath brought out a soft package and placed it on the table. He stared at it for a while, thoughtfully rubbing his chin with the back of his hand. Then he picked up the pencil, played with it with his clumsy rubbery fingers, and put it aside. He took another cigarette and smoked the entire thing without taking his eyes off the package. 
   "What the hell!" he said out loud and decisively stuffed the pack- age back into the bag "That's it. Enough." 
   He quickly gathered all the pins into the box and got up. It was time to go. He probably could get a half hour's sleep to clear his head, but on the other hand, it was probably a much better idea to get there early and check out the situation. He took off the gloves, hung up the apron, and left the storeroom without turning out the light. 
   His suit was ready and laid out on the bed. Redrick got dressed. He was doing his tie in front of the mirror when the floor creaked behind him, and he heard heavy breathing, and he made a face to keep from laughing. 
   "Ha!" a tiny voice shouted next to him and someone grabbed his leg. 
   "Oh-oh!" Redrick exclaimed, falling back onto the bed. 
   Monkey, laughing and squealing, immediately clambered up on him. She trampled him, pulled his hair, and inundated him with an endless stream of news. The neighbor's boy Willy tore off dolly's leg. There was a new kitten on the third Boor--all white and with red eyes, he probably didn't listen to his mama and went into the Zone. She had porridge and jam for dinner. Uncle Gutalin was smashed again and was sick. He even cried. Why don't fish drown if they live in water? Why didn't mama sleep at night? Why are there five fingers, and and only two hands, and only one nose? Redrick carefully hugged the warm creature that was crawling all over him and looked into the huge dark eyes that had no whites at all, and cuddled his cheek against the plump little cheek covered with silky golden fleece. 
   "Monkey. My little Monkey. You sweet little Monkey, you." The phone rang by his ear. He picked up the receiver. 
   "I'm listening." 
   Silence. 
   "Hello! Hello!" 
   No answer. There was a click and then short repeated tones. Redrick got up, put Monkey on the floor, and put on his trousers and jacket, no longer listening to her. Monkey chattered on nonstop, but he only smiled with his lips in a distracted way. Finally she announced that daddy had bit off his tongue and swallowed it and left him in peace. 
   He went back into the storeroom, put everything from the table into a briefcase, got his brass knuckles from the bathroom, came back to the storeroom, took the briefcase in one hand and the basket with the bag in the other, went out, carefully locked the door, and called out to Guta. 
   "I'm leaving." 
   "When will you be back?" Guta came out of the kitchen. She had done her hair and put on makeup. She was no longer wearing her robe, either, but a house dress, his favorite one, bright blue and low-cut. 
   "I'll call," he said, looking at her. He walked over and kissed her cleavage. 
   "You'd better go," Guta said softly. 
   "What about me? Kiss me?" Monkey whined, pushing between them. 
   He had to bend down even lower. Guta watched him steadily. 
   "Nonsense," he said. "Don't worry. I'll call." 
   On the landing below theirs, Redrick saw a fat man in striped pajamas fussing with the lock to his door. A warm sour smell was coming from the depths of his apartment. Redrick stopped. 
   "Good day." 
   The fat man looked at him cautiously over his fat shoulder and muttered something. 
   "Your wife dropped by last night," Redrick said. "Something about us sawing. It's some kind of misunderstanding." 
   "What do I care?" the man in the pajamas said. 
   "My wife was doing the laundry last night," Redrick continued. 
   "If we disturbed you, I apologize." 
   "I didn't say anything. Be my guest." 
   "Well, I'm glad to hear it." 
   Redrick went outside, dropped into the garage, put the basket with the bag into the corner, covered it with an old seat, looked over his work, and went out into the street. 
   It wasn't a long walk--two blocks to the square, then through the park and one more block to Central Boulevard. In front of the Metropole, as usual, there was a shiny array of cars gleaming chrome and lacquer. The porters in raspberry red uniforms were lugging suitcases into the hotel, and some foreign-looking people were standing around in groups of two and three, smoking and talking on the marble steps. Redrick decided not to go in yet. He made himself comfortable under the awning of a small cafe across the street, ordered coffee, and lit up a cigarette. Not two feet from his table were three undercover men from the international police force, silently and quickly eating grilled hot dogs Harmont style and drinking beer from tall glass steins. On the other side, some ten feet away, a sergeant was gloomily devouring French fries, his fork in his fist. His blue helmet was set upside down on the Boor by his chair and his shoulder holster draped on the chair back. There were no other customers. The waitress, an elderly woman he didn't know, stood behind the counter and yawned, genteelly covering her painted mouth with her hand. It was twenty to nine. 
   Redrick saw Richard Noonan leave the hotel, chewing something, and arranging his soft hat on his head. He boldly strode down the steps--short, plump, and pink, still lucky, well-off, freshly washed, and confident that the day would bring him no unpleasantness. He waved to someone, flung his raincoat over his right shoulder, and walked over to his Peugeot. Dick's Peugeot was also plump, short, freshly washed, and seemingly confident that no unpleasantness threatened it. 
   Covering his face with his hand, Redrick watched Noonan bustle, get comfortable in the front seat, move something from the front seat to the back, bend down to pick something up, and adjust the rearview mirror. The Peugeot expelled a puff of blue smoke, beeped at an African in a burnoose, and jauntily drove out into the street. It looked like Noonan was headed for the institute, in which case he had to go around the fountain and drive past the cafe. It was too late to get up and leave, so Redrick covered his face completely and hunched over his cup. It didn't help. The Peugeot beeped in his ear, the brakes squealed, and Noonan's hearty voice called: 
   "Hey! Schuhart! Red!" 
   Redrick swore under his breath and looked up. Noonan was walking toward him, hand outstretched. Noonan was beaming. 
   "What are you doing here at the crack of dawn?" he asked as he approached. "Thank you, ma'am," he said to the waitress. "Nothing for me. I haven't seen you in a hundred years. Where've you been? What are you up to?" 
   "Nothing special," Redrick said unwillingly. "just unimportant things." 
   He watched Noonan bustle and establish himself in the chair opposite and move the glass with the napkins in one direction with his plump hands and the plate with sandwiches in another. And he listened to Noonan gab. 
   "You look kind of peaked. Not sleeping enough? You know, lately, I've been very busy with this new automation stuff, but I never miss my sleep, that's for sure. 7'he automation can go hang." He suddenly looked around. "I'm sorry, maybe you're expecting someone. Have I interrupted? Am I in the way?" 
   "No, no," Redrick said lamely. "I just had some time and thought I'd have a cup of coffee, that's all." 
   "Well, I won't keep you long," Dick said, looking at his watch. 
   "Listen, Red, why don't you drop your unimportant things and come back to the institute. You know they'll take you back whenever you want. You want to work with another Russian? There's a new one." 
   Red shook his head. 
   "Nope, a second Kirill hasn't been born. Anyway, there's nothing for me to do in your institute. It's all automated now, you have robots going into the Zone and that means that the robots get all the bonuses. The lab assistants are paid peanuts. It wouldn't even keep me in cigarettes." 
   "All that could be arranged." 
   "I don't like having things arranged for me," Redrick said. "I've taken care of myself all my life, and I intend to keep on doing it." 
   "You've become very proud," Noonan said with condemnation. 
   "No, I'm not. I just don't like pinching pennies." 
   "I guess you're right," Noonan said distractedly. He looked at Redrick's briefcase on the chair next to him and rubbed the silver plate with the engraved cyrillic letters. "You're right, a man needs money so that he doesn't have to always be counting it. A present from Kirill?" he asked, nodding at the briefcase. 
   "I inherited it. How come never see you at the Borscht any- more?" 
   "You're the one who's never there," Noonan countered. "I have lunch there almost every day. At the Metropole they charge an arm and a leg for a hamburger. Listen," he said suddenly, "how's your money situation now?" 
   "Want a loan?" 
   "Just the opposite." 
   "You want to lend me money?" 
   "I have work...." 
   "Oh God!" Redrick said. "Not you too!" 
   "Who else, then?" Noonan demanded. 
   "There's lots of you ... hirers." 
   Noonan, seeming to finally get his point, laughed. 
   "No, no, this isn't along the lines of your primary specialty." 
   "Along what lines then?" Noonan looked at his watch again. 
   "Here's the deal," he said, getting up. "Come to the Borscht for lunch, around two. We'll talk." 
   "I may not be able to make it by two." 
   "Then this evening around six. All right?" 
   "We'll see." Redrick looked at his watch. It was five to nine. 
   Noonan waved and rolled out to his Peugeot. Redrick followed him with his eyes, called the waitress, paid the bill, bought a pack of Lucky Strikes, and slowly headed over to the hotel with his briefcase. The sun was baking hot already and the street had quickly become muggy, and Redrick felt a burning sensation under his eyelids. He squinted hard, sorry that he hadn't time for an hour's nap before his important business. And then it hit him. 
   He had never experienced anything like this before outside the Zone. And it had happened in the Zone only two or three times. It was as though he were in a different world. A million odors cascaded in on him at once--sharp, sweet, metallic, gentle, dangerous ones, as crude as cobblestones, as delicate and complex as watch mechanisms, as huge as a house and as tiny as a dust particle. The air became hard, it developed edges, surfaces, and corners, like space was filled with huge, stiff balloons, slippery pyramids, gigantic prickly crystals, and he had to push his way through it all, making his way in a dream through a junk store stuffed with ancient ugly furniture.... It lasted a second. He opened his eyes, and everything was gone. It hadn't been a different world--it was this world turning a new, unknown side to him. This side was revealed to him for a second and then disappeared, before he had time to figure it out. 
   An angry horn beeped, and Redrick walked faster, faster, and then ran all the way to the wall of the Metropole. His heart was beating wildly. He put the briefcase on the pavement and impatiently tore open the pack of cigarettes. He lit one, inhaled deeply, and rested, as if after a fight. A cop stopped near him and asked: 
   "Need help, mister?" 
   "N-no," Redrick squeezed the word out and coughed. "It's stuffy." 
   "Can I take you where you're going?" 
   Redrick picked up his briefcase. 
   "Everything, everything is fine, pal. Thanks." 
   He walked quickly toward the entrance, walked up the steps and went into the lobby. It was cool, dusky, and echoey. He should have sat for a while in one of those voluminous leather chairs and caught his breath, but he was late already. He allowed himself time to finish the cigarette, checking out the crowd through half-shut eyes. Bones was there, irritatedly riffling through the magazines at the newsstand. Redrick threw the butt into the ashtray and went into the elevator. 
   He didn't manage to close the door in time and others crowded in: a fat man breathing asthmatically, a heavily perfumed lady with a grumpy little boy eating chocolate, and a heavyset old woman with a poorly shaved chin. Redrick was pushed into the corner. He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the boy with chocolate saliva dripping down his chin, whose face was fresh and pure, without a single hair. And to shut out his mother, whose scrawny bosom was embellished with a necklace made of large black sprays set in silver. And to shut out the bulging sclerotic whites of the eyes of the fat man, and the hideous warts on the swollen face of the old woman. The fat man tried to light a cigarette, but the old woman attacked him and kept after him until she got out on five. As soon as she did, the fat man lit up with a look that proclaimed that he was defending his civil rights, and broke out coughing and hacking as soon as he inhaled, sticking out his lips like a camel and jabbing Redrick in the ribs with his elbow. 
   Redrick got out on the eighth floor and walked down the thick carpet on the corridor, cozily illuminated by hidden lamps. It smelled of expensive tobacco, French perfumes, the soft natural leather of stuffed wallets, expensive ladies of the night, and solid gold cigarette cases. It reeked of everything, of the lousy fungus that was growing on the Zone, drinking on the Zone, eating, exploiting, and growing fat on the Zone and that didn't give a damn about any of it, especially about what would happen later, when it had eaten its full and gotten power, and when everything that was once in the Zone was outside the Zone. Redrick pushed open the door to 874 without knocking. 
   Throaty, sitting on a table by the window, was performing a ritual over a cigar. He was still in his pajamas and his thinning hair, though wet, was carefully parted. His unhealthy puffy face was smoothly shaved. 
   "Aha," he said without looking up. "Punctuality is the politeness of kings. Good day, young man!" 
   He finished clipping the end of the cigar, took it in both hands, brought it up to his nose, and passed it back and forth under it. 
   "Where is good old Burbridge?" he asked and looked up. His eyes were clear, blue, angelic. 
   Redrick put the briefcase on the sofa, sat down, and took out his cigarettes. 
   "Burbridge isn't coming." 
   "Good old Burbridge," Throaty repeated. He took the cigar between two fingers and carefully brought it to his mouth. "Old Burbridge's nerves are acting up." 
   He kept looking at Redrick with his clear blue eyes, never blinking. He never blinked. The door opened slightly and Bones slipped into the room. 
   "Who were you talking to?" he asked from the doorway. 
   "Ah, hello," Redrick said cheerily, flipping ashes on the floor. Bones shoved his hands in his pockets and came closer, taking broad steps with his huge pigeon-toed feet. He stopped in front of Redrick. 
   "We've told you a hundred times," he reproached him. "No contacts before a meeting. And what do you do?" 
   "I say hello," Redrick replied. "And you?" 
   Throaty laughed. Bones was irritated. 
   "Hello, hello, hello." He removed his reproachful gaze from Redrick and flung himself down on the couch next to him. "You cannot behave that way. Do you understand me? You cannot!" 
   "Then arrange meetings in places where I don't know anybody." 
   "The boy is right," Throaty interjected. "Our mistake. So who was that man?" 
   "Richard Noonan. He represents some companies that supply the institute. He lives here in the hotel." 
   "You see how simple it is!" Throaty said to Bones. He picked up a colossal lighter shaped like the Statue of Liberty, looked at it doubtfully, and replaced it on the table. 
   "Where's Burbridge," Throaty asked in a friendly tone. 
   "Burbridge blew it." 
   The two men exchanged a quick glance. 
   "Rest in peace," Throaty said tensely. "Or has he been arrested?" Redrick didn't answer right away, taking slow long drags on his cigarette. He threw the butt on the floor. 
   "Don't worry, everything's safe. He's in the hospital." 
   "That's some safe!" Bones said nervously. He jumped up and went over to the window. "Which hospital?" 
   "Don't worry, everything is taken care of. Let's get down to business. I'm sleepy." 
   "What hospital specifically?" Bones asked in irritation. 
   "I've told you," Redrick picked up the briefcase. "Are we doing business today or not?" 
   "We are, we are, son," Throaty said heartily. 
   With unexpected agility he leaped to the Boor, knocked all the magazines and newspapers from the coffee table, and sat in front of it, resting his hairy pink hands on his knees. 
   "Show your stuff." 
   Redrick opened the briefcase, took out the list with prices, and put it on the table before Throaty. Throaty glanced at it and flicked it to the side. Bones stood behind him and started reading the list over his shoulder. 
   "That's the bill," Redrick said. 
   "I see. Let's see the stuff," Throaty said. 
   "The money," Redrick said. 
   "What's this 'hoop'?" Bones asked suspiciously, pointing at the list over Throaty's shoulder. 
   Redrick said nothing. He was holding the open briefcase on his lap and staring into the blue angelic eyes. Throaty finally chuckled. 
   "And why do I love you so much, my son?" he muttered. "And they say love at first sight doesn't exist!" He sighed dramatically. 
   "Phil, buddy, how do they say it here? Dole out the cabbage, lay some greenbacks on him ... and give me a match. You see...." He waved his cigar at him. 
   Phil the Bones muttered something under his breath, tossed him a book of matches, and went through a curtain into the next room. Redrick could hear him talking to someone there, irritated and indistinct, something about the cat being in the bag, and Throaty, his cigar finally lit, kept staring at Redrick with a frozen smile on his thin pale lips. Redrick, chin on briefcase, was looking at him and also trying not to blink, even though his lids were burning and his eyes were tearing. Bones came back, threw two packs of money on the table, and sat next to Redrick in a huff. Redrick lazily reached for the money, but Throaty motioned him to stop, tore the wrappers from the money, and put them in his pajama pocket. 
   "Now let's see it." 
   Redrick took the money and stuffed it into his inner jacket pocket without counting it. Then he presented his wares. He did it slowly, letting both of them examine the swag and check items off the list. It was quiet in the room, the only sound was Throaty's heavy breathing and the jingle coming from the other room--a spoon against the side of a glass, perhaps. 
   When Redrick shut the briefcase and clicked the lock, Throaty looked up at him. 
   "What about the most important thing?" 
   "No way," Redrick replied. He thought and added: "So far." 
   "I like that 'so far,"' Throaty said gently. "How about you, Phil?" 
   "You're throwing dust in our eyes, Schuhart," Bones said suspiciously. 
   "Why the mystery, I ask you?" 
   "That comes with the territory: shady dealings," Redrick said. 
   "We're in a demanding profession. 
   "All right, all right," Throaty said. "Where's the camera?" 
   "Hell!" Redrick scratched his cheek, feeling the color rise in his face. "I'm sorry, I forgot all about it. 
   "There?" Throaty asked making a vague gesture with the cigar. 
   "I don't remember. Probably there." Redrick shut his eyes and leaned back on the couch. "Nope. I clean forgot." 
   "Too bad," Throaty said. "But you at least saw the thing?" 
   "Not even that," Redrick said sadly. "That's the whole point. We didn't get as far as the blast furnaces. Burbridge fell into the jelly and I had to head back immediately. You can be sure that if I'd seen it I wouldn't have forgotten it." 
   "Hey, Hugh, look at this!" Bones whispered in fright. "What's this?" 
   He stuck out his right index finger. The white metal hoop was twirling around his finger and Bones was staring pop-eyed at the hoop. 
   "It's not stopping!" he said aloud, moving his eyes from the hoop to Throaty and back again. 
   "What do you mean it's not stopping?" Throaty asked carefully and moved away. 
   "I put it on my finger and gave it a spin, just for the hell of it, and it hasn't stopped for a whole minute!" Bones lumped up and, holding his finger extended before him, ran behind the curtain. The silvery hoop twirled smoothly in front of him like a propeller. 
   "What the hell did you bring us?" Throaty asked. 
   "God knows! I had no idea--if I had, I'd have asked more for it." 
   Throaty stared at him, then got up and went behind the curtain. Voices started babbling immediately. Redrick picked up a magazine from the floor and flipped through it. It was chock-full of beauties, but somehow they nauseated him just then. Redrick's eyes roved around the room, looking for something to drink. Then he took a pack from his inside pocket and counted the bills. Everything was in order, but to keep from falling asleep, he counted the other one. Just as he was putting it back into his pocket, Throaty came back. 
   "You're lucky, son," he announced, sitting opposite Redrick once more. "Do you know what a perpetuum mobile is?" 
   "Nope, we never studied that. 
   "And you don't need to," Throaty said. He pulled out another pack. "That's the price for the first specimen," he said, pulling off the wrapping. "For each new one you'll get two packs like this. Got it, son? Two apiece. But only on the condition that no one except you and I ever know about it. Are we agreed?" Redrick put the money in his pocket silently and stood up. 
   "I'm going," he said. "When and where for the next time?" 
   Throaty also rose. 
   "You'll be called. Wait for a call every Friday between nine and nine-thirty in the morning. You'll get regards from Phil and Hugh and a meeting will be set up 
   Redrick nodded and headed for the door. Throaty followed, and put his hand on his shoulder. 
   "I want you to understand one thing," he continued. "All this is very nice, charming, and so on, and the hoop is simply marvelous, but above all we need two things: the photos and the container filled up. Return our camera to us, but with exposed film, and our porcelain container, but not empty. Filled. And you'll never have to go into the Zone again. 
   Redrick shook Throaty's hand from his shoulder, unlocked the door, and went out. Without turning he walked down the thickly carpeted hallway and sensed the unwavering blue angelic gaze fixed on the back of his neck. He didn't wait for the elevator but walked down from the eighth floor. 
   Outside the Metropole he called a cab and went to the other side of town. The driver was a new one, someone Redrick didn't know, a beak-nosed, pimply fellow. One of the hundreds that had poured into Harmont in the last few years to look for exciting adventures, untold riches, world fame, or some special religion. They poured in and ended up as chauffeurs, construction workers, or thugs--thirsting, wretched, tortured by vague desires, profoundly disillusioned, and certain that they had been tricked once again. Half of them, after hanging around for a month or two, returned to their homes, cursing, and spreading the word of their disillusionment to all the countries of the world. A very few became stalkers and quickly perished before they had caught onto the tricks of the trade. Some managed to get a job at the institute, but only the best-educated and smartest of them, who could at least work as lab assistants. The rest wasted evening after evening in bars, brawled over some difference of opinion, girls, or just because they were drunk, and drove the municipal police, the army, and the guards out of their minds. 
   The pimply driver reeked of liquor a mile away, and his eyes were rabbit red, but he was very excited and told Redrick how that morning a stiff from the cemetery showed up on their block. "He came back to his house, and the house had been locked up for years, and everyone had moved--his widow, an old lady now, and his daughter and her husband, and their children. He had died, the neighbors said, some thirty years ago, that is, before the Visitation, and now there he was. He walked around the house, sniffed and scratched, and then sat by the fence and waited. People came round from the whole neighborhood. They stared and stared but were afraid, of course, to come close. Finally somebody got a bright idea--they broke open the door to his house, making an entrance for him. And what do you think? He got up, went in, and shut the door behind him. I was late for work, so I don't know how it turned out, but I do know that they were planning to call the institute and have someone come over and get him the hell out of there. 
   "Stop," Redrick said. "Let me off right here.'' 
   He rummaged in his pocket. He had no change and had to break a new bill. Then he stood in the doorway and waited for the cab to drive away. Buzzard's cottage wasn't too bad: two stories, a glassed-in veranda with a pool table, a well-tended garden, a greenhouse, and a white gazebo under the apple trees. A filigree iron fence painted light green surrounded it ail. Redrick pushed the bell several times, the gate swung open with a creak, and Redrick slowly moved up the shady path, with rose bushes planted along the edges. Hamster was already standing on the porch. He was gnarled, black, and trembling with the desire to be of service. Impatiently he turned sideways, lowered one trembling leg in search of support, steadied himself, and dragged the other foot to meet its mate. His right arm shook convulsively in Redrick's direction, as if to say, coming, coming, any minute. 
   "Hey, Red!" a woman's voice called from the garden. 
   Redrick turned his head and saw bare tanned shoulders, a bright red mouth, and a waving hand among the greenery next to the lacy white roof of the gazebo. He nodded to Hamster, turned from the path, and breaking through the rose bushes, headed for the gazebo along the soft green grass. 
   A large red mat was spread on the lawn, and Dina Burbridge was sitting regally on it with a glass in her hand and a miniscule bathing suit on her body; a book with a bright cover lay on the mat and an ice bucket with a slender bottle neck peering over the edge sat in the shade nearby. 
   "Hi, Red!" Dina Burbridge said, greeting him with a wave of the glass. "Where's the old man? Don't tell me he's messed up again?" 
   Redrick stood over her with the briefcase in his hands behind his back. Yes, Buzzard sure managed to wish himself up some marvelous children out there in the Zone. She was all silk and satin, firm and full, flawless, without a single unnecessary wrinkle - hundred- twenty pounds of sugar-candy flesh, and emerald eyes that had an inner glow, a large wet mouth and even white teeth, and raven hair, shining in the sun and carelessly tossed over one shoulder. The sun was caressing her, pouring from her shoulders to her belly and hips, leaving deep shadows between her almost naked breasts. He stood above her and looked her over openly, and she looked up at him, laughing understandingly, and then raised the glass to her lips and took several sips. 
   "You want?" she asked, licking her lips. She waited just long enough for him to get the double entendre and then handed him the glass. 
   He turned and looked until he found a chaise longue in the shade. He sat down and stretched his legs. 
   "Burbridge is in the hospital," he said. "They're going to amputate his legs." 
   Still smiling, she looked at him with one eye. The other was covered by the heavy hair that fell over her shoulder. But her smile had frozen--a sugary grin on a tan face. Then she swirled the glass, listening to the tinkle of the ice cubes. 
   "Both legs?" 
   "Both. Maybe below the knees, maybe above." 
   She put down the glass and pushed back her hair. She was no longer smiling. 
   "Too bad," she said. "And that means you...." 
   Dina Burbridge was the one person he could have told how it happened in all the details. He could have even told her how they drove back, his brass knuckles ready, and how Burbridge had begged --not for himself even, but for the children, for her and for Archie, and promised him the Golden Ball. But he didn't tell her. He pulled out a pack of money from his breast pocket and tossed it onto the red mat right at her long naked legs. The notes fanned out in a rainbow. Dina absentmindedly picked up several and examined them, as though she had never seen one before but wasn't that interested. 
   "This is the last earnings, then," she said. 
   Redrick leaned over from the chaise longue and pulled the bottle from the ice bucket. He looked at the label. Water was dripping along the dark glass and Redrick held the bottle away from himself, so as not to drip on his pants. He did not like expensive whiskey, but he could force himself to have a slug at a time like this. He was just about to put the bottle to his mouth when he was stopped by indistinct sounds of protestation behind him. He looked around and saw that Hamster was painfully dragging his feet across the lawn, holding a glass of clear liquid in both hands. The exertion was making the sweat pour off his dark wooly head, and his bloodshot eyes had practically popped out of their sockets. When he saw that Redrick was looking at him he extended the glass in despair and sort of mooed and howled, opening his toothless mouth ineffectually. 
   "I'll wait, I'll wait," Redrick said and shoved the bottle back in the bucket. 
   Hamster finally limped over, gave Redrick the glass, and patted his shoulder shyly with his arthritic hand. 
   "Thanks, Dixon," Redrick said seriously. "That's just what I need right now. As usual, you're right on top of things." 
   And while Hamster shook his head in embarrassment and rapture and convulsively slapped himself on the hip with his good arm, Redrick raised the glass, nodded to him, and gulped down half. Then he looked at Dina. 
   "You want?" he asked meaning the glass. 
   She did not reply. She was folding a bill in half and in half once again, and then again. 
   "Cut it out," he said. "You won't be lost. Your old man...." 
   She interrupted him. 
   "And so you dragged him out," she said. She wasn't asking, she was stating a fact. "You carried him, you jerk, through the whole Zone, you redheaded cretin, you dragged that bastard on your back- bone, you ass. You blew an opportunity like that." 
   He was watching her, his glass forgotten. She got up and stood in front of him, walking over the scattered money, and stopped, her clenched fists jammed into her smooth hip, blocking out the entire world for him with her marvelous body smelling of perfume and sweet sweat. 
   "He's got all of you idiots wrapped around his finger. He'll walk all over your bones. rust wait and see, he'll walk on your thick skulls on crutches. He'll show you the meaning of brotherly love and mercy!" She was screaming. "I'll bet he promised you the Golden Ball, right? The map, the traps, right? Jerk! I can see by your dumb face that he did! Just wait, he'll give you a map. Lord have mercy on the soul of the redheaded fool Redrick Schuhart." 
   Redrick got up slowly and slapped her face hard. She shut up, sank to the grass, and buried her face in her hands. 
   "You fool ... Red," she muttered. "To blow an opportunity like that." 
   Redrick looked down at her and finished the vodka. He thrust it at Hamster without looking at him. There was nothing to talk about. Some fine kids Burbridge conjured up in the Zone. Loving and respectful. 
   He went into the street and hailed a cab. He told the driver to go to the Borscht. He had to finish up his affairs. He was dying for sleep, everything was swimming before his eyes, and he fell asleep in the cab, his body slumped over the briefcase, and awoke only when the driver shook him. 
   "We're here, mister. 
   "Where are we?" he looked around. "I told you the bank. 
   "No way, buddy. You said the Borscht. Here's the Borscht." 
   "OK," Redrick grumbled "I must have dreamed it." 
   He paid up and got out, barely able to move his heavy legs. The asphalt was steaming in the sun, and it was very hot. Redrick realized that he was soaked, that there was a bad taste in his mouth, and that his eyes were tearing. He looked around before going in. As usual at this time of day the street was deserted. Businesses weren't open yet, and the Borscht was supposed to be closed too, but Ernest was at his post already, wiping glasses and giving dirty looks to the trio sopping up beer at the corner table. The chairs had not been removed from the other tables. An unfamiliar porter in a white jacket was mopping the floor and another was struggling with a case of beer behind Ernest. Redrick went up to the bar, put the briefcase on the bar, and said hello. Ernest muttered something that was not exactly welcoming. 
   "Give me a beer," Redrick said and yawned convulsively. 
   Ernest slammed an empty mug on the table, grabbed a bottle from the refrigerator, opened it, and upended it over the mug. Redrick, covering his mouth with his hand, stared at Ernest's hand. It was trembling. The bottle hit the edge of the mug several times. Redrick looked up at Ernest's face. His heavy eyelids were lowered, his puffy mouth twisted, and his fat cheeks drooping. The porter was mopping right under Redrick's feet, the guys in the corner were arguing loudly over the races, and the other porter with the crates backed into Ernest so hard that he reeled. The man mumbled an apology. Ernest spoke in a cramped voice. 
   "Did you bring it?" 
   "Bring what?" Redrick looked over his shoulder. One of the guys stood up lazily and went to the door. He stopped in the doorway to light a cigarette. 
   "Let's go talk," Ernest said. The porter with the mop was now also between Redrick and the door. A big black man, along the lines of Gutalin, but twice as broad. 
   "Let's go," Redrick said and picked up the briefcase. He didn't feel sleepy anymore, in either eye. 
   He went behind the bar and squeezed past the porter with the cases of beer. The porter had apparently caught his finger. He was sucking his fingertip and watching Redrick. He was a big fellow, with a broken nose and cauliflower ears. Ernest went into the back room, and Redrick followed him, because now the three guys from the corner table were blocking the door and the porter with the mop was standing near the curtains that led to the storeroom. 
   In the back room Ernest stepped aside and sat on a chair by the wall. Captain Quarterblad, yellow and angry, stood up from the table. From somewhere on the left a huge UN trooper appeared, his helmet pulled down over his eyes, and quickly frisked him with his large hands. He slowed down at his right pocket and extracted the brass knuckles. He prodded Redrick in the captain s direction. Redrick approached the table and set the briefcase in front of Captain Quarterblad. 
   "You bloodsucker," he said to Ernest. 
   Ernest raised his eyebrows and shrugged one shoulder. It was all clear. The two porters in the doorway were smirking, and there were no other doors and the window was barred from the outside. 
   Captain Quarterblad, his face contorted by disgust, was digging around with both hands in the briefcase, and taking out the swag and Putting in on the table: two small empties; nine batteries; various sizes of black sprays, sixteen pieces in a polyethylene package; two perfectly preserved sponges; and one jar of carbonated clay.... 
   "Anything in your pockets?" Captain Quarterblad asked softly. 
   "Empty them. 
   "Snakes," Redrick said. "Skunks." 
   He pulled out a pack of bills and flung it on the table. They scattered. 
   "Aha!" the captain said. "Any more?" 
   "Lousy toads!" Redrick shouted and threw the second pack on the floor. "There you go. I hope you choke on it!" 
   "Very interesting," the captain said calmly. "Now pick it up." 
   "The hell I will," Redrick said, putting his hands behind his back. 
   "Your slaves will pick it up. You can pick it up yourself, for all I care." 
   "Pick up the money, stalker," Captain Quarterblad said without raising his voice, leaning his fist on the table and straining toward Redrick. 
   They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then Redrick, muttering curses under his breath, crouched down, and reluctantly set about picking up the money. The porters were snickering behind his back and the UN trooper snorted gleefully 
   "Don't snort at me!" Redrick said. "You'll lose your snot." 
   He was crawling around on his hands and knees, picking up the notes one by one, moving closer and closer to the dark brass ring lying peacefully on the dusty parquet floor. He turned to get better access. He kept shouting obscenities, all the ones he could remember and ones he was making up along the way. When the moment was right, he shut up, tensed, grabbed the ring, pulled it up with all his strength, and before the opened trapdoor landed on the floor he had jumped head first into the gray cold prison of the wine cellar. 
   He fell on his hands, somersaulted, jumped up, and ran hunched over, seeing nothing, counting on his memory and luck, into the narrow passageway between cases of bottles, knocking them over as he went past, hearing them fall and shatter in the passage behind him. Slipping, he ran up some invisible steps, threw his body against the door with its rusty hinges, and found himself in Ernest's garage. He was shaking and panting, there were bloody spots swimming before his eyes and his heart was beating heavily with strong jolts right in his throat, but he did not stop for a second. He ran to the far corner, and scraping his hands, tore into the mountain of garbage that hid the place where the boards had been removed from the wall. He lay down on his stomach and crawled through, hearing his jacket tear, and when he was out in the narrow courtyard he crouched down behind the garbage cans, pulled off his jacket, threw away his tie, gave himself a quick once-over, brushed off his pants, straightened up, and ran into the yard. He dove into a low smelly tunnel that led to the next courtyard. He listened for the whine of the police sirens as he ran, but there weren't any yet, and he ran faster, scaring playing children, dodging hanging laundry, crawling through holes in rotten fences-trying to get out of the neighborhood as fast as possible, before Captain Quarterblad could cordon it off. He knew the area very well. He had played in all the yards and cellars, the abandoned laundries, and the coal cellars. He had plenty of acquaintances and even friends here, and under different circumstances he would have had no trouble in hiding out, even for a week, in the neighborhood. But he hadn't made a daring escape from arrest under Captain Quarterblad's very nose, adding an easy twelve months to his sentence, for that. 
   He was very lucky. On Seventh Street a parade of some brother hood or other was making raucous progress down the street. Two hundred of them, just as disheveled and filthy as he was. Some looked worse, as though they had spent the evening crawling through holes in fences, spilling the contents of garbage cans on themselves, maybe after having spent the night rowdily in a coal bin. He ducked out of a doorway into the crowd, cutting across it, pushing and shoving, stepping on feet, getting an occasional fist in his face, and returning the favor, until he broke out on the other side of the street and ducked into another doorway. Just then the familiar disgusting wail of the patrol cars resounded, and the parade came to a grinding halt, folding up like an accordion. But he was in a different neighborhood now, and Captain Quarterblad had no way of knowing which one. 
   He approached his own garage from the side of the radio and electronics store, and he had to wait while the workmen loaded a van with television sets. He made himself comfortable in the ragged lilac bushes by the windowless side of the neighboring houses, caught his breath and had a cigarette. He smoked greedily, crouching down and leaning against tile rough fireproof wall, touching his cheek from time to time, trying to still the nervous tie. He thought and thought and thought. When the van with the workers pulled away honking into the driveway, he laughed and said softly after them: "Thanks, boys, you held up this fool ... and let me think." He started moving quickly, but without rushing, cleverly and premeditatedly, like he worked in the Zone. 
   He entered his garage through the hidden passage, noiselessly lifted the old seat, carefully pulled the roll of paper from the bag in the basket, and slipped it inside his shirt. He took an old worn leather jacket from a hook, found a greasy cap in the corner, and pulled it down over his eyes. The cracks in the door let narrow rays of light with dancing dust into the gloomy garage, and kids were yelling and playing outside. As he was leaving, he heard his daughter's voice. He put his eye against the widest crack and watched Monkey wave two balloons and run around the swings. Three old women with knitting in their laps were sitting on a nearby bench, watching her with pursed lips. Exchanging their lousy opinions, the dried-up hags. The kids were fine, playing with her as though she were just like them. It was worth all the bribery--he bull; them a slide, and a doll house, and the swings--and the bench that the old biddies were on. "All right, he said, tore himself away from the crack, looked around the garage one more time, and crawled into the hole. 
   In the southwest part of town, near the abandoned gas station at the end of Miner Street, there was a phone booth. God only knew who used it nowadays--all the houses around it were bearded up and beyond it was the seemingly endless empty lot that used to be the town dump. Redrick sat down in the shade of the booth and stuck his hand into the crack below it. He felt the dusty wax paper and the handle of the gun wrapped in it; the lead box of bullets was there, too, as well as the bag with the bracelets and the old wallet with fake documents. His hiding place was in order. Then he took off his jacket and cap and felt inside his shirt. He sat for a minute or more, hefting in his hand the porcelain container and the invincible and inevitable death it contained. And he felt the nervous tic come back. 
   "Schuhart," he muttered, not hearing his own voice, "what are you doing, you snake? You scum, they can kill us all with this thing." He held his twitching cheek, but it didn't help. "Bastards," he said about the workers who had been loading the TV sets. "You got in my way. I would have thrown it back into the Zone, the bitch, and it would have been all over. 
   He looked around sadly. The hot air was shimmering over the cracked cement, the hoarded-up windows looked at him gloomily, and tumbleweed rolled around the lot. He was alone. 
   "All right," he said decisively. "Every man for himself, only God takes care of everybody. I've had it." 
   Hurrying, so as not to change his mind, he stuffed the container into the cap, and wrapped the cap in the jacket. Then he got On his knees, and leaned against the booth. It moved. The bulky package fit in the bottom of the pit under the booth, with room to spare. He carefully replaced the booth, shook it to see how steady it was, and got up, brushing off his hands. 
   "That's it. It's settled." 
   He got into the heat of the phone booth, deposited a coin, and dialed. 
   "Guta," he said. "Please, don't worry. They caught me again." He could hear her shuddering sigh. He quickly added: "It's a minor offense, six to eight months, with visiting rights. We'll manage. And you'll have money, they'll send it to you." She was still silent. "To- morrow morning they'll call you down to the command post, we'll see each other then. Bring Monkey." 
   "Will there be a search?" she asked. 
   "Let them. The house is clean. Don't worry, keep your tail up-- you know, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. You married a stalker, so don't complain. See you tomorrow. And remember, I didn't call. I kiss your little nose." 
   He hung up abruptly and stood for a few seconds, eyes shut and teeth clenched so tightly there was a tingling in his ears. Then he deposited another coin and dialed another number. 
   "Listening," said Throaty. 
   "It's Schuhart. Listen carefully and don't interrupt." 
   "Schuhart? What Schuhart?" asked Throaty in a natural manner. 
   "Don't interrupt, I said! They caught me, I ran, and I'm going to turn myself in now. I'm going to get two and a half or three years. My wife will be penniless. You take care of her. So that she needs nothing, understand? Understand, I said?" 
   "Go on," said Throaty. 
   "Not far from the place where we first met, there's a phone booth. It's the only one, you won't mistake it. The porcelain is under it. If you want it, take it, if you don't, don't. But my wife must be taken care of. We still have many years of playing together. If I come back and find out you double-crossed me ... I don't suggest that you do. Understand?" 
   "I understand everything," said Throaty. "Thanks." After a pause, he asked: "Maybe you want a lawyer?" 
   "No," said Redrick. "Every last cent goes to my wife. My regards." 
   He hung up, looked around, dug his hands into his pants pockets, and slowly went up Miner Street between the empty, bearded-up houses.