'Your hand, give me your hand! Quickly!'

'Mother of G.o.d. It's already come out . . .'

'Tighten it up . . . Don't look! Don't look there! Do you hear me?'

'On his cheeks! That's it!'

'To me! That's an order! I'll shoot!'

Strange pictures were flickering: green, the side of a railcar sown with rivets, an inverted ceiling for some reason, then a soiled floor . . . darkness . . . green armour again . . . then the world stopped swaying, grew calm and froze.

Artyom raised himself up and looked around. They were sitting around him on the roof of the armoured train. All the flashlights had been turned off, only one was lit, a small pocket light, which lay in the centre. Its light was not enough to see what was happening in the hall, but something could be heard bubbling, seething and overflowing from all sides. Someone again was carefully, as if trying by touch, to reach into his mind, but he shook his head and some of his fog dissipated. He looked and mechanically recounted the members of the party huddled on the roof. Now there were five of them, not counting Anton, who still had not come to, and his son. Artyom dully noted that one fighter had disappeared somewhere, but then his thoughts again faded away. As soon as his head emptied, reason once more began to slide into a turbid abyss. It was difficult to fight it alone. Melnik recognized what was happening, and Artyom tried to grasp this thought; he had to think about whatever he liked, if only to keep his mind occupied. It was apparent the same thing was happening to the others.

'This is what happened to this trash when it was exposed to the radiation . . . They were exactly right, biological weapons! But they didn't think what the c.u.mulative effect would be. It's also good that it stays behind the wall and doesn't get out into the city . . .' Melnik was saying.

No one answered him. The fighters had calmed down and listened absent-mindedly.

'Speak, speak! Don't be quiet! This c.r.a.p will stay in your subconscious. Hey, Oganesian! Oganesian! What are you thinking about?' The stalker shook one of his subordinates. 'Ulman, dammit! Where are you looking? Look at me! Don't be quiet!'

'Sweet . . . It's calling . . .' the strong Ulman said, fluttering his eyelashes.

'Just how sweet! Didn't you see what happened to Delyagin?' The stalker slapped the fighter on the cheek with all his might, and Ulman's lethargic look brightened.

'Hold hands! Everyone is to take each other's hand!' Melnik cried at the top of his lungs.

'Don't be quiet! Artyom! Sergey! At me, look at me!' And a metre below bubbled and seethed that terrible ma.s.s that, it seemed, already had covered the whole of the platform. It was becoming ever more persistent, and they were no longer able to withstand its pressure.

'Guys! Fellows! Don't give in! But press on . . . altogether! Let's sing!' The stalker was not giving up, calling his soldiers to order, handing out slaps in the face or bringing them to their senses with light touches. 'Rise up, huge country . . . Rise up for a mortal fight!' he dragged it out, wheezing and out of tune. 'With the dark fascist force . . . Against their curs-ed hordes . . .'

'Let n.o.ble fu-ry. . . . Boil up like a wave,' Ulman carried on. It seethed around the train with double the strength. Artyom hadn't begun to sing along: he didn't know the words to this song, and anyhow it occurred to him that the fighters had begun to sing, for some hidden reason, about the power of darkness and a boiling wave. No one knew any more words than the first verse and the refrain, except Melnik, and he sang the next quatrain alone, his eyes flashing menacingly and not allowing anyone to be distracted: 'As two-oo different poles, We are hostile to all! For Wo-rl-d and peace, we battle, They for a reign of darkness . . .' Almost everyone sang the refrain this time, even little Oleg tried to echo the adults. The discordant choir of coa.r.s.e, male voices, cracked and hoa.r.s.e from smoking, resounded, returning in an echo, in the boundless dark hall. The sound of the singing soared to the high arches painted with the mosaic, bounced off them, fell and sank into the teeming, living ma.s.s below. And although this picture of seven healthy men, perched on the roof of a train and, while holding hands, singing these senseless songs would have appeared absurd and funny to Artyom in any other situation, now it resembled more a chilling scene from a nightmare. He really, truly wanted to wake up. 'Let no-o-o-ble fu-ry bo-il up like a wa-a-a-ve. . . . A people's war is going on, a sa-a-a-cred wa-a-a-r!' Artyom himself, although he was not singing, diligently opened his mouth and rocked in time to the music. Not having caught the words in the first verse, he even decided that it was about either the people living in the metro, or about the opposition to the dark ones, under whose onslaught his home station was soon supposed to fall. Then in one verse he heard fascists, and Artyom understood it was about the battle of the Red Brigade fighters with the inhabitants of Pushkinskaya . . . When he tore himself away from his reflections, he discovered that the choir had fallen silent. Perhaps even Melnik himself didn't now the next verses.

'Guys! Let's do "Combat", hey?' The stalker was trying to persuade his fighters. 'A combat, my father, my father-combat, You didn't hide your heart behind the guys' back . . .' He had only just started, but then he too fell silent. A stupor enveloped the party. The fighters began to unclench their hands and the circle disintegrated. Everyone was quiet, even Anton who had been raving and muttering the whole time. Feeling a warm and turbid slush of indifference and fatigue filling the emptiness that had occurred in his head, Artyom tried to push it out, thinking about his mission, then telling himself nursery rhymes as he remembered them, then simply repeating: 'I think, think, think you will not worm yourself into me . . .' The fighter whom the stalker had called Oganesian suddenly stood up and brought himself to his full height. Artyom lifted his eyes to him with indifference.

'Well, it's time for me. Take care,' he said taking his leave. The rest dully looked at their comrade, not answering, only the stalker nodded at him. Oganesian approached the edge and unhesitatingly stepped forward. He didn't even scream, but from below was heard an unpleasant sound, a combination of a splash and a hungry rumbling.

'It calls . . . It . . . calls,' Ulman said in a sing-song voice and also began to get up. Artyom was spellbound.

'I think you won't worm yourself into me!' He got stuck on the word 'I,' and now he simply repeated it, not even noticing that he was speaking aloud: 'I, I, I, I, I.' Then he strongly, irresistibly wanted to look down in order to understand whether the heaving ma.s.s there was as deformed as it had appeared to him at first. But had he suddenly been wrong about it? Recalling again the stars on the Kremlin towers, distant and beckoning . . . And here the small Oleg sprang lightly to his feet and, taking a short run, threw himself down with a happy laugh. The living quagmire below chomped quietly, receiving the boy's body. Artyom understood that he envied him and also intended to follow.

But several seconds later, as the ma.s.s closed over Oleg's head, perhaps at that very moment when it had taken his life from him, his father screamed and regained consciousness. Breathing heavily and exhaustedly looking from side to side, Anton lifted himself and set about shaking the others, demanding an answer from them: 'Where is he? What's happened to him? Where is my son? Where is Oleg? Oleg! Olezhek!' Little by little the faces of the fighters began to regain intelligence. Even Artyom began to become conscious. He was no longer certain what he really had seen as Oleg jumped into the seething ma.s.s. Therefore, he didn't answer, just tried to calm Anton, who, it seemed, felt in a mysterious way that what had happened was irrevocable. And then his hysterics broke into the numbness felt by Artyom and in Melnik, and the others. His agitation and his baleful despair were transferred to them, and the unseen hand firmly grasping their consciousness, was yanked away.

The stalker made several test shots at the bubbling ma.s.s, but with no success. Then he told the fighter armed with the flame-thrower to remove the backpack with the fuel from his shoulders and, when told to, toss it as far as possible from the train. Having ordered two others to direct their flashlights on the spot where the backpack would fall, he prepared to fire and gave the go-ahead. Spinning in place, the fighter hurled the backpack and almost flew right after it himself, barely managing to hold on to the edge of the roof. The backpack flew into the air and began to fall about fifteen metres from the train.

'Get down!' Melnik waited until it touched the pulsing, oily surface, and squeezed the trigger.

Artyom watched the backpack's flight while stretched out on the roof. As soon as the shot rang out, he hid his face in the fold of his elbow and grasped the cold armour with all his might. The explosion was powerful: Artyom nearly flew off the roof as the train rocked. A dirty, orange glow of blazing fuel splashing along the platform reached his blinking eyes. Nothing happened for a minute. The squelching and chomping of the quagmire did not weaken, and Artyom was already preparing for it to recover from the annoying unpleasantness and begin to envelop his mind again. But instead, the noise began gradually to move further away.

'It's leaving! It's leaving!' Ulman bellowed right beside his ear. Artyom lifted his head. In the light of the flashlights he could clearly see that the ma.s.s, which recently had occupied nearly the whole huge hall, was shrinking and retreating, returning to the escalator.

'Hurry!' Melnik jumped to his feet. 'As soon as it slides down, everyone behind me, right to that tunnel!'

Artyom was surprised how Melnik could be so certain, but he wasn't about to ask, having put the stalker's previous indecisiveness down to whatever had been controlling his mind. Now the stalker was transformed. He was again the sober, decisive commander who did not put up with any arguments. Not only was there no time to think about it, but he didn't even want to. The only thing that now occupied Artyom was how to get out of this d.a.m.ned station as soon as possible before the strange being that dwelled in the Kremlin's bas.e.m.e.nts recovered its wits and returned in order to consume them. The station no longer seemed marvellous and beautiful to him. Now everything here was hostile and repulsive. Even the workers and peasants looked down in outrage from its wall panels. They still smiled, but it was strained and sickly sweet.

Having jumped pell-mell to the platform, they tore to the opposite end of the station. Anton had come to completely and ran as fast as the others, so that now nothing was delaying the party. After twenty minutes of mad racing through the black tunnel, Artyom began to gasp, and even the others had begun to tire. The stalker allowed them to slow to a quick march.

'Where are we going?' Artyom asked, overtaking Melnik.

'I think right now we are beneath Tverskaya . . . We should exit soon toward Mayakovskaya. We'll sort it out there.'

'But how did you know which tunnel to enter?' Artyom was curious.

'It was shown on the map we found at Genshtab. But I only recalled that at the last moment.'

As they arrived at the station, everything flew from their heads. Artyom pondered. Had his delight with the Kremlin station, with the pictures and the sculptures, and its s.p.a.ce and magnitude come to nothing? Or was it some trickery, evoked by the terrible ent.i.ty lurking in the Kremlin? Then he remembered the disgust and fear that the station had inspired in him when the drug had dissipated. And he began to doubt that these were his real feelings. Maybe the 'doodlebug' forced them to feel an irresistible desire to run from there at breakneck speed when they caused it pain? Artyom was no longer sure of his true feelings. Did a monstrous creation of his mind release him or did it continue to dictate thoughts to him and inspire his emotional experiences? At what moment did Artyom fall under its hypnotic influence? And was he sometimes free to make his own choices? And could his choice ever be free? Artyom again recalled the meeting with the two strange residents of Polyanka.

He glanced back: Anton was walking two paces behind him. He no longer badgered anyone about what happened to his son. Someone had already told him. His face had hardened and gone dead, his gaze was turned inward. Did Anton understand that they were only a step away from rescuing the boy? That his death had become a ridiculous accident? But it had brought the others through. Accident or victim?

'You know, we all most likely were saved only thanks to Oleg. It is because of him that you . . . regained consciousness,' he said to Anton, not specifying how this had come about.

'Yes,' Anton agreed indifferently.

'He told us that you served in the rocket forces. Strategic.'

'Tactical,' Anton replied.

'The "Tochka" and the "Iskander".'

'And multiple fire systems? "Smerch", "Uragan"?' having held back a little, the stalker, who had been listening to their conversation, asked.

'I can operate those, too. I was a career soldier, and they taught it to us. And everyone was interested in it. Everyone wanted to try it. Until I saw what it led to.'

There was not the smallest sign of interest in his voice, and there was no uneasiness regarding the fact that his secret was known to strangers. His answers were short, mechanical. Melnik, nodding, again moved away from them, going on ahead.

'We need your help very much,' Artyom said, carefully testing the waters. 'Understand, we have terrible things happening at VDNKh,' VDNKh,' he began. And he immediately stopped short: after what he had seen in the last twenty-four hours, what happened at he began. And he immediately stopped short: after what he had seen in the last twenty-four hours, what happened at VDNKh, VDNKh, however awful, didn't seem like anything exceptional, capable of overwhelming the metro and finally destroying man as a biological species. Artyom considered this thought, and reminded himself that it could be coming from the strange ent.i.ty. 'We have some creatures getting through from the surface,' he continued, having collected his thoughts. But Anton stopped him with a gesture. however awful, didn't seem like anything exceptional, capable of overwhelming the metro and finally destroying man as a biological species. Artyom considered this thought, and reminded himself that it could be coming from the strange ent.i.ty. 'We have some creatures getting through from the surface,' he continued, having collected his thoughts. But Anton stopped him with a gesture.

'Just say what has to be done, and I will do it,' he uttered colourlessly. 'I have the time now . . . How can I return home without my son?'

Artyom nodded nervously and walked away from the man leaving him along with his thoughts. Now he felt unclean, seeking help from a man who had just lost a child . . . He had been deprived of him through his, Artyom's, fault . . .

He caught up with the stalker again. Melnik was clearly in a good mood. Having left the party stretched out behind him, he was humming something to himself and, seeing Artyom, smiled at him. Listening to the melody Melnik was trying to reproduce, Artyom recognized that very song about the sacred war they had been singing on the roof of the train.

'You know, at first I decided this is the song for our war with the dark ones,' he said, 'and then I understood that it is about fascists. Who composed it? The communists from the Red Line?'

'This song is already about a hundred years old, if not a hundred and fifty.' Melnik shook his head.

'They composed it first for one war, then adapted it for another. It's good that it is suitable for any war. As long as man is alive, he will always deem himself to be the light of the world, and consider his enemies as the darkness. And they will be thinking like that on both sides of the front,' Artyom added to himself. 'Whatever it means.' His mind again flashed to the dark ones. 'Maybe it means that people, let's say the VDNKh VDNKh inhabitants, are the evil and darkness for them?' Artyom thought better of it and forbade himself to think of the dark ones as ordinary enemies. If one open the door for them only half way, nothing would hold them back . . . inhabitants, are the evil and darkness for them?' Artyom thought better of it and forbade himself to think of the dark ones as ordinary enemies. If one open the door for them only half way, nothing would hold them back . . .

'So you were saying about this song that it is eternal,' Melnik unexpectedly spoke. 'That dawned on me, too. In our country all eras are much the same. Take people . . . You won't change them in any way. They're as stubborn as mules. So, it would seem the end of the world is already at hand and you cannot go outside without an anti-radiation suit, and every kind of trash that earlier you only saw at the cinema has multiplied . . . No! You don't impress them! They're the same. Sometimes it seems to me that nothing has ever changed. Well, I visited the Kremlin today,' he smiled wryly, 'and I was thinking: there's not even anything new there. I'm not even certain when they hit us with this c.r.a.p: thirty years ago or three hundred.'

'Were there really such weapons three hundred years ago?' Artyom was doubtful, but the stalker didn't reply. They'd seen two or three depictions of the Great Worm on the floor, but there had been no sign of the savages themselves. The first drawing had put the fighters on their guard, and they'd regrouped in such a way that it was easier to defend themselves, but the tension had dissipated after they'd encountered the third drawing.

'They weren't jabbering nonsense. Today was a holy day and they stay at the stations and don't go into the tunnels,' Ulman noted with relief.

Something else occupied the stalker. By his calculations, the missile unit was very close by. Checking the hand-drawn map every minute, he absently repeated: 'Somewhere here . . . Isn't this it? No, not that corner, but where is the pressurized gate? We ought to be approaching it already . . .'

Finally, they stopped at a fork: to the left was a dead end with a grille, at the end of which they could see the remains of a pressurized gate, and to the right, as far as the light of the flashlight could reach, there was a straight tunnel.

'That's it!' Melnik determined. 'We're there. Everything tallies with the map. There, behind the grille, the tunnel has collapsed like at Park Pobedy. And that must be the pa.s.sage into which they took Tretyak. So . . .' Illuminating the map with his pocket flashlight, he thought aloud, 'The line goes directly from this fork to the division, and this one, to the Kremlin, we came from there, right.' Then he climbed behind the grille with Ulman and they wandered around the dead end for about ten minutes, inspecting the walls and ceiling with the flashlight.

'OK! There's a pa.s.sage in the floor this time, a round sort of top, similar to a sewer manhole,' the returning stalker reported. 'Everyone, we are there. Take a break.'

As soon as everyone had removed their rucksacks and had sprawled out on the ground, something strange happened to Artyom: despite the awkward position, he fell asleep instantly. Either the fatigue acc.u.mulated in the last twenty-four hours had taken its toll or the poison from the paralysing needle was producing some side effects.

Artyom again saw himself, asleep, in the tent at VNDKh. VNDKh. As in his earlier dream, it was gloomy and abandoned at the station. Artyom knew beforehand what would happen to him now. Already accustomed to saying h.e.l.lo to the little girl who was playing, he didn't ask her about anything, heading instead directly toward the tracks. The distant cries and entreaties for mercy didn't frighten him. He knew that he was seeing the unwelcome dream again for another reason, one that concealed in the tunnels. He was supposed to uncover the nature of the threat, reconnoitre the situation and report about it to his allies from the south. But as soon as he was shrouded in the darkness of the tunnel, his confidence in himself and in the fact that he knew why he was here and how he had to go on vaporized. He was as frightened as when he went beyond the limits of the station alone for the first time. And exactly as then, it wasn't the darkness itself nor the rustle of the tunnels that scared him, but the unknown, the inability to foretell what danger the next hundred metres of the line concealed. As in his earlier dream, it was gloomy and abandoned at the station. Artyom knew beforehand what would happen to him now. Already accustomed to saying h.e.l.lo to the little girl who was playing, he didn't ask her about anything, heading instead directly toward the tracks. The distant cries and entreaties for mercy didn't frighten him. He knew that he was seeing the unwelcome dream again for another reason, one that concealed in the tunnels. He was supposed to uncover the nature of the threat, reconnoitre the situation and report about it to his allies from the south. But as soon as he was shrouded in the darkness of the tunnel, his confidence in himself and in the fact that he knew why he was here and how he had to go on vaporized. He was as frightened as when he went beyond the limits of the station alone for the first time. And exactly as then, it wasn't the darkness itself nor the rustle of the tunnels that scared him, but the unknown, the inability to foretell what danger the next hundred metres of the line concealed.

Vaguely recalling how he had behaved in previous dreams, he decided not to give in to fear this time, but to go forward, until he met the one who was concealed in the dark, waiting for him.

Someone was coming towards him. Not hurrying, as he was, not walking with his cowardly, slinking short steps, but with a confident heavy tread. Artyom stopped in his tracks, catching his breath. The other one also stopped.

Artyom promised himself that he wouldn't run this time regardless of what happened. When, judging by the sound, only about three metres of darkness separated them, Artyom's knees shook, but somehow he found the strength to make one more step. But, feeling a light flutter of the air on his face as someone approached, Artyom couldn't bear it. Flinging out a hand, he pushed the unseen being away and fled. This time he didn't stumble and he ran for an intolerably long time, an hour or two, but there was no trace of his home station, there were no stations at all, nothing at all, only an endless, dark tunnel. And this proved to be even more terrible.

'Hey, that's enough of a nap, you'll sleep through the meeting.' Ulman pushed him on the shoulder.

Artyom roused himself and looked guiltily at the others. It appeared that he had dropped off for only for a few minutes. They were all sitting in a circle. In the centre was Melnik with the map, pointing and explaining.

'Well,' he said,' it's about twenty kilometres to our destination. If we keep up a good pace and nothing gets in our way, it's possible to make it in half a day. The military unit is located on the surface, but there is a bunker under it and the tunnel leads to it. However, there's no time to think about that. We have to split up.' He looked at Artyom. 'Are you up? You are returning to the metro, I will appoint Ulman to look after you,' he said. 'The others and I are going to the missile division.'

Artyom was on the verge of opening his mouth, intending to protest, but the stalker stopped him with an impatient gesture. Leaning towards the heap of rucksacks, Melnik started to distribute the supplies.

'You take two protective suits, we have four left, and we don't know what it will be like there. There's one radio for you and one for us. Now the instructions. Go to Prospect Mir. They are waiting for you there. I have sent some messengers.' He looked at his wrist.w.a.tch. 'In exactly twelve hours go up to the surface and look for our signal. If everything is OK and we are on the air, we'll move to the next stage of the operation. Your mission is to find the best way to the Botanical Gardens and then to get up high in order to help us direct and correct the fire. The "Smerch" has a limited destruction area and we don't know how many missiles are still there. And the gardens aren't small. Don't worry,' he said to Artyom, 'Ulman will be doing it all, you are there as company. We have use for you too, of course. You know what these dark ones look like.

'The Ostankino tower is very suitable for guidance. It's wider in the middle: there was a restaurant there. They served tiny sandwiches with caviar there at prices that were out of sight. But people didn't go there because of them, but for the view of Moscow. The Botanical Gardens can be seen clearly from there. Try to get to the tower. If you can't get to the tower, there is a multi-storey building alongside, sort of white, shaped like the letter P, and almost uninhabited. So . . . This is a map of Moscow for you, and this one is for us. It's a shambles there around the squares. You simply look and communicate. The rest, follow us. It's nothing too complex,' he a.s.sured them. 'Questions?'

'And if they don't have a nest there?' Artyom asked.

'Well, we can't do the impossible,' the stalker slapped his palm on the map. 'And I have a surprise here for you,' he added, winking at Artyom.

Reaching into his backpack, Melnik took out a white polyethylene bag with a worn coloured picture on the side. Artyom looked inside and took out the worn pa.s.sport and the children's book with the cherished photograph that he had found in the neglected apartment at Kalinskiy inside. Having raced after Oleg, he had left his treasures at Kievskaya, and Melnik had gone to the trouble to collect them and carry them with him all this time. Ulman sitting alongside looked at Artyom with a puzzled look, then at the stalker.

'Personal things,' Melnik said, smiling. Artyom wanted to thank him but the stalker had already got up from his seat and was giving orders to the fighters going with him.

Artyom went up to Anton who was absorbed in his own thoughts.

'Good luck!' Artyom extended his hand to the lookout. Anton silently nodded, putting his rucksack onto his back. His eyes were totally empty.

'Well, that's all! We won't say goodbye. Note the time!' Melnik said. He turned and, without saying another word, was off.

CHAPTER 19.

The Final Battle

Having moved the heavy cast-iron lid of the closed manhole aside, they began their descent. The narrow, vertical shaft was composed of concrete rings, from each of which jutted a metal bracket. As soon as they were left alone, Ulman changed. He spoke to Artyom in short, monosyllabic phrases, mainly giving orders or admonishing him. As soon as the lid of the hatch had been removed, he ordered Artyom to put out the flashlight and, putting on the night vision instrument, dived inside first. Artyom had to crawl down, holding on to the brackets. He didn't really understand what all these precautions were for, as, after the Kremlin, they hadn't encountered any danger along their way. Finally, Artyom decided that the stalker had given Ulman special instructions and, having been left without a commander, he was enthusiastically filling the role himself. Ulman smacked Artyom on the foot, giving the sign to stop. Artyom obediently froze, waiting until the other man explained to him what was happening. But, instead of explanations, a soft thump was heard from below. It was Ulman jumping to the floor. A few seconds later, Artyom heard m.u.f.fled gunshots.

'You can come down,' his partner said to Artyom in a loud whisper, and a light came on.

When the brackets ended, he released his hands, and dropped about two metres, landing on a cement floor. Lifting himself up, he dusted off his hands and looked around. They were in a short corridor, about fifteen paces long. The opening of the manhole yawned above them in the ceiling. There was another hatch just like it in the floor, with the very same cast-iron grooved cover. Beside it, in a pool of blood, lay a dead savage face downwards, squeezing his blow pipe tight in his hand even after death.

'He was guarding the pa.s.sage,' Ulman replied quietly at Artyom's questioning glance, 'but he had fallen asleep. Most likely he didn't expect anyone to crawl in from this side. He had put his ear to the hatch and dropped off.'

'You killed him . . . what, while he was sleeping?' Artyom asked.

'So what? It wasn't a fair fight.' Ulman sniffed. 'If nothing else, now he'll know not to sleep on duty. Anyway, he was a bad person: he wasn't observing their holy day. He was told not to go into the tunnels.'

Dragging the body to the side, Ulman opened the hatch and again put out his flashlight. This time the shaft was extremely short and led to an office filled with trash. A mountain of metal plates, gears, springs and nickel-plated handrails, enough parts for a whole coach, completely hid the manhole from prying eyes. They were heaped on top of each other in disarray right up to the ceiling and stayed there only by some kind of miracle. There was a narrow pa.s.sage between this pile and the wall, but getting through it without touching and bringing a whole mountain of metal down was almost impossible.

A door buried in dirt up to its middle led from the office to an unusual square tunnel. A line from the left there: either there was an obstruction or they had stopped laying the track for some reason. To the right there was a standard tunnel, round and wide. It seemed as if there was a border between two intertwined subterranean worlds here. Even breathing was different: the air was damp but not so ghastly and stagnant as in the secret D-6 pa.s.sages. They weren't sure where to go. They decided not to move out at random, as there was a frontier post of the Fourth Reich located on this line. Judging by the map, it was only about twenty minutes from Mayakovskaya to Chekhovskaya. Digging into the bag with his things, Artyom found the bloodied map he had got from Daniel, and worked out the true direction from it. Less than five minutes later they reached Mayakovskaya.

Sitting down on a bench, Ulman took the heavy helmet off his head with a sigh of relief, wiped his red, damp face with a sleeve and ran his fingers through his dark-blond crew cut. Despite his powerful frame and having the habits of an old tunnel wolf, Ulman, it seemed, was only slightly older than Artyom.

While they were looking for somewhere to buy food, Artyom was able to inspect the station. He no longer knew how much time had pa.s.sed since his last meal, but his aching stomach was no laughing matter. Ulman had no supplies on him: they had left in a hurry and brought only what was necessary.

Mayakovskaya resembled Kievskaya. It was just a shadow of the once elegant and airy station. In this half of the ruined station people huddled in ragged tents or out on the platform. The walls and ceiling were covered with damp patches and trickling water. There was one small campfire for the whole station but no fuel.

The inhabitants talked among themselves quietly, as if at the bedside of a dying man. However, there was a shop even here: a patched up three-man tent with a folding table displayed at the entrance. The selection was modest: skinned rat carca.s.ses, dried up and shrunken mushrooms, procured here G.o.d knows when, and even uncut squares of moss. A price tag lay proudly next to each item - a piece of news print with carefully handwritten numbers. There were almost no shoppers except them, only an undernourished stooped woman holding a small boy by the hand. The child was pulling towards a rat lying on the counter, but his mother admonished him: 'Don't touch! We've already eaten meat this week!' The boy obeyed, but he didn't forget about the carca.s.s for long. As soon as the mother turned away, he once more tried to reach for the dead animal.

'Kolka! What did I tell you? If you are bad, the demons will come out of the tunnels to get you! Sashka didn't obey his mommy and they took him!' the woman scolded him, succeeding at the last moment to pull him away from the counter.

Artyom and Ulman couldn't make up their minds. Artyom began to think that he could survive until they got to Prospect Mir where the mushrooms would at least be fresher.

'Some rat, perhaps? We fry them in front of the customer,' the shop's bald owner said with some dignity. 'Certificate of quality!' he added enigmatically.

'Thanks, I've already eaten,' Ulman hastened to turn him down. 'Artyom, what do you want? I wouldn't take the moss. World War Four will start in your gut from it.'

The woman looked at him with disapproval. In her hand were only two cartridges which, judging by the prices, was just enough for the moss. Noting that Artyom was looking at her modest capital, the woman hid her fist behind her back.

'Nothing here,' she snarled spitefully.