Roadside Picnic

4

^{REDRICK SCHUHART, 31 YEARS OLD.}

During the night the valley had cooled off, and at dawn it actually became cold. They walked along the embankment, stepping on the rotted ties between the rusty rails, and Redrick watched the droplets of condensed fog sparkle on Arthur Burbridge’s leather jacket. The kid was walking lightly, cheerfully, as if they hadn’t just passed a torturous night, full of a nervous tension that still shook every fiber; as if they hadn’t spent two agonizing hours on the wet summit of the bare hill in restless sleep, huddling together for warmth, waiting out the torrent of greenide that was flowing around the hill and disappearing into the ravine.

There was a thick fog lying on both sides of the embankment. From time to time, it rolled over the rails in heavy gray streams, and they would walk knee-deep in a slowly swirling haze. It smelled of damp rust, and the swamp to the right of the embankment reeked of decay. They couldn’t see anything except the fog, but Redrick knew that on both sides stretched a hilly plain with piles of rocks, and that beyond that were mountains hidden in the haze. And he also knew that when the sun rose and the fog condensed into dew, he was supposed to see the frame of a broken-down helicopter to their left and a train in front of them, and that’s when the real work would begin.

As he walked, Redrick shoved his hand between his body and the backpack and jerked the backpack up so that the edge of the helium container didn’t bite into his spine. The damn thing’s heavy, he thought, how am I going to crawl with it? A mile on all fours. All right, stop bitching, stalker, you knew what you were in for. Five hundred big ones are waiting for you at the end of the road, you can sweat a bit. Five hundred thousand, a tasty treat, huh? No way will I give it to them for any less than that. And no way will I give the Vulture more than thirty. And the kid… the kid gets nothing. If the old bastard told me even half the story, then the kid gets nothing.

He took another look at Arthur, and for some time watched, squinting, as he lightly stepped over the ties two at a time—wide shouldered, narrow hipped, the long raven hair, like his sister’s, bouncing in rhythm to his steps. He’d begged it out of me, Redrick thought sullenly. He did it himself. And why did he have to beg so desperately? Trembling, with tears in his eyes. “Please take me, Mr. Schuhart! I’ve had other offers, but I only want to go with you, you know the others are no good! There’s Father… But he can’t anymore!” Redrick forced himself to cut this memory short. Thinking about it was repellent, and maybe that was why he started thinking about Arthur’s sister, about how he’d slept with this Dina—slept with her sober and slept with her drunk, and how every single time it’d been a disappointment. It was beyond belief; such a luscious broad, you’d think she was made for loving, but in actual fact she was nothing but an empty shell, a fraud, an inanimate doll instead of a woman. It reminded him of the buttons on his mother’s jacket—amber, translucent, golden. He always longed to stuff them into his mouth and suck on them, expecting some extraordinary treat, and he’d take them into his mouth and suck and every single time would be terribly disappointed, and every single time he’d forget about the disappointment—not that he’d actually forget, he’d just refuse to believe his memory as soon as he saw them again.

Or maybe his daddy sicced him on me, he thought, considering Arthur. Look at the heat he’s packing in his back pocket… No, I doubt it. The Vulture knows me. The Vulture knows that I don’t kid around. And he knows what I’m like in the Zone. No, I’m being ridiculous. He wasn’t the first to ask, he wasn’t the first to shed tears, some have even gotten on their knees. And they all bring a gun the first time. The first and last time. Will it really be his last time? Oh, kid, it looks like it! You see, Vulture, how things have turned out—it’s his last time. Yes, Daddy, if you’d learned about this idea of his, you’d have given him a good thrashing with your crutches, this Zone-granted son of yours…

He suddenly sensed that there was something in front of them—not too far away, about thirty or forty yards ahead. “Stop,” he told Arthur.

The boy obediently stopped in his tracks. His reaction time was good—he froze with his foot in the air and then slowly and cautiously lowered it to the ground. Redrick came up to him. Here, the train tracks noticeably sloped down and completely disappeared into the fog. And there was something there, in the fog. Something large and motionless. Harmless. Redrick cautiously sniffed the air. Yes. Harmless.

“Keep going,” he said softly, waited until Arthur took a step, and followed him.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Arthur’s face, his chiseled profile, the clear skin of his cheek, and the decisively pursed lips under the thinnest of mustaches.

They continued going down, the fog enveloping them to their waists, then to their necks, and in another few seconds the lopsided mass of the railcar loomed ahead.

“All right,” said Redrick, and he started pulling off the backpack. “Sit down where you’re standing. Smoke break.”

Arthur helped him with the backpack, and they sat side by side on the rusty rail. Redrick opened one of the pockets and took out the bag of food and the thermos of coffee. While Arthur was unwrapping the food and arranging the sandwiches on top of the backpack, Redrick pulled the flask from his jacket, unscrewed the cap, and, closing his eyes, took a few slow sips.

“Want a sip?” he offered, wiping the mouth of the flask with his hand. “For courage.”

Arthur shook his head, hurt. “I don’t need it for courage, Mr. Schuhart,” he said. “I’d rather have some coffee, if you don’t mind. It’s very damp here, isn’t it?”

“It’s damp,” agreed Redrick. He put the flask away, chose a sandwich, and started chewing. “When the fog burns off, you’ll see that we’re in the middle of a swamp. This place used to be swarming with mosquitoes—it was something else.”

He stopped talking and poured himself some coffee. The coffee was hot, thick, and sweet—right now, it tasted even better than alcohol. It smelled of home. Of Guta. And not just of Guta but of Guta in her bathrobe, just awakened, with a pillow mark still on her cheek. I shouldn’t have gotten mixed up in this, he thought. Five hundred thousand… What the hell do I need five hundred thousand for? What, am I going to buy a bar? A man needs money in order to never think about it. That’s true. Dick got that right. But lately I haven’t been thinking about it. So why the hell do I need the money? I have a house, a garden, in Harmont you can always find work. It was the Vulture that lured me, the rotten bastard, lured me like a kid…

“Mr. Schuhart,” Arthur blurted out, looking off to the side, “do you really believe that this thing grants wishes?”

“Nonsense!” Redrick said absentmindedly. He froze with his cup halfway to his mouth. “And how do you know what kind of thing we’re here for?”

Arthur laughed in embarrassment, ran his fingers through his raven hair, tugged on it, and said, “I just guessed! I don’t even remember what gave me the idea… Well, first of all, Father always used to drone on about this Golden Sphere, but a while ago he stopped doing that and has started visiting you instead—and I know you two aren’t friends, no matter what he says. And he’s become kind of strange lately…” Arthur laughed again and shook his head, remembering something. “And it all finally clicked when the two of you were testing this dirigible in the vacant lot.” He patted the backpack at the place containing the tightly packed envelope of the hot-air balloon. “To be honest, I’d been shadowing you, and when I saw you lift the sack of stones and guide it through the air, everything became completely clear. As far as I know, the Golden Sphere is the only heavy thing left in the Zone.” He took a bite of the sandwich, chewed, and said thoughtfully with his mouth full, “The only thing I don’t understand is how you’re going to latch on to it—it’s probably smooth…”

Redrick kept looking at him over the cup and thinking: How very unlike they are, father and son. They’ve got nothing in common—neither faces nor voices nor souls. The Vulture’s voice was hoarse, ingratiating, sleazy in some way, but when he spoke about this, he spoke well. You couldn’t help listening to him. “Red,” he’d said then, leaning over the table, “there are just two of us left, and there are only two legs between us, and they are both yours. Who’ll do it but you? It might be the most precious thing in the Zone! And who’s going to get it, huh? Will it really be those sissies with their robots? Because I found it! How many of our men have fallen along the way? But I found it! I’ve been saving it for myself. And even now I wouldn’t give it away, but you see my arms have gotten short… No one can do it but you. I’ve trained so many brats, even opened a whole school for them—none of them can do it, they don’t have what it takes. OK, you don’t believe me. That’s fine—you don’t have to. The money’s all yours. Give me what you like, I know you won’t cheat me. And I might get my legs back. My legs, you understand? The Zone took my legs away, so maybe the Zone will give them back again?”

“What?” asked Redrick, coming to.

“I asked: May I have a smoke, Mr. Schuhart?”

“Yeah,” said Redrick, “go ahead. I’ll have one, too.”

He gulped down the remaining coffee, took out a cigarette, and stared into the thinning fog. He’s nuts, he thought. A crazy man. It’s his legs he wants. That asshole… that rotten bastard…

All these conversations had left a certain sediment in his soul, and he didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t dissolving with time, but instead kept accumulating and accumulating. And though he couldn’t identify it, it got in the way, as if he’d caught something from the Vulture, not a disease, but instead… strength, maybe? No, not strength. So what was it? All right, he told himself. Let’s try this: Pretend I didn’t make it here. I got ready, packed my backpack, and then something happened. Say I got nabbed. Would that be bad? Yes, definitely. How so? The money down the drain? No, the money’s not the issue. That those bastards, Raspy and Bony, would get their hands on the goods? Yes, that’s something. That would be too bad. But what are they to me? Either way they eventually get everything…

“Brr…” Arthur shivered, his shoulders convulsing. “I’m freezing. Mr. Schuhart, maybe I could have a sip now?”

Redrick silently took out the flask and offered it to him. You know, I didn’t agree right away, he thought suddenly. Twenty times I told the Vulture to go to hell, but the twenty-first time I did agree. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. And our last conversation was brief and very businesslike. “Hey, Red. I brought the map. Maybe you’d like to take a look after all?” And I looked into his eyes, and his eyes were like abscesses—yellow with black dots in the middle—and I said, “Give it to me.” And that was all. I remember I was drunk at the time, I’d been binging all week. I was really depressed… Aw, damn it, what does it matter! So I decided to go. Why do I keep digging through this, as if poking through a pile of shit? What am I—afraid?

He started. A long, mournful creak suddenly reached them from the fog. Redrick leaped up as if stung, and at the same time, just as abruptly, Arthur leaped up, too. But it was already quiet again, only the sound of gravel clattering down the embankment as it streamed from under their feet.

“That’s probably the ore settling,” Arthur whispered uncertainly, forcing the words out with difficulty. “There’s ore in the cars… they’ve been standing here awhile…”

Redrick stared in front of him without seeing a thing. He’d remembered. It was the middle of the night. He’d been awakened, horror-struck, by the same sound, mournful and drawn out, as if from a dream. Except that it wasn’t a dream. It was the Monkey screaming, sitting on her bed by the window, and his father was responding from the other side of the house—very similarly, with creaky drawn-out cries, but with some kind of added gurgle. And they kept calling back and forth in the dark—it seemed to last a century, a hundred years, and another hundred years. Guta also woke up and held Redrick’s hand, he felt her instantly clammy shoulder against his body, and they lay there for these hundreds and hundreds of years and listened; and when the Monkey quieted down and went to bed he waited a little longer, got up, went down to the kitchen, and greedily drank half a bottle of cognac. That was the night he started binging.

“… the ore,” Arthur was saying. “You know, it settles with time. From the humidity, from erosion, for various other reasons…”

Redrick took a look at his pale face and sat down again. His cigarette had somehow disappeared from his fingers, so he lit a new one.

Arthur stood a little longer, warily looking around, then sat down and said softly, “I know they say there are people living in the Zone. Not aliens—actual people. That they were trapped here during the Visit and mutated… adjusted to new conditions. Have you heard of this, Mr. Schuhart?”

“Yes,” said Redrick. “Except that’s not here. That’s in the mountains. To the northwest. Some shepherds.”

So that’s what he infected me with, he thought. His insanity. That’s why I’ve come here. That’s what I need.

Some strange and very new sensation was slowly filling him. He realized that this sensation wasn’t actually new, that it had long been hiding somewhere inside him, but he only now became aware of it, and everything fell into place. And an idea, which had previously seemed like nonsense, like the insane ravings of a senile old man, turned out to be his sole hope and his sole meaning of life. It was only now that he’d understood—the one thing that he still had left, the one thing that had kept him afloat in recent months, was the hope for a miracle. He, the idiot, the dummy, had been spurning this hope, trampling on it, mocking it, drinking it away—because that’s what he was used to and because his whole life, ever since his childhood, he had never relied on anyone but himself. And ever since his childhood, this self-reliance had always been measured by the amount of money he managed to wrench, wrestle, and wring out of the surrounding indifferent chaos. That’s how it had always been, and that’s how it would have continued, if he hadn’t found himself in a hole from which no amount of money could rescue him, in which self-reliance was utterly pointless. And now this hope—no longer the hope but the certainty of a miracle—was filling him to the brim, and he was already amazed that he’d managed to live in such a bleak, cheerless gloom…

“Hey, stalker,” he said. “Soil your underpants? Get used to it, buddy, don’t be embarrassed, they’ll wash them out at home.”

Arthur looked at him in surprise, smiling uncertainly. Meanwhile, Redrick crumpled the oily sandwich paper, flung it under the railcar, and reclined on his backpack, leaning on his elbows.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s say we assume that this Golden Sphere really can… What would you wish for?”

“So you do believe in it?” Arthur asked quickly.

“It doesn’t matter if I believe in it or not. Answer the question.”

He suddenly became truly interested in what a kid like this could ask the Golden Sphere—still a pipsqueak, yesterday’s schoolboy—and he watched with a lively curiosity as Arthur frowned, fiddled with his mustache, glanced up at him, and lowered his eyes again. “Well, of course, legs for Father,” Arthur said finally. “For things to be good at home…”

“Liar, liar,” said Redrick good-naturedly. “Keep in mind, buddy: the Golden Sphere will only grant your innermost wishes, the kind that, if they don’t come true, you’d be ready to jump off a bridge!”

Arthur Burbridge blushed, sneaked another peak at Redrick, and instantly lowered his eyes, then turned beet red—tears even came into his eyes.

Redrick smirked, looking at him. “I see,” he said almost tenderly. “All right, it’s none of my business. You can keep it to yourself.” And then he remembered the gun and thought that while there was time, he should deal with everything he could. “What’s that in your back pocket?” he asked casually.

“A gun,” grumbled Arthur, and bit his lip.

“What’s it for?”

“Shooting!” Arthur replied defiantly.

“That’s enough of that,” Redrick said strictly and sat up. “Give it to me. There’s no one to shoot in the Zone. Hand it over.”

Arthur wanted to say something, but he kept his mouth shut, reached behind his back, took out a Colt revolver, and handed it to Redrick, holding it by the barrel.

Redrick took the gun by the warm ribbed handle, tossed it up in the air, caught it, and asked, “Do you have a handkerchief or something? Give it to me, I’ll wrap it.”

He took Arthur’s handkerchief, spotless and smelling of cologne, wrapped the gun in it, and placed the bundle on the railroad tie.

“We’ll leave it here for now,” he explained. “God willing, we’ll come back here and pick it up. Maybe we really will have to fight the patrols. Although fighting the patrols, buddy…”

Arthur adamantly shook his head. “That’s not what it’s for,” he said with vexation. “It only has one bullet. In case it happens like with my father.”

“Ohh, I see…” Redrick said slowly, steadily examining him. “Well, you don’t need to worry about that. If it happens like with your father, I’ll manage to drag you here. I promise. Look, dawn is breaking!”

The fog was evaporating before their eyes. It had already vanished from the embankment, while everywhere else around them the milky haze was eroding and melting, and the bristly domes of the hilltops were sprouting through the vapor. Here and there between the hills he could already make out the speckled surface of the soured swamp, covered with sparse malnourished willow bushes, while on the horizon, beyond the hills, the mountain summits blazed bright yellow, and the sky over the mountains was clear and blue. Arthur looked over his shoulder and cried out in admiration. Redrick also turned around. The mountains to the east looked pitch black, while the sky above them shimmered and blazed in a familiar emerald glow—the green dawn of the Zone. Redrick got up and, unbuckling his belt, said, “Aren’t you going to relieve yourself? Keep in mind, we might not have another chance.”

He walked behind the railcar, squatted on the embankment, and, grunting, watched as the green glow quickly faded, the sky flooded with pink, the orange rim of the sun crawled out from behind the mountain range, and the hills immediately began casting lilac shadows. Then everything became sharp, vivid, and clear, and directly in front of him, about two hundred yards away, Redrick saw the helicopter. It looked as if it had fallen right into the center of a bug trap and its entire hull had been squashed into a metal pancake—the only things left intact were the tail, slightly bent, its black hook jutting out over the gap between the hills, and the stabilizing rotor, which noticeably squeaked as it rocked in the breeze. The bug trap must have been powerful: there hadn’t even been a real fire, and the squashed metal clearly displayed the red-and-blue emblem of the Royal Air Force—a symbol Redrick hadn’t seen in so long he thought he might have forgotten what it looked like.

Having done his business, Redrick came back to the backpack, took out his map, and spread it on top of the pile of fused ore in the railcar. The actual quarry wasn’t visible from here—it was hidden by a hill with a blackened, charred tree on top. They were supposed to go around this hill on the right, through the valley lying between it and another hill—also visible, completely barren and with reddish-brown rock scree covering its entire slope.

All the landmarks agreed with the map, but Redrick didn’t feel satisfied. The instinct of a seasoned stalker protested against the very idea—absurd and unnatural—of laying a path between two nearby hills. All right, thought Redrick. We’ll see about that. I’ll figure it out on the spot. The trail to the valley went through the swamp, through a flat open space that looked safe from here, but taking a closer look, Redrick noticed a dark gray patch between the hummocks. Redrick glanced at the map. It had an X and the scrawled label SMARTASS. The dotted red line of the trail passed to the right of the X. The nickname sounded familiar, but Redrick couldn’t remember who this Smartass was, or what he looked like, or when he’d been around. For some reason, the only thing that came to mind was this: a smoky room at the Borscht, unfamiliar ferocious mugs, huge red paws squeezing their glasses, thunderous laughter, gaping yellow-toothed mouths—a fantastic herd of titans and giants gathered at the watering hole, one of his most vivid memories of youth, his first time at the Borscht. What did I bring? An empty, I think. Came straight from the Zone, wet, hungry, and wild, a bag slung over my shoulder, barged inside, and dumped the bag on the bar in front of Ernest, angrily glowering and looking around; endured the deafening burst of taunts, waited until Ernest, still young, never without a bow tie, counted out some green ones—no, they weren’t green yet, they were square, with a picture of some half-naked lady in a cloak and wreath—finished waiting, put the money in his pocket, and, surprising himself, grabbed a heavy beer stein from the bar and smashed it with all his might into the nearest roaring mug. Redrick smirked and thought, Maybe that was Smartass himself?

“Is it really OK to go between the hills, Mr. Schuhart?” Arthur softly asked near his ear. He was standing close by and was also examining the map.

“We’ll see,” said Redrick. He was still looking at the map. The map had two other Xs—one on the slope of the hill with the tree and the other on top of the rock scree. Poodle and Four-Eyes. The trail went between them. “We’ll see,” he repeated, folded the map, and stuffed it into his pocket.

He looked Arthur over and asked, “Are you shitting yourself yet?” and, not waiting for an answer, ordered, “Help me put the backpack on… We’ll keep going like before.” He jerked the backpack up and adjusted the straps. “You’ll walk in front, so I can always see you. Don’t look around, but keep your ears open. My orders are law. Keep in mind, we’ll have to crawl a lot, don’t you dare be afraid of dirt; if I order you to, you drop facedown in the dirt, no questions asked. And zip your jacket. Ready?”

“Ready,” Arthur said hollowly. He was obviously nervous. The color in his cheeks had vanished without a trace.

“We will first head this direction.” Redrick gestured curtly toward the nearest hill, which was a hundred steps away from the embankment. “Got it? Go ahead.”

Arthur took a ragged breath, stepped over the rail, and began to descend sideways down the embankment. The gravel cascaded noisily behind him.

“Take it easy,” said Redrick. “No rush.”

He carefully descended behind him, balancing the inertia of the heavy backpack with his leg muscles by force of habit. The entire time he watched Arthur out of the corner of his eye. The kid is scared, he thought. And he’s right to be scared. Probably has a premonition. If he has an instinct, like his dad, then he must have a premonition. If you only knew, Vulture, how things would turn out. If you only knew, Vulture, that this time I’d listen to you. “And here, Red, you won’t manage alone. Like it or not, you’ll have to take someone else. You can have one of my pipsqueaks, I don’t need them all…” He convinced me. For the first time in my life I had agreed to such a thing. Well, never mind, he thought. Maybe we’ll figure something out, after all, I’m not the Vulture, maybe we’ll find a way.

“Stop!” he ordered Arthur.

The boy stopped ankle-deep in rusty water. By the time Redrick came up to him, the quagmire had sucked him in up to his knees.

“See that rock?” asked Redrick. “There, under the hill. Head toward it.”

Arthur moved forward; Redrick let him go for ten steps and followed. The bog under their feet slurped and stank. It was a dead bog—no bugs, no frogs, even the willow bush here had dried up and rotted. As usual, Redrick kept his eyes peeled, but for now everything seemed all right. The hill slowly got closer, crept over the low-lying sun, then blocked the entire eastern half of the sky.

When they got to the rock, Redrick turned back to look at the embankment. The sun shone on it brightly, a ten-car train was standing on top of it, a few cars had fallen off the rails and lay on their sides, and the ground beneath them was dotted with reddish-brown patches of spilled ore. And farther away, in the direction of the quarry, to the north of the train, the air above the rails was hazily vibrating and shimmering, and from time to time tiny rainbows would instantly blaze up and go out. Redrick took a look at this shimmering, spat drily, and looked away.

“Go on,” he said, and Arthur turned a tense face toward him. “See those rags? You aren’t looking the right way! Over there, to the right…”

“Yeah,” said Arthur.

“That used to be a certain Smartass. A long time ago. He didn’t listen to his elders and now lies there for the express purpose of showing smart people the way. Let’s aim two yards to his right. Got it? Marked the place? See, it’s roughly there, where the willow bush is a bit thicker… Head in that direction. Go ahead!”

Now they walked parallel to the embankment. With each step, there was less and less water beneath their feet, and soon they walked over dry springy hummocks. And the map only shows swamp, thought Redrick. The map is out of date. The Vulture hasn’t been here for a while, so it’s out of date. That’s not good. Of course, it’s easier to walk over dry ground, but I wish that swamp were here… Just look at him march, he thought about Arthur. Like he’s on Central Avenue.

Arthur had apparently cheered up and was now walking at full pace. He stuck one hand in his pocket and was swinging the other arm merrily, as if on a stroll. Redrick felt in his pocket, picked out a nut that weighed about an ounce, and, taking aim, flung it at Arthur. It hit him right in the back of the head. The boy gasped, wrapped his arms around his head, and, writhing, collapsed onto the dry grass. Redrick stopped beside him.

“That’s how it is around here, Archie,” he said didactically. “This is no boulevard, and we aren’t here on a stroll.”

Arthur slowly got up. His face was completely white.

“You got it?” asked Redrick.

Arthur swallowed and nodded.

“That’s good. Next time I’ll knock a couple of teeth out. If you’re still alive. Go on!”

The boy might make a real stalker, thought Redrick. They’d probably call him Pretty Boy. Pretty Boy Archie. We’ve already had one Pretty Boy, his name was Dixon, and now they call him the Gopher. He’s the only stalker that’s ever been through the grinder and survived. Got lucky. He, strange man, still believes that it was Burbridge who pulled him out of the grinder. As if! There’s no pulling someone out of a grinder. Burbridge did drag him out of the Zone, that’s true. He really did perform that feat of heroism! But if he hadn’t… Those tricks of his had already pissed everyone off, and the boys had told Burbridge flat out: Don’t bother coming back alone this time. That was right when he had gotten nicknamed the Vulture; previously he’d gone by Strongman…

Redrick suddenly became aware of a barely noticeable air current on his left cheek and immediately, without even thinking, yelled, “Stop!”

He stretched his arm to the left. The air current was more noticeable there. Somewhere between them and the embankment was a bug trap, or maybe it even followed the embankment—those railcars hadn’t fallen over for nothing. Arthur stood as if rooted to the ground; he hadn’t even turned around.

“Head farther to the right,” ordered Redrick. “Go ahead.”

Yeah, he’d make a fine stalker… What the hell, am I feeling sorry for him? That’s just what I need. Did anyone ever feel sorry for me? Actually, yes, they did. Kirill felt sorry for me. Dick Noonan feels sorry for me. To be honest, maybe he doesn’t feel sorry for me as much as he’s making eyes at Guta, but maybe he feels sorry for me, too, one doesn’t get in the way of the other in decent company. Except that I don’t have the chance to feel sorry for anyone. I have a choice: him or her. And for the first time he became consciously aware of this choice: either this kid or my Monkey. There’s nothing to decide here, it’s a no-brainer. But only if a miracle is possible, said some skeptical voice in his head, and, feeling horrified, he suppressed it with frantic zeal.

They passed the pile of gray rags. There was nothing left of Smartass, only a long, rusted-through stick lying in the dry grass some distance away—a mine detector. At one point, mine detectors were in heavy use; people would buy them from army quartermasters on the sly and trusted in them as if they were God himself. Then two stalkers in a row died using them in the course of a few days, killed by underground electrical discharges. And that was it for the detectors…

Really, who was this Smartass? Did the Vulture bring him here, or did he come by himself? And why were they all drawn to this quarry? Why had I never heard of it? Damn, is it hot! And it’s only morning—what’s it going to be like later?

Arthur, who walked about five steps ahead, lifted his hand and wiped the sweat from his brow. Redrick looked suspiciously at the sun. The sun was still low. And at that moment it struck him that the dry grass beneath their feet was no longer rustling but seemed to squeak, like potato starch, and it was no longer stiff and prickly but felt soft and squishy—it fell apart under their boots, like flakes of soot. Then he saw the clear impressions of Arthur’s footprints and threw himself to the ground, calling out, “Get down!”

He fell face-first into the grass, and it burst into dust underneath his cheek, and he gritted his teeth, furious about their luck. He lay there, trying not to move, still hoping that it might pass, although he knew that they were in trouble. The heat intensified, pressed down, enveloped his whole body like a sheet soaked in scalding water, his eyes flooded with sweat, and Redrick belatedly yelled to Arthur, “Don’t move! Wait it out!”—and started waiting it out himself.

And he would have waited it out, and everything would have been just fine, they’d have only sweated a bit, but Arthur lost his head. Either he didn’t hear what was being shouted to him, or he got scared out of his wits, or maybe he got even more scalded than Redrick—one way or another, he stopped controlling himself and, letting out some sort of guttural howl, blindly darted, hunching over, back to where they came from, the very place they had to avoid at all costs. Redrick barely had time to sit up and grab Arthur’s leg with both hands, and Arthur crashed heavily to the ground, squealed in an unnaturally high voice, kicked Redrick in the face with his free leg, and wriggled and flopped around. But Redrick, also no longer thinking straight from the pain, crawled on top of him, pressing his face into Arthur’s leather jacket, and tried to crush him, to grind him into the ground; he held the twitching head by the long hair with both hands, and furiously used his knees and the toes of his shoes to pound Arthur’s legs and ass and the ground. He dimly heard the moans and groans coming from underneath him and his own hoarse roar, “Stay down, asshole, stay down, or I’ll kill you,” while heaps of burning hot coal kept pouring on top of him, and his clothes already blazed, and the skin on his legs and sides, crackling, blistered and burst. And Redrick, burying his forehead in the gray ash, convulsively kneading the head of this damned kid with his chest, couldn’t take it anymore and screamed as hard as he could…

He didn’t remember when the whole thing ended. He just noticed that he could breathe again, that the air was once again air instead of a burning steam scorching his throat, and he realized that they had to hurry, that they had to immediately get away from this hellish oven before it descended on them again. He climbed off Arthur, who lay completely motionless, squeezed both of the boy’s legs under his arm, and using his free hand to help pull himself along, crawled forward. He never took his eyes off the boundary where the grass began again—dead, dry, prickly, but real. Right now, it seemed to be the most magnificent place on Earth. The ashes crunched between his teeth, waves of residual heat kept hitting his face, sweat poured right into his eyes—probably because he no longer had eyebrows or eyelashes. Arthur dragged behind him, his stupid jacket caught on things, as if on purpose; Redrick’s scalded ass burned, and each movement caused his backpack to slam into the back of his scalded head. The pain and oppressive heat made Redrick think with horror that he’d gotten thoroughly cooked and wouldn’t be able to make it. This fear made him work harder with his free elbow and his knees, forcing the vilest epithets he could think of through his parched throat; then he suddenly remembered, with some kind of insane joy, that he still had an almost-full flask inside his jacket. My dear, my darling, it won’t let me down, I just need to keep crawling, a little more, come on, Redrick, come on, Red, a little more, damn the Zone, damn this waterless swamp, damn the Lord and the whole host of angels, damn the aliens, and damn that fucking Vulture…

He lay there awhile, his face and hands submerged in cold rusty water, blissfully breathing in the rotten stench of the cold air. He’d have lain there for ages, but he forced himself to get up on his knees, took off his backpack, and crawled toward Arthur on all fours. The boy lay motionless about thirty feet away from the swamp, and Redrick flipped him onto his back. Yeah, he’d been one good-looking kid. Now that cute little face appeared to be a black-and-gray mask made of ashes and coagulated blood, and for a few seconds Redrick examined the lengthwise furrows on this mask with a dull curiosity—the tracks of hummocks and rocks. He stood up, lifted Arthur by the armpits, and dragged him to the water. Arthur was wheezing and from time to time moaning. Redrick threw him facedown into the largest puddle and collapsed next to him, reliving the delight of the cold, wet caress. Arthur started gurgling and thrashing around, put his arms underneath him, and raised his head. His eyes were popping out of his head; he didn’t understand a thing and was greedily gulping air, spitting out water and coughing. Finally, his gaze became intelligent again and fixed on Redrick.

“Ugh,” he said and shook his head, splattering dirty water. “What was that, Mr. Schuhart?”

“That was death,” Redrick mumbled, and lapsed into a coughing fit. He felt his face. It hurt. His nose was swollen, but strangely enough, his eyebrows and eyebrows were intact. And the skin on his hand also turned out to be OK, just a bit red. I guess my ass didn’t get burned to the bone either, he thought. He felt it—no, definitely not, even the pants were whole. Just like he’d been scalded with boiling water.

Arthur was also gingerly exploring his face with his fingers. Now that the horrible mask had been washed away by water, his face looked—also contrary to expectations—almost all right. A few scratches, a small gash in his forehead, a split lower lip, but overall not too bad.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” said Arthur and looked around.

Redrick also looked around. There were lots of tracks left on the ashy, gray grass, and Redrick was amazed by how short the terrifying, endless path he had crawled to escape destruction had apparently been. There were only twenty or thirty yards, no more, from one end of the scorched bald patch to the other, but fear and inability to see caused him to crawl in some sort of wild zigzag, like a cockroach in a hot frying pan. And thank God that at least I crawled in the right direction, more or less, or else I might have stumbled onto the bug trap to the right, or I could have turned around entirely… No, I couldn’t have, he thought fiercely. Some pipsqueak might have done that, but I’m no pipsqueak, and if not for this idiot, nothing would have happened at all, I’d just have a scalded ass—that’d be the extent of it.

He took a look at Arthur. Arthur was sputtering as he washed up, grunting when he brushed the sore spots. Redrick got up and, wincing from the contact between his heat-stiffened clothing and his skin, went out onto the dry patch, and bent over the backpack. The backpack had really taken a beating. The upper pockets were completely scorched, the vials in the first-aid kit had all burst from the heat, and the yellowish stain reeked of disgusting medicine. Redrick had opened one of the pockets and was raking out the shards of plastic and glass when Arthur said from behind his back, “Thanks, Mr. Schuhart! You dragged me out.”

Redrick didn’t say anything. Screw you and your thanks! Just what I need you for—saving your ass.

“It’s my own fault,” continued Arthur. “I did hear you order me to get down, but I got scared to death, and when it started to burn—I totally lost my head. I’m very afraid of pain, Mr. Schuhart.”

“Get up,” said Redrick without turning around. “That was a piece of cake. Get up, stop lolling around!”

Hissing from the pain in his scalded shoulders, he heaved the backpack onto his back and put his arms through the straps. It felt like the skin in the scalded areas had shriveled and was now covered in painful wrinkles.

He’s afraid of pain… Screw you and your pain! He looked around. All right, they hadn’t strayed from the trail. Now for those hills with the corpses. Those lousy hills—standing there, the jerks, sticking out like a damn pair of buttocks, and that valley between them. He involuntarily sniffed the air. Ah, that rotten valley, it really is a piece of shit. Damn thing.

“See that valley between the hills?” he asked Arthur.

“Yeah.”

“Aim straight at it. Forward!”

Arthur wiped his nose with the back of his hand and moved forward, splashing through the puddles. He was limping and no longer looked as straight and athletic as before—he’d gotten bent and was now walking carefully and very cautiously. Here’s another one I’ve dragged out, thought Redrick. How many does that make? Five? Six? And the question is: What for? What is he, my flesh and blood? Did I take responsibility for him? Listen, Red, why did you drag him out? Almost kicked the bucket myself because of him. Right now, with a clear head, I know: I was right to drag him out, I can’t manage without him, he’s like a hostage for my Monkey. I didn’t drag out a man, I dragged out my mine detector. My trawler. A key. But back there, in the hot seat, I wasn’t even thinking about that. I dragged him like he was family, I didn’t even consider abandoning him, even though I’d forgotten about everything—about the key and about the Monkey. So what do we conclude? We conclude that I’m actually a good man. That’s what Guta keeps telling me, and what the late Kirill insisted on, and Richard always drones on about it… Yeah, sure, a good man! Stop that, he told himself. Virtue is no good in this place! First you think, and only then do you move your arms and legs. Let that be the first and last time, got it? A do-gooder… I need to save him for the grinder, he thought coldly and clearly. You can get through everything here but the grinder.

“Stop!” he told Arthur.

The valley was in front of them, and Arthur had already stopped, looking at Redrick in bewilderment. The floor of the valley was covered in a puke-green liquid, glistening greasily in the sun. A light steam was wafting off its surface, becoming thicker between the hills, and they already couldn’t see a thing thirty feet in front of them. And it reeked. God only knew what was rotting in that medley, but to Redrick it seemed that a hundred thousand smashed rotten eggs, poured over a hundred thousand spoiled fish heads and dead cats, couldn’t have reeked they way it reeked here. There will be a bit of a smell, Red, so don’t, you know… wimp out.

Arthur let out a guttural sound and backed up. Redrick shook off his torpor, hurriedly pulled a package of cotton balls soaked in cologne out of his pocket, plugged his nostrils, and offered them to Arthur.

“Thank you, Mr. Schuhart,” said Arthur in a weak voice. “Can’t we go over the top somehow?”

Redrick silently grabbed him by the hair and turned his head toward the pile of rags on the rocks.

“That used to be Four-Eyes,” he said. “And over there on the left hill—you can’t see him from here—lies the Poodle. In the same condition. Got it? Go ahead.”

The liquid was warm and sticky, like pus. At first they walked upright, wading up to their waists; the ground beneath their feet, fortunately, was rocky and relatively even, but Redrick soon heard the familiar buzzing on both sides. There was nothing visible on the sunlight-drenched left hill, but the shady slope to the right became full of dancing lilac lights.

“Bend down!” he ordered through his teeth and bent down himself. “More, dumbass!” he yelled.

Arthur bent down, scared, and that very instant thunder split the air. Right over their heads, a forked lightning bolt shimmied in a frenzied dance, barely visible against the backdrop of the sky. Arthur squatted and went in up to his neck. Redrick, sensing that the thunder had blocked his ears, turned his head and saw a quickly fading bright crimson spot in the shade near the rock scree, which was immediately struck by a second lightning bolt.

“Keep going! Keep going!” he bellowed, not hearing himself.

Now they walked squatting, one behind the other, only their heads sticking out of the muck, and with each lighting bolt, Redrick saw Arthur’s long hair stand on end and felt a thousand needles pierce the skin of his face. “Keep going!” he repeated in a monotone. “Keep going!” He no longer heard a thing. Once, Arthur turned his profile toward him, and he saw the wide-open, terrified eye looking sideways at him, and the quivering white lips, and the sweaty cheek smeared with green gunk. Then the lightning got so low they had to dunk their heads in the muck. The green slime plastered their mouths, and it became hard to breathe. Gasping for air, Redrick pulled the cotton out of his nose and discovered that the stench had disappeared, that the air was filled with the fresh, sharp smell of ozone, while the steam around them kept getting thicker and thicker—or maybe things were going dark before his eyes—and he could no longer see the hills either to the left or to the right. He couldn’t see a thing except for Arthur’s head, covered in green muck, and the yellow steam swirling around them.

I’ll make it through, I’ll make it through, thought Redrick. Not my first time, it’s my life story: I’m deep in shit, and there’s lightning above my head, that’s how it’s always been. And where did all this shit come from? So much shit… it’s mind-boggling how much shit is here in one place, there’s shit here from all over the world… It’s the Vulture’s doing, he thought savagely. The Vulture came through here, he left this behind him. Four-Eyes kicked the bucket on the right, the Poodle kicked the bucket on the left, and all so that the Vulture could go between them and leave all this shit behind him. Serves you right, he told himself. Anyone who walks in the Vulture’s footsteps always ends up eating shit. Haven’t you learned that already? There are too many of them, vultures, that’s why there are no clean places left, the whole world is filthy… Noonan’s an idiot: Redrick, he says, you’re a destroyer of balance, you’re a disturber of peace, for you, Redrick, he says, any order is bad, a bad order is bad, a good order is bad—because of people like you, there will never be heaven on Earth. How the hell would you know, fat ass? When have I ever seen a good order? When have you ever seen me under a good order? My whole life all I’ve seen is guys like Kirill and Four-Eyes go to their grave, so that the vultures can crawl wormlike between their corpses, over their corpses, and shit, shit, shit…

He slipped on a rock that came loose under his foot, got completely submerged, came to the surface, saw Arthur’s twisted features and bulging eyes right beside him, and for a moment went cold; he thought that he had lost his bearings. But he hadn’t lost his bearings. He immediately figured out that they had to head to where the tip of the black rock was sticking out of the muck—he realized it even though the rock was the only thing he could see in the yellow fog.

“Stop!” he hollered. “Head farther right! Go right of the rock!”

He couldn’t hear his own voice again, so he caught up with Arthur, grabbed him by the shoulder, and demonstrated with his hand: Head to the right of the rock. Keep your head down. You’ll pay me for this, he thought. When he was next to the rock, Arthur dived under, and the lightning immediately struck the black tip with a crack, scattering red-hot bits. You’ll pay me for this, he repeated, ducking his head under the surface and working as hard as he could with his arms and legs. Another peal of thunder rang hollowly in his ears. You’ll be sorry you were born! He had a fleeting thought: Who am I talking to? I don’t know. But somebody must pay, somebody has got to pay me for this! Just you wait, let me only make it to the Sphere, let me get to the Sphere, I’ll shove this shit down your throat, I’m not the Vulture, I’ll make you answer in my own way…

When they managed to get to dry ground, to the rock scree already heated white-hot by the sun, they were deafened, turned inside out, and clutching each other so as not to fall over. Redrick saw the truck with the peeling paint sunk on its axles and dimly recalled that here, next to this truck, they could catch their breath in the shade. They climbed into its shadow. Arthur lay down on his back and unzipped his jacket with lifeless fingers while Redrick leaned against the side of the truck, wiped his hand as best he could on the broken rock, and reached inside his jacket.

“I want some, too,” said Arthur. “I want some, too, Mr. Schuhart.”

Redrick, amazed at how loud this kid’s voice was, took a sip and closed his eyes, listening to the hot, all-cleansing stream as it poured down his throat and spread through his chest; then he took another sip and passed the flask to Arthur. That’s all, he thought listlessly. We made it. We’ve made it through this, too. And now for what’s owed me. You thought that I’d forget? No, I remember everything. You thought I’d be grateful that you left me alive, that you didn’t drown me in this shit? Screw you—you’ll get no thanks from me. Now you’re finished, you get it? I’m going to get rid of all this. Now I get to decide. I, Redrick Schuhart, of sober judgment and sound mind, will be making decisions about everything for everyone. And all the rest of you, vultures, toads, aliens, bonys, quarterblads, parasites, raspys—in ties, in uniforms, neat and spiffy, with your briefcases, with your speeches, with your charity, with your employment opportunities, with your perpetual batteries, with your bug traps, with your bright promises—I’m done being led by the nose, my whole life I’ve been dragged by the nose, I kept bragging like an idiot that I do as I like, and you bastards would just nod, then you’d wink at each other and lead me by the nose, dragging me, hauling me, through shit, through jails, through bars… Enough! He unfastened the backpack straps and took the flask from Arthur’s hands.

“I never thought,” Arthur was saying with a meek bewilderment in his voice. “I could have never imagined. Of course, I knew—death, fire… But this! How in the world are we going to go back?”

Redrick wasn’t listening to him. What this manling said no longer mattered. It didn’t matter before either, but at least before he’d still been a man. And now he was… nothing, a talking key. Let it talk.

“It’d be good to wash up,” Arthur was anxiously looking around. “If only to rinse my face…”

Redrick glanced at him absentmindedly, saw the matted, tangled hair, the fingerprint-covered face smeared with dried slime, and all of him coated with a crust of cracking dirt and felt neither pity nor annoyance, nothing. A talking key. He looked away. A bleak expanse, like an abandoned construction site, yawned in front of them, strewn with sharp gravel, powdered with white dust, flooded with blinding sunlight, unbearably white, hot, angry, and dead. The far side of the quarry was already visible from here—it was also dazzlingly white and at this distance appeared to be completely smooth and sheer. The near side was marked by a scattering of large boulders, and the descent into the quarry was right where the red patch of the excavator cabin stood out between the boulders. That was the only landmark. They had to head straight toward it, relying on good old-fashioned luck.

Arthur suddenly sat up, stuck his hand underneath the truck, and pulled out a rusty tin can.

“Look, Mr. Schuhart,” he said, becoming more animated. “Father must have left this. There’s more in there, too.”

Redrick didn’t answer. You shouldn’t have said that, he thought indifferently. You’d be better off not mentioning your father, you’d be better off just keeping your mouth shut. Although it actually doesn’t matter… He got up and hissed from the pain, because all his clothing had stuck to his body, to his scalded skin, and now something in there was agonizingly peeling, tearing off, like a dried bandage from a wound. Arthur also got up and also hissed and groaned and gave Redrick an anguished look—it was obvious that he really wanted to complain but didn’t dare. He simply said in a stifled voice, “Could I maybe have just one more sip, Mr. Schuhart?”

Redrick put away the flask that he’d been holding in his hand and said, “See the red stuff between the rocks?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur, taking a shuddering breath.

“Head straight toward it. Go.”

Arthur stretched, groaning, squared his shoulders, grimaced, and, looking around, said, “If I could just wash up a little… Everything is stuck.”

Redrick waited in silence. Arthur looked at him hopelessly, nodded, and started walking, but immediately stopped.

“The backpack,” he said. “You forgot the backpack, Mr. Schuhart.”

“Forward!” ordered Redrick.

He wanted neither to explain nor to lie, and in any case he didn’t have to. The kid would go as is. He had no choice. He’d go. And Arthur went. He plodded, hunching, dragging his feet, trying to tear off the junk that was stuck firmly to his face, having turned small, pitiful, and skinny, like a wet stray kitten. Redrick followed behind, and as soon as he went out of the shade, the sun burned and blinded him, and he shielded his face with his hand, regretting that he didn’t bring sunglasses.

Each step raised a small cloud of white dust, the dust settled on their boots, and it stank—or, rather, it was Arthur that reeked, walking behind him was unbearable—and it was a while before Redrick realized that the stench mostly came from himself. The odor was nasty but somehow familiar—this was how it stank in town on the days the north wind would carry the factory smoke through the streets. And his father stank the same way when he came home from work—huge, gloomy, with wild red eyes—and Redrick would scurry into some distant corner and from there would watch timidly as his father would tear off his work coat and hurl it into his mother’s arms, pull his giant worn boots from his giant feet and shove them under the coatrack, and lumber to the bathroom in his socks, his feet sticking to the floor; then he’d spend a long time in the shower, hooting and noisily slapping his wet body, clanging basins, muttering things under his breath, and finally roaring all over the house: “Maria! You asleep?” You had to wait while he washed up and sat down at the table, which already contained half a pint of vodka, a deep dish with a thick soup, and a jar of ketchup, wait until he drained the vodka, finished the soup, burped, and got started on the meat with beans, and then you could come out of hiding, climb onto his knees, and ask which foreman and which engineer he’d drowned in sulfuric acid today…

Everything around them was unbearably hot, and he felt nauseated from the dry cruel heat, from the stench, from exhaustion; and his scalded skin, which blistered at the joints, smarted violently, and it seemed to him that through the hot haze that was shrouding his consciousness, his skin was trying to scream at him, begging for peace, for water, for cold. Memories, so worn out they didn’t seem to be his, crowded in his bloated brain, knocking one another over, jostling one another, mingling with one another, intertwining with the sultry white world, dancing in front of his half-open eyes—and they were all bitter, and they all reeked, and they all excited a grating pity or hatred. He attempted to break into this chaos, tried to summon from his past some kind of sweet mirage, feelings of happiness or affection. Out of the depths of his memory he squeezed the fresh laughing face of Guta, then still a girl, longed for and untouched—it would appear for a moment but would then immediately get flooded with rust, distort, and turn into the sullen, furry face of the Monkey, overgrown with coarse brown hair. He tried to remember Kirill, a holy man, his fast, certain movements, his laugh, his voice, promising fantastic and wonderful places and times, and Kirill would appear in front of him—but then the silver cobweb would sparkle brilliantly in the sun, and there’d be no Kirill, and instead Raspy Hugh would be staring Redrick in the face with angelic unblinking eyes, and his large white hand would be weighing the porcelain container. Some dark forces burrowing in his consciousness immediately broke through the barrier of will and extinguished the little good that was still preserved in his memory, and already it seemed that there had never been anything good at all—only smirking mugs, mugs, mugs…

And this whole time he’d remained a stalker. Without thinking, without realizing it, without even remembering, he would feel it in his bones: On their left, at a safe distance, a happy ghost hovered above a pile of old wooden boards—peaceful, used up, so the hell with it. From the right, meanwhile, a light breeze was beginning to blow, and in a few steps he sensed a bug trap, flat as a mirror and many-pointed like a starfish—a long way away, no need to fear—and at the center of the trap was a bird flattened into a shadow, a rare thing, birds almost never flew over the Zone. And over there, next to the trail, were two abandoned empties—looked like the Vulture had thrown them away on the way back, fear being stronger than greed. He saw it all, took it all into account, and as soon as the disfigured Arthur strayed even a foot from the trail, Redrick’s mouth would open by itself, and a hoarse warning shout would fly out of its own accord. A machine, he thought. You’ve made a machine out of me… Meanwhile, the broken boulders on the edge of the quarry kept getting closer, and he could already make out the intricate rust patterns on the red roof of the excavator cabin.

You’re a fool, Burbridge, thought Redrick. Cunning, but a fool. How did you ever believe me, huh? You’ve known me since I was little, you should know me better than I know myself. You’ve gotten old, that’s what. Gotten dumber. And it has to be said—you’ve spent your whole life dealing with fools. And then he imagined the look on Burbridge’s face when he found out that his Arthur, Archie, the pretty boy, his flesh and blood, that the kid who followed Red into the Zone, in his, the Vulture’s, footsteps, wasn’t some useless twerp but his own son, his life, his pride… And imagining this mug, Redrick roared with laughter, and when Arthur glanced back at him, frightened, he continued to roar and gestured at him: Onward, onward! And once again, a procession of smirking mugs, mugs, mugs crawled across his consciousness, as if across a screen. It all had to change. Not one life and not two lives, not one fate and not two fates—every little bit of this stinking world had to change…

Arthur stopped in front of the steep descent into the quarry, stopped and froze in place, staring down into the distance, craning his long neck. Redrick came up to him and stopped nearby. But he didn’t look where Arthur was looking.

Right under their feet was a road stretching into the depths of the quarry, formed many years ago by Caterpillar tracks and the wheels of heavy trucks. The right slope was white and cracked by the heat, while the left slope had been partially excavated, and there, between the boulders and heaps of rubble, stood the excavator, tilted to one side, its lowered bucket jammed impotently into the side of the road. And, as was to be expected, there was nothing else to see on the road, except the twisted black stalactites, resembling thick spiral candles, dangling from the rough ledges right by the bucket, and the large number of black splotches visible in the dust—as if someone had spilled asphalt. That was all that was left of them, you couldn’t even tell how many there’d been. Maybe each splotch had been one person, one of the Vulture’s wishes. This one—that’s the Vulture coming back safe and sound from the basement of the Seventh Complex. That bigger one, over there—that’s the Vulture bringing the moving magnet out of the Zone unscathed. And that one—that’s the luscious Dina Burbridge, the universally desired slut, who didn’t look like either her mom or dad. And that spot—that’s Arthur Burbridge, the pretty boy, who also didn’t look like either his mom or dad, the apple of the Vulture’s eye…

“We made it!” Arthur croaked ecstatically. “Mr. Schuhart, we made it after all, huh?”

He laughed a happy laugh, crouched down, and beat the ground with his fists as hard as he could. The tangle of hair on the crown of his head trembled and swayed in an odd and funny way, clumps of dried dirt flew in every direction. And only then did Redrick raise his eyes and look at the Sphere. Carefully. Apprehensively. With a suppressed fear that it would be all wrong—that it’d disappoint, raise doubts, throw him out of the heaven he’d managed to ascend to, choking on shit along the way…

It wasn’t golden, it was closer to copper, reddish, completely smooth, and it gleamed dully in the sun. It lay under the far wall of the quarry, cozily nestled between the piles of accumulated ore, and even from this distance you could see how massive it was and how heavily it pressed on the ground beneath it.

There was nothing about it to disappoint or raise doubts, but there was also nothing in it to inspire hope. Somehow, it immediately gave the impression that it was hollow and must be very hot to the touch—the sun had heated it up. It clearly wasn’t radiating light, and it clearly wasn’t capable of floating in the air and dancing around, the way it often happened in the legends about it. It lay where it had fallen. It might have tumbled out of some huge pocket or gotten lost, rolling away, during a game between some giants—it hadn’t been placed here, it was lying around, just like all the empties, bracelets, batteries, and other junk left over from the Visit.

But at the same time, there was something about it, and the longer Redrick looked at it, the clearer it became that looking at it was enjoyable, that he’d like to approach it, that he’d like to touch it or even to stroke it. And for some reason, it suddenly occurred to him that it’d probably be nice to sit next to it and, even better, to lean against it, to throw his head back, close his eyes, and think things over, reminisce, or maybe simply doze, resting…

Arthur jumped up, quickly undid all the zippers on his jacket, tore it off, and threw it at his feet with all his might, raising a cloud of white dust. He was yelling something, making faces, and waving his arms, then he put his hands behind his back and skipped down the slope, dancing and performing intricate steps with his feet. He no longer looked at Redrick, he forgot about Redrick, he forgot about everything—he went to make his wishes come true, the little secret wishes of a college boy, who had never in his life seen any money, except for his so-called allowance, a kid who had been mercilessly beaten whenever he’d come home smelling even slightly of alcohol, who was being brought up to be a famous lawyer and, in the future, a senator and, in the most distant future, naturally, the president. Redrick, screwing up his inflamed eyes against the blinding light, kept watching him in silence. He was cold and calm, he knew what was about to happen, and he knew he wasn’t going to look. But for now, it was still all right to watch, and so he looked on, feeling nothing in particular, save that perhaps somewhere deep inside him a little worm had started to wriggle uneasily, spinning its prickly little head.

And the boy kept going down the steep slope, skipping along, tap-dancing to some extraordinary beat, and white dust flew from under his heels, and he yelled something at the top of his voice, very clearly and very joyously and very solemnly—like a song or an incantation—and Redrick thought that this was the first time in the history of this quarry that someone was going down this road in such a way, as if going to a party. And at first he didn’t hear what this talking key was shouting, but then something seemed to switch on inside him, and he heard:

“Happiness for everyone! Free! As much happiness as you want! Everyone gather round! Plenty for everyone! No one will be forgotten! Free! Happiness! Free!”

With that he abruptly went quiet, as if a huge hand had forcefully shoved a gag into his mouth. And Redrick saw the transparent emptiness lurking in the shadow of the excavator bucket grab him, jerk him up into the air, and slowly, with an effort, twist him, the way a housewife wrings out the laundry. Redrick had the time to notice one of the dusty shoes fly off a twitching foot and soar high above the quarry. He turned around and sat down. There wasn’t a single thought in his head, and he somehow stopped being able to sense himself. Silence hung in the air, and it was especially silent behind his back, on the road. Then he remembered the flask—without his usual joy, merely like a medicine it was time to take. He unscrewed the cap and drank in small stingy sips, and for the first time in his life he wished that the flask didn’t contain alcohol but simply cold water.

A certain amount of time passed, and relatively coherent thoughts started forming in his head. Well, that’s done, he thought unwillingly. The road is open. He could even go right now, but it’d be better, of course, to wait a little longer. Grinders can be tricky. In any case, I need to think. I’m not used to thinking—that’s the thing. What does it mean—”to think”? “To think” means to outwit, dupe, pull a con, but none of these are any use here…

All right. The Monkey, Father… Let them pay for everything, may those bastards suffer, let them eat shit like I did… No, that’s all wrong, Red. That is, it’s right, of course, but what does it actually mean? What do I need? These are curses, not thoughts. He was chilled by some terrible premonition and, instantly skipping the many different arguments still lying ahead, ordered himself ferociously: Look here, you redheaded asshole, you aren’t going to leave this place until you figure it out, you’ll keel over next to this ball, you’ll burn, you’ll rot, bastard, but you aren’t going anywhere.

My Lord, where are my words, where are my thoughts? He hit himself hard in the face with a half-open fist. My whole life I haven’t had a single thought! Wait, Kirill used to say something like… Kirill! He feverishly dug through his memories, and some words did float to the surface, more or less familiar, but none of them were right, because words were not what Kirill had left behind him—he’d left some vague pictures, very kind, but utterly improbable…

Treachery, treachery. Here, too, they’ve cheated me, left me voiceless, the bastards… Riffraff. I was born as riffraff, and I’ve grown old as riffraff. That’s what shouldn’t be allowed! You hear me? Let that be forbidden in the future, once and for all! Man is born in order to think (there he is, Kirill, finally!). Except that I don’t believe that. I’ve never believed it, and I still don’t believe it, and what man is born for—I have no idea. He’s born, that’s all. Scrapes by as best he can. Let us all be healthy, and let them all go to hell. Who’s us? Who’s them? I don’t understand a thing. If I’m happy, Burbridge is unhappy; if Burbridge is happy, Four-Eyes is unhappy; if Raspy is happy, everyone else is unhappy, and Raspy himself is unhappy, except he, the idiot, imagines that he’ll be able to wriggle out of it somehow. My Lord, it’s a mess, a mess! My entire life I’ve been at war with Captain Quarterblad, and his whole life he’s been at war with Raspy, and all he’s ever wanted from me, the blockhead, was one thing—that I stop being a stalker. But how do I stop being a stalker when I have a family to feed? Get a job? And I don’t want to work for you, your work makes me want to puke, you understand? If a man has a job, then he’s always working for someone else, he’s a slave, nothing more—and I’ve always wanted to be my own boss, my own man, so that I don’t have to give a damn about anyone else, about their gloom and their boredom…

He finished the rest of the cognac and hurled the empty flask at the ground with all his strength. The flask jumped up, gleamed in the sun, and rolled away somewhere—he immediately forgot about it. He was now sitting down, covering his eyes with his hands, no longer trying to think or understand but to at least envision something, how things ought to be, but again he only saw mugs, mugs, mugs… money, bottles, piles of rags that used to be people, columns of numbers… He knew that it all had to be destroyed, and he longed to destroy it, but he could guess that if it were all gone, then there’d be nothing left—only flat, bare earth. The helplessness and despair again made him want to lean against the Sphere and throw his head back—so he got up, mechanically dusted off his pants, and began descending into the quarry.

The sun was baking, red spots were swimming in front of his eyes, the hot air rippled at the bottom of the quarry, and because of this, the Sphere seemed to dance in place, like a buoy in the waves. He walked past the excavator bucket, superstitiously raising his feet high and taking care not to step on the black splotches, and then, sinking into the crumbly rubble, he dragged himself across the quarry to the dancing and winking Sphere. He was covered in sweat and suffocating from the heat, but at the same time he was chilled to the bone, trembling hard all over, as if hungover, and the flavorless chalk dust was crunching between his teeth. And he was no longer trying to think. He just kept repeating to himself in despair, like a prayer, “I’m an animal, you can see that I’m an animal. I have no words, they haven’t taught me the words; I don’t know how to think, those bastards didn’t let me learn how to think. But if you really are—all powerful, all knowing, all understanding—figure it out! Look into my soul, I know—everything you need is in there. It has to be. Because I’ve never sold my soul to anyone! It’s mine, it’s human! Figure out yourself what I want—because I know it can’t be bad! The hell with it all, I just can’t think of a thing other than those words of his—HAPPINESS, FREE, FOR EVERYONE, AND LET NO ONE BE FORGOTTEN!”