Kolymsky Heights [042-011-4.5]

By: Lionel Davidson

Category: fiction spies

Synopsis:

When the brilliant, cynical, and utterly fierce Johnny Porter ventures into a
remote and frozen former gulag in Northern Siberia to find an explosive
Russian secret, he finds wrenching suspense and unparalleled excitement.


Kolymsky Heights Also by Lionel Davidson

The Night of Wenceslas
The Rose of Tibet
The Menorah Men
Making Good  Again
Smith's Gazelle
The Sun
Chemist
Murder Games
Lionel Davidson

Kolymsky Heights

St. Martin's Press / New York
kolymsky heights. Copyright 1994 by Lionel Davidson. All rights  reserved.

Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be  used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission  except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or  reviews. For
information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth  Avenue, New York, N.Y.
10010.

Design by Jaye Zimet Maps 1994 Mark Stein Studios Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Davidson, Lionel Kolymsky Heights / Lionel Davidson. p. em. ISBN  0-312-11407-9
I. Title.

PR6054.A87K65 1994 94-28812 823'.914--dc20 CIP First published in the  United
Kingdom by William Heinemann Ltd. First U.S.
edition: September 1994 10987654321 For Frances Prologue

How long, dear friend--how long? I await you with eagerness! So much  has
happened, so much I must not forget, that I use this time to make  an account.

And to offer a warning. Everything that follows you will find very
strange. For now--just follow the sequence.

Soon after our last meeting (you remember when?) I returned home and  took a
short holiday with my wife in Pitsunda on the Black Sea. There,  there was a
motor accident. My wife was killed, I myself badly  injured. I spent some weeks
in hospital and more in a sanatorium, a  victim of severe depression. My
friends, my colleagues, all urged a  return to work. I returned to work but
could not work. My institute  was nothing to me, my former interests of no
further interest.

This depression was diagnosed as "clinical," and I was thereupon  transported to
a clinic! There I received various treatments, none of  avail; and there
presently a certain academician began paying me  visits.

This academician was only vaguely familiar to me, yet it was soon
apparent that he had the liveliest and most knowledgeable interest in my
affairs. He had fully consulted my doctors, was aware of my  domestic
situation and of course of my publications. In a series of conversations
he assured himself that I was still alert in my field.  And he made me a
proposition.

A research station in the north, he said, needed a new director. Its
present head was in a precarious state of health and had not long to
live. The work conducted by the station was of the greatest value, and a
committee had sat for some time considering possible candidates,  aided
by members of the "state organs"; from which I deduced that there  must
be a security aspect to the work.

This he confirmed, and went further. That part of the work that
interested the "organs" would not, he said,  meet with approval in all
scientific circles--this was perfectly  understandable and a valid
reason for refusal. He had no knowledge of  it himself but understood it
to be similar to the studies at Fort  Detrick in America and Porton Down
in England, which is to say the  research into materials for chemical
and biological warfare.

The next negative aspect was no less important: The appointee to the  station
would never be able to leave it. For a return to normal life  had been deemed
impermissible. This was not to say it was a life of  imprisonment. Far from it.

But this drawback should be weighed in my decision, along with two  others: the
location of the station and its meteorological conditions  (by which I
understood that it was in an isolated place with very bad  weather).

After this, all the aspects were very positive. Living conditions at  the
station were not merely good but luxurious. On the professional  side, the
budget was almost unlimited: At least, he had never known the  committee to
refuse any request by the present incumbent. (And since  he is safely dead I
will name him:

L. V. Zhelikov was that incumbent.) As with the budget, so with the  research
program. It was virtually boundless, going far beyond the  military
applications. He talked extensively on this subject--in  particular of a field
of especial interest to me. And on his final  leaving told me one thing more.
All previous appointments to the  station had been subject to rigorous vetting.
This was principally to  determine whether the candidates were psychologically
suitable for the  life. Many were judged not to be, and even of those selected
there had  been a percentage of failures. For these unfortunates there was
nothing to be done. They could not leave, of course; they had to  remain,
unhappily for life.

In my case such vetting would not be necessary. But he said I should  bear in
mind the position of the "unfortunates"; that he would not be  traveling to see
me anymore; that after thinking the matter over  carefully I should simply send
him a card saying yes or no. And I said  I would do this.

I said I would do it and I sent him the card, saying yes; although in  fact I
had given it no thought at all. As soon as the words were out  of his mouth I
had known I would accept. My reasons were simple. My  present malaise, I was
certain, would not continue. Life resumes, as  it always does. I was just as
certain that I must now devote what was  left of it to that special subject he
had mentioned.

And too. there was the "isolated place with the very bad weather."  Siberia, of
course.
For now I say that I sent the card, and six weeks later, very  precipitately
with barely time to take leave of my friends or say where  I was going (for I
did not know where I was going), I traveled under  escort to the research
station.

There I learned the reason for the precipitancy. Zhelikov had days to  live. He
was riddled with cancer. He sat in his magnificent  underground apartment, the
apartment I sit in now, in the mobile  chair-bed he had designed (his electric
chair, he called it), in a  state of considerable pain, exhaustion, and
impatience. He had taken  none of his morphine drugs that day, in order to keep
his brain clear.  Almost at once he began giving detailed instructions on how I
should  deal with a problem that had arisen that very week.

The problem was the collection of a mammoth. Many of the extinct  beasts have
been found in these parts, of course; the need always being  to arrive on the
scene before the native hunters, who eat them (and  additionally conduct a tidy
trade in ivory carvings). Some short time  before, the government had prohibited
these practices and had made it  an offense for a finding not to be reported.

This had no effect on the tribesmen, who do not "tell" on each other,
but a significant one on building operations. Among large construction
crews there is certain to be gossip, so finds are reported at once--and
at once followed by standstill orders until properly inspected.

It is not the only significance. Hunters' finds have been in caves or  other
surface locations, the animals having died naturally, with a slow  dispersal of
body heat and inevitable degeneration of the soft tissue.  There was nowhere a
complete mammoth, quick-frozen so to speak, with  its soft tissue intact. What
excited Zhelikov now was the probability  that he had such an animal within his
grasp.

At a sea cape to the north of the research station a site was being
prepared for a large installation. During excavation the ground had
given way disclosing a crevasse. In the crevasse was a ledge, and on the
ledge a mammoth. It was encased in ice. Evidently it had  fallen-and
fallen a long way, to immediate death. A quick-frozen  mammoth!

In a fury of impatience, Zhelikov insisted that I go at once to the  crevasse.

Too sick to travel himself, unwilling to rely on his assistants, he had  been
awaiting me for four days. For two of these days I had myself  been traveling,
and was now almost terminally weary. Yet such was his  force of character that,
not two hours after my arrival, he had driven  me out into the cold again; and
to a most fateful mission.

At that time of year (it was February) our region has almost twenty  four hours
of darkness and a mean temperature of minus fifty degrees.  It is also subject
to very violent, very localized, gales. We flew  into
one after half an hour, and although the helicopter was a large and  robust
machine it was so battered by flying ice that the pilot was  forced into an
altitude far above visual contact with the ground.

Over the site itself we switched on all our lights and were informed by
radio from the ground that they had switched on theirs, but we were
quite unable to see each other. The pilot cautiously descended, catching
a misty glimpse of the lit-up diamond pattern, but felt his  rotor
blades come under such an onslaught that he rapidly ascended  again,
asking what he should do.

Zhelikov's chief assistant and the technicians in our party gave their
opinion that the attempt should be abandoned, and they advised an
immediate return to the station with our remaining fuel. By radio I
asked Zhelikov for a second opinion in no doubt what it would be. And
was not surprised. That obsessed man, hanging onto life for one reason
only, told us not to waste precious time and ordered that one attempt "a
good real attempt" should be made to land. After the beast had been
recovered we should then delay a return until the weather improved.

The pilot scowled, gritted his teeth, and dropped again through the  furious
bombardment, seesawing violently over the pattern of lights  before setting us
precariously down. Even on the ground we were so  rocked about that we had to
wait, strapped in, for vehicles to take us  the two hundred meters to the
residential hut.

Here there was a tremendous blaze of heat and light, the sheetmetal  stoves
glowing cherry red, the construction workers lounging on their  bunks in
undershirts. They came bounding at us like eager dogs,  Zhelikov's standstill
order having kept them hanging about for the best  part of a week.

Without being relieved of my furs, or my hat even, I was at once made
to look over the technical drawings of the exposed crevasse and of the
ledge where the mammoth was lodged; and within minutes was back outside
again and being hurried toward it in a "snow tank."

A saucer-shaped depression had been excavated at the construction site,
rather steeply stepped down at the center, where the crevasse had been
exposed. This was surrounded by short pylons, upon which were mounted
the floodlights that normally enabled work to proceed twenty-four hours
a day. A crane had been rigged with a double bosun's chair, and in  this
I and Zhelikov's chief assistant were hastily strapped and  lowered,
first into the depression and then, more cautiously, into the  crevasse.
Above, it had been impossible to speak in the tremendous volume of
howling and shrieking, but as we descended the noise diminished in the
crevasse itself to a mere distant fluting. We were soon conversing in
normal, even soft tones, for the narrowness of the glassy chasm did not
incline one to loudness. I carried a flashlight, no floodlight  reaching
here, and the assistant (whom I will call V), a communications  set.

We dropped slowly to the ledge, at first visible only as a long uneven
hump of ice, and with V giving instructions on his set had ourselves
swung to the left and the right and then below while we examined by
flashlight the structure of the ice and the dim shape of the animal
entombed in it. It had fallen on its left side, its limbs inward  toward
the cliff, so that only one of its tusks, and no part of its  trunk,
could clearly be made out. Very little could be made out except  its
approximate size, some two and a half meters long (which marked it  as a
juvenile beast) and the characteristic upward slope of its  receding
quarters to the bulge of its abdomen. The sandwiched layers  of ice,
about seventy centimeters in depth, allowed only the most  opaque view
from above, but in a narrow window of clear ice at the side  it was
possible to see strands of the animal's shaggy coat.

We swung there and back, above and below, while V, an expert in the
properties of ice, took careful note of the faults and stresses of the
crevasse and suggested amendments to Zhelikov's recovery plan. Then we
had ourselves hauled up and gave the orders for work to commence.

Two teams were lowered into the crevasse carrying steam lances and
hooks, and within a couple of hours had successfully cut away and raised
the immense block of ice, which was then bound up in the  tarpaulins and
chains we had brought with us. This work, in the  constant fury of wind
and ice, was completed with the greatest  difficulty, and was no sooner
done than the storm itself ceased, leaving complete frigid calm--as is
the way in these regions.

We at once boarded the helicopter, hovered while the load was attached
and the rotors cautiously took the strain, and then took off. Thus,
flying close to the ground and very slowly--in ceremonial slow motion,
almost as if at some great state funeral--we carried the animal back to
the station.

We carried it back and maneuvered it to the prepared position in the
tunnel. And had not long removed the tarpaulins when Zhelikov  appeared,
driving erratically down the ramp in his chair.

In our absence the old man, wasted by pain, had forcibly been given
drugs. Left alone in his room, in a state of semiconsciousness, he  had
nonetheless caught wind of our arrival and "escaped." He now began
driving around and around the block of ice, vainly trying to raise
himself to view the animal. V and I assured him that nothing apart  from
a tusk was to be seen. But in his befuddled anxiety he suspected  that
we were concealing something--that the block had been fractured in  the
course of removal and the mammoth damaged.

We insisted that this was by no means the case, but still could not
satisfy him.

The indomitable small figure, muffled in furs in the frozen tunnel,
seemed to have shrunk further while we were away. His head was no bigger
than a grapefruit. But still he tried to impose his will. He  insisted
angrily that no attempt whatever should be made to repair the  damage
until his planned program of X rays and photography of the  animal in
position had been carried out. And this had to be carried  out
immediately!

V and I were so exhausted we almost told him the secret there and then.
And were mightily relieved when his doctor and an attendant hurriedly
appeared and spirited him away. For some moments afterward we gazed at
each other, knowing that the shock of it might have killed him on the
spot.

In the fine and even lighting of the tunnel a far better view was
obtainable through the window of clear ice. Some bits of frosting had
been knocked off, and the shaggy coat of the animal was clearly visible
inside. It was not the coat of a mammoth. It was that of a bear.  Bears
were not extinct--were indeed very plentiful. The whole body of  science
held that they had not changed their form in millions of years.  Yet
what we appeared to have here was a bear with a tusk.

But still we left it for the night.

I slept the sleep of exhaustion, and early next day supervised the X
rays and photography. Zhelikov slept on, heavily sedated. The first
plates were developed in minutes, and I imposed immediate secrecy on the
small team involved until Zhelikov himself, after suitable  preparation,
could be informed. But this was not to be. That doughty  fighter, in the
front rank of scientists, did not return from wherever  he had gone;
shortly before noon his mantle passed to my shoulders, and  with it the
problem of the animal in the tunnel.

In subsequent days I had it photographed again and again, from all
angles and by the most advanced means. But from the very first plate the
facts had been clear. We had not been wrong about the coat of the bear,
or about the tusk.  Yet it was not a bear with a tusk; and animals other
than bears wear  the skins of bears.

This animal was human; it was female; it was 1.89 meters tall (six feet
two and one half inches); it was in the thirty-fifth week of pregnancy,
and it had given birth before.

These latter facts and some others I of course established later, yet I
will state the leading ones now.

Sibir (as we call her, the sleeper) is a handsome, indeed a beautiful,
female, of fair complexion and finely set features. Her eyes are gray,
very slightly slanted the only "mongoloid" feature, for there is no
mongoloid fold to the lids and her cheekbones are high, somewhat
flattened. One would say, in short, that she is of Slav type, if such
terms had meaning, which of course they do not. She predated the Slavs
and all existing peoples by tens of thousands of years; for her moment
of death was near to forty thousand years ago.

By our best reckoning she was in her eighteenth year when she fell into
the crevasse and broke her neck. She had eaten a recent meal of fish,
and had more with her in a large deer hide bag. The bag had been on a
sled, which she was drawing, and the tusk (one quarter of a tusk, the
terminal curved portion) was attached to the sled as one of its runners;
its twin had evidently broken off and fallen farther into the  crevasse
on impact. The force of the impact had dislodged the load on  the sled
and distributed it around and above her upper body, giving'  the
impression of bulk and length we had noticed.

She had fallen on her left side, with the left arm (she was a
lefthander) outstretched, perhaps in an attempt to protect her unborn
child. This child, responsible for the pronounced bulge, would have
given her a difficult delivery in any case, for its head was very large,
its father plainly of Neanderthaloid stock (not the specialized
Neanderthal of Europe but the earlier, more generalized form with higher
vaulting to the skull its European successor being in this  respect a
throwback; evolution does not proceed along straight  lines).

Apart from the broken arm and neck she was uninjured. She had frozen
rapidly, brain damage being minimal. And she was perfect. And also
perfectly whole: lips, tongue, flesh, organs (her digestive ones indeed
arrested while at work on the fish) all healthily fresh:

quick-frozen. There was even saliva in her mouth. Apart from her  height
she seemed in all respects of absolutely modern type. And yet,  in all
respects, she was not. Of which, more later.

Now two things must be said. Of all inhabited lands on earth this
region, of prehistoric ice, is the only one where such a find could be
made. Next, it was made at precisely the moment when use could be made
of it although our operations have been very careful and she is  barely
blemished. I cannot bring myself to disfigure her.

I look at her often. She is still in my tunnel, serene and detached in
time, forever in her eighteenth year. You will see her. So, the end  of
one long chain of chance and the beginning of another this most
momentous other, the reason you are here.

I do not doubt, in connection with your present location, that you will
have many things to tell me. Well, I await them.

And now to begin.

One

The Postman and the Professor 1

At ten to nine on a June morning, a shining and brilliant morning that
promised a day of great heat, a lady of sixty-three cycled through the
streets of Oxford.

She cycled slowly, corpulent and majestic as some former queen of the
Netherlands, sun hat bobbing, flowered dress billowing. Up and around
churned the floral thighs until, turning into the High, they were
arrested by a slowly changing traffic light. She swooped at once off her
saddle and applied the brake--applied it a moment too late. so  that her
broad-sandaled feet went pit-a-pat in small skittering hops as  she
wrestled with the machine.

Bad coordination. Oh, schrecklich, schrecklich. Everything today was
frightful, not least her head. She took the opportunity to remove her
hat and fan the head, also to pull at a clinging portion of skirt and
shake that about too.

Her sister had advised her to stay in bed today. Out of the question.
With retirement age three dangerous years behind her, she could not
allow a cold in the head to keep her in bed. Her employer would not be
staying in bed. And other people were after her job.. ..

The lights changing. Miss Sonntag ascended once more and pedaled
regally on. In the city of bicycles there were not today many  bicycles.
The university was in its Long Vacation, but her professor  was not yet
on vacation. Until he went--which would not be before the  River Spey
showed more salmon--there would be no time off for her.  Ach!

Brasenose passed, and Oriel and All Souls. She turned in at the close
as the clocks all began chiming nine. The little forecourt was airless
and deserted, no bicycles in the bicycle stand. She chained her own  and
went wearily inside. The caretaker had sorted the mail and  separated
the professor's with an elastic band. She took her hat off.  and
sneezed. The air in her room was stale but chill. She tried to turn the
air  conditioner off but couldn't, and opened the window instead. Then
she  switched the electric kettle on and looked for the post. She could
not  see any post. But she had somewhere seen some post. Her head was so
thick with her cold she couldn't remember where. In the hall, perhaps,
where it had arrived? She went out and searched the hall. No post.

The kettle was whistling, so she went back in and made herself a cup of
coffee and hung up her hat. Underneath the hat, on the chair, was the
post. She gazed dully at it and blew her nose. Then she drank some
coffee and started work. and almost at once was interrupted by the
telephone. She answered it. continuing to straighten out letters and
toss the envelopes into the bin, and had completed them all before
hanging up. This was when she. realized that something else was wrong
with the post. There were six foreign envelopes. There were only five
foreign letters.

She shuffled the letters blankly about, and then looked on the floor
and in the bin. In the bin were the six foreign envelopes, and ten
British ones, all empty.

She saw this was going to be a totally bad day. She also saw that her
boss had arrived. His long stooping form had tramped past the glass
panel of her door.

She sat back on her heels and considered her sister's advice. Then she
pulled herself together and in an addled way began matching letters and
envelopes to find out which was missing.

There were ten British envelopes and ten British letters; three
American envelopes and three American letters: two German envelopes, two
German letters;

one Swedish envelope, no Swedish letter. She looked at this envelope
again. It was a tatty one. The address was written on a slip of  tissue
paper and stuck on with Sellotape. Nothing was in it. After a  while,
unable to understand anything anymore, she merely took  everything in to
the professor and told him they were a letter short.

The professor looked up at her, mystified.

"A letter short. Miss Sonntag?"

"This envelope has no letter."

He had a look at the envelope.

"Goteborg, Sverige." he said.

"What is there at Goteborg, Sverige?"

"The university, perhaps?"

"With absentminded professors, perhaps?"

This thought occurred to her just as he said it, and she cursed the
cold in her head. At another time she would have had the thought first
and left the envelope where it was (as. it was later thought, she had
probably done at least once before). Thickheadedness had sent her
hunting through the accursed bin.

Her head was no less thick but she said stolidly, "This does not seem
to me a professor's letter. I mean, naturally there is no letter, but--"
"That's all right. Miss Sonntag."

The professor took his jacket off. His unusual head, large and knobbly
and extending in various unexpected directions, was bald as an egg. It
was glistening now.

"It's awfully hot in here," he said.

"Is the air conditioning going?"

"Oh, yes." Miss Sonntag sneezed defensively into a Kleenex.

"It is keeping my cold going." She watched him wind his glasses around
his ears and examine the envelope more closely.

The address was written in ballpoint in shaky block letters;

PROF G F LAZENBY

OXFORD

ENGLAND

Professor Lazenby looked at the back of the envelope and then at the
front again. Then he held it up to the light. It was a flimsy airmail
envelope and he looked through it. Then he looked inside and after a
moment withdrew a tiny strip of tissue paper partially stuck to the
bottom.

"Well! I did not see this," Miss Sonntag said.

"Quite all right. Miss Sonntag."

There was nothing on the paper. He upended the envelope and carefully
tapped it.

"You don't think there was some powder in there and I have thrown it in
the bin?" Miss Sonntag said, alarmed.

"We can go and look in the bin."

"Well, I will do it! Naturally. I am just so sorry. It has not  occurred
to me--" They both went and looked in the bin. They removed  the
envelopes, carefully tapping each inside the bin. They removed all  the
envelopes, but there was no powder in the bin. There was just, at  the
bottom, another strip of tissue paper.

At that moment Miss Sonntag remembered that the phone had rung as she
opened the first envelope, and that the first envelope had been the
Swedish one, which naturally had been the first to go into the bin. She
began explaining this to Lazenby but he only said, "Quite all right.
Miss Sonntag," and they both went back to his glassed-in room off the
main lab. A few graduate students were by this time at work in the  lab;

it was the department of microbiology.

Lazenby inserted himself into his chair and loosened his tie. Then he
looked at the two bits of paper and smelled them.

"These are cigarette papers," he said.

He held one up to Miss Sonntag and looked at the envelope.

"The address is also on a cigarette paper," he said.

"Well! I don't know about this. I don't know what I am to do," Miss
Sonntag said faintly. She couldn't smell anything on the paper.

"How about getting me a cup of coffee?" Lazenby said.

"Also .. . maybe .. .

that fellow from Scientific Services. You've got his number." He was
looking sideways along one of the papers. There was nothing on it but he
had an idea something was in it. There was a suggestion of  indentations
on the surface.

"Of course. At once. Professor. But I wish to say," Miss Sonntag  said
formally, "that without this cold in my head I could not have made  this
mistake. It is not something--" "What mistake? No mistake,  Dora," the
professor said kindly, and also accurately.

"It was acute of you to spot this. Most thorough. I admire it."

"So? Ah. Thank you. Yes. Coffee," Miss Sonntag said, and fairly  hurtled
through to her own room, her cheeks pink. She couldn't  remember when he
had last called her Dora. Her sense of smell had  miraculously returned.
She smelled flowers everywhere, also her own  lavender water, and
through the open window all of glorious Oxford.

Three sugars in his coffee. She spooned them in, still glowing at
recollection of the tribute to her thoroughness. Then she recollected
the other thing he wanted. The man from Scientific Services.

The man from Scientific Services was an old student of Lazenby's who
remembered him chiefly as rather a sketchy performer at his work but a
useful bluffer when experiments went wrong. He had gone down with a
disappointing third and got a job with the old Ministry of Agriculture
and Fisheries. From Ag & Fish he had gone somewhere else, and after that
Lazenby had lost touch with him. He had surfaced again, urgently
soliciting help and inviting the professor to lunch, a few days before
Lazenby was due at a conference in Vienna. Although having much to
attend to. Lazenby could not well resist a plea from an old student;
but he had been greatly surprised at the opulence of the meal laid
before him. During the meal the old student invited  him, as Lazenby
understood it, to become a spy.

"Oh, nothing like that. Prof! Much too strong a word."

"You want me to report on what people say to me in private in  Vienna?"

"Not personal things, of course not. Programs, costly budgeting  things.
There's an immense amount of duplication going on. Cannot be  good for
science. Prof."

"I find that someone is duplicating my work and tell you'."" "Someone
else might find it and tell us. Then Scientific Services would tell
you."

"Scientific Services is a government body?"

"A sort of government body."

"I see." He had heard of this sort of government body in America.  There
they called it the CIA, and many American scientists did indeed  assist
it, as he knew, in the ways mentioned. Lazenby hoped to God it  wouldn't
catch on in England.

"Well," he said.

"Thank you for the meal, Philpott. I have enjoyed it."

"Give us a try. Prof! Let me send you some stuff in your own  field."

"By all means. Who gave you it?"

"Oh, people you know. All top class."

"Why didn't they give it to me?"

"Didn't spot the significance, I expect. It needs putting together,  you
know.

Scraps here, scraps there."

"Yes." Scraps. Smelly.

"Well, I shall be very interested," he said.

"You will be. Prof. I promise you. Most useful stuff, particularly  at
budget time. All our contributors say so."

"And will I continue to receive the useful stuff," Lazenby asked.
"should I decide not to be a contributor?"

"Good of the country. Prof."

"The country?"

"Science." Philpott blinked.

"Knows no boundary. Taught me that yourself.

Republic of Science. The fact is--stray items, of no use to the other
chap, do turn out to be of the greatest use to one. Happens very
frequently. Honestly, Prof, they all do it."

"Who do?"

"Foreigners. They expect one to do it. Would be highly surprised to
learn you weren't in touch with someone like us already. I assure  you!"

"Well. I will accept your assurance. And the stuff." Lazenby gravely
told him.

And to his surprise it did turn out to be useful. Scraps, as Philpott
had said, but skillfully put together. And showing indeed possible
duplication of some projected work. Not much, but enough to give him
pause.

With only a small feeling of guilt he had acceded to Philpott's
request. Not grossly violating any confidences. Just scraps that  might
prove of interest to some other chap in the republic. And these  scraps,
too, had come back to him, interwoven with others, in the  bulletins
that periodically arrived from Scientific Services. They  arrived not by
post but by courier, accompanied by a note suggesting an  early reading,
and a request that the material should not be photocopied.

On one occasion, when a bulletin had been mislaid for some weeks,
unread. Miss Sonntag had been astonished to find that all the words on
it had disappeared. To prevent a recurrence of the mishap she had
photocopied the next bulletin. The photocopy had come out blank, and the
original itself had gone blank. It was the recollection of  this-and the
ways of foreigners--that had brought Philpott to mind when  Lazenby
gazed at the cigarette papers.

Lazenby met his old student for a drink at the Mitre. Philpott had
urgently requested the meeting either at the institute or in London.
Lazenby had no intention of running up to London and didn't want him at
the institute. The Mitre was a much more discreet venue--few tourists
yet on the scene, and all the students away. They sat quietly in a
corner while Philpott produced, one after the other, various papers from
his briefcase.

One was a photo of the envelope and the bits of cigarette paper;

another an enlargement of the address; and some others showed
treatments that had been applied.

"The envelope and the sticky tape are Swedish," he said, "but the
ballpoint isn't. The cigarette papers are Russian. We believe a  sailor
posted them. We believe he was given the cigarettes and told to  slit
them and remove the tobacco, and then put the papers in an  envelope and
send them off. The address was written on this third  paper. It was
there in faint pencil and you probably didn't notice."

"I didn't," Lazenby admitted.

"Well, it was there. The pencil lead is Russian, too. What probably
happened is that something was inscribed on one layer of paper in order
to impress it on another underneath. The ones underneath were wrapped as
cigarettes and given to the sailor--presumptive sailor-together with
this other for the address. This one he had to tape to the envelope  and
then trace over the pencil with ballpoint." "Well now. Very clever."

"Yes. This is what came off the cigarette papers." Lazenby looked at
the enlargement. The indentations had been enhanced in some way and
revealed a string of figures:

18 05 22 (01 18 01-05) 04 05 21 (31 27 12-15) 10 05 18 (46 10 49-52) 16
19 01 (18 11 13-14)

There were several lines more.

"What is it?" he said.

"You'll see it breaks into segments, each starting with a group of
three numbers. Forget the bits in brackets. The first lot is  eighteen,
five, twenty-two; then four, five, twenty-one; and ten, five,  eighteen
.. . It's alphabetic code, English alphabet--that is, one  stands for A,
two for B. You'll see how it works out."

Lazenby tried for a minute and got lost.

"The first group is R-E-V," Philpott said, "the second J-E-R, the third
D-E-U, and so on. They're books of the Bible. The bracketed groups  give
chapter and verse, and the hyphenated portions identify the words
required. Here it is."

Lazenby looked at a new sheet.

I am he that live I am yet alive in the north country. in dark
waters. in the waste howling wilderness. Wherefore do you not answer me?
I Behold new things do I declare! The eyes of all shall be  opened! Send
me therefore the man understanding science. of every  living thing! Let
me hear the voice concerning this matter. the first  day at midnight.
Voice of America.

"The Voice of America is in the Bible?" Lazenby said, bemused.

"Well, no, it isn't," Philpott confessed.

"That group just came out as "VOA' and there was no book for it. It is
quite plain in context, though."

"Ah. The same with science, is it?"

"Science? No, that's the Book of Daniel." Philpott consulted another
sheet.

"Yes, Daniel one, verse four."

"Good." Lazenby finished his drink.

"That is a very good thing to know," he said. "Have you any idea what
this is about. Prof?"

"None at all. Tell me yours."

"Well." Philpott frowned.

"We believe it's from a Russian scientist, a biologist, someone in a
life science, anyway. He evidently knows you, or of you.

He has tried to reach you before. He's come up with something he  thinks
a lot of. He wants you to let him know if you got it and  understood it.
He can get the Voice of America. That, more or less,  is what we
consider it means."

Lazenby thought about this.

"Have you considered the man might be a nut?" he said.

"He's gone to rather a lot of trouble. Prof."

"Nuts do go to a lot of trouble."

"Quite. This one would be a Jewish nut, incidentally, or one of Jewish
extraction."

"Because of the Bible?"

"Because of his thumbs. He left two good prints on each of the  papers."

"You can tell a Jew by his thumbs?" Lazenby said, staring.

"There is apparently something called a Jewish whorl. The Israelis are
expert at it. Yes, Department of Criminology," Philpott said,  checking.

"Tel Aviv. Rather keen on spotting a Jew from an Arab out there.
Genetically it's a dominant, so even with an ethnic mix it tends to come
through. The interest here being you'll see he seems to be  stressing
that he's alive, as if you might suppose he isn't.

What we're hoping is that you might recall a Jewish biologist who has
dropped out of sight for some years. We think he has met you. He's
certainly addressing you very directly, as if he thinks you will know
him. Which would mean he's traveled abroad to conferences and so  forth,
since you never yourself visited the old Soviet Union."

Lazenby tried to think when he had told Philpott that he had never
visited the old Soviet Union. He decided he had never told him this.

"I'll think about it," he said.

"We'd be very grateful. Some preliminary work has been done, actually.
I wonder what you know about these people." He handed over a list.

There were ten or so names on it, all distantly familiar to Lazenby;

all in biological sciences.

"A thing I know about Stolnik," he said, perusing it, "is that he's
dead. Some years ago, I believe."

"Yes. We have the obituaries. I shouldn't worry too much about that.  IF
the chap has had to go out of sight."

"Ah .. . Well. it's all a long time ago, of course," Lazenby said. It
was a very long time. He had thought most of the men on the list were
dead. One of them had certainly had a serious motor accident.

"I expect I met them all."

"Might they appear in your diaries?"

"I don't keep diaries."

"Miss Sonntag's, perhaps appointment diaries?"

"When from?"

"Upwards of five years? Maybe ten."

"Highly unlikely. What would you expect to find there, anyway?"

"Meetings. Which we might be able to reconstruct. Perhaps some  mention
of the other chap."

"Which other chap?"

"He wants you to send him one." Philpott found the place for him. "

"Send me therefore the man understanding science of every living
thing." .. . Another drink, Prof?"

"All right, very small. With a great deal of soda."

PhiJpott got the drinks.

"The feeling is," he said. settling himself. "that it must be some
particular chap. Whom you have jointly met, or discussed.

Feasible?"

"Yes. I suppose it is."

"Might there be anything in your correspondence?"

"In ten years of letters " "Well, we could help there, of course,"
Philpott said.

Lazenby drank a little, musing.

Philpott, although not a big brain at science, had never struck him as
a total idiot. It must surely be obvious to him that a prankster was  at
work here.

"Philpott," he said, "why do you suppose anyone should choose to write
to me on cigarette papers?"

"As the only choice if it was it isn't such a bad one. An advantage of
a cigarette is that, if apprehended, you can smoke it."

"Yes. Why bother writing in code on it, then?"

"In case you are apprehended, and can't smoke it."

"The code didn't seem to give your people much trouble, did it?"

"Once they spotted it was the Bible, no. People not brought up on it
aren't so likely to do that, of course. Also the Russian Bible isn't the
English one different book names, I believe, and some other kind of
ordering for chapter and verse. In any case. belt and braces. He's a
careful fellow."

"Hmm." Lazenby mused again.

"Send him a man," he said.

"How send him a man?"

"Well, the American view there " "What American view?"

"He wants answering on the Voice of America. Radio station. The
Americans run it.... Anyway, their view is, find the man and you have
probably found the how. He will know how."

"You don't think it would be more sensible for him to send some
cigarette papers to that man?"

"I do. Much more sensible," Philpott agreed.

"It leads to a view either that he doesn't know where that man is or
doubts that he has your contacts."

"Nobody to show cigarette papers to?"

"Exactly."

"Yes." Lazenby gazed again at the papers. It was plain that any
question he cared to put would meet with a ready answer. There were some
other questions but he decided not to put them. The River Spey  awaited
in a few days, and nothing--in particular nothing as crazy as  this
showed signs of being--was going to interfere with it.

"Might I ask. Prof," asked Philpott, "if I could get at your archive
right away?

Spread the load--if you had no objection."

"I would have every objection. Of course you can't, Philpott."

"Ah .. . Miss Sonntag, then?"

"I'll ask her. What is it you want, exactly?"

"Anything from the men on this list. We think he must be one of  them."

"Why?"

"They have all had some contact with you at one time or another. And
they are now all out of circulation. They aren't hospitalized, not  over
this period of time. They haven't retired. Not drawing pensions,  at any
rate. And they're not dead, barring a couple of doubtful cases.  Almost
certainly they are working at something."

"Yes? Who says all this?"

"The Americans. Far and away the best at it," Philpott said,  nodding.

"And with an outstanding biographical department--exceedingly detailed
and current. For instance, they know the locations and the senior  staff
of all establishments in the business of--well, in various kinds  of
business. This man is not at any of them. He must be at some  other,
which they don't know about. And that bothers them. It bothers  them
very much. They want to liaise on it urgently, the moment we have
something to show."

"Yes. I see," Lazenby said, frowning. What he principally saw was a
time-waster of prodigious proportions, here. if allowed to develop.

"Can Miss Sonntag get at it right away?"

"I will certainly ask her."

"There's a time element, actually. And also another question. Has
something like this ever happened before--that is. some other envelope
that has turned up with apparently nothing in it? It  probably wouldn't
have been from Goteborg. More likely Rotterdam or  Hamburg, Rotterdam
the likeliest."

"I could ask that, too. Why?"

"I can't tell you that now. I will as soon as I am authorized-together
with a great deal of other information. Of course, if you have any
thoughts yourself, Prof, I hope you will contact me right away."

"Certainly, certainly, Philpott," Lazenby said, and allowed the subject
to drift at once out of his mind. There would not be any other thoughts,
he was quite clear on that. Secret codes, unknown  establishments ...
All that, they could get on with very well by  themselves.

And this, as a matter of fact, they were doing.

The unknown establishment was assumed to be biological and its work to
do with military biology. This was the first point of interest for the
CIA and at their headquarters in Langley, Virginia, eight miles from
Washington, a team of specialists was engaged in hunting it down.

They started by assuming that it must have independent sources of water
and power; also chemical stores, animal pens, cleansing stations, and
various kinds of security arrangements. All this needed people, and
places for them to live, and some means of access, probably a landing
strip. Above all, it needed isolation.

The "waste howling wilderness" of the "north country," evidently
Siberia, remained even in modern times unmatched for isolation. Its
forested area alone was one and a third times the size of the United
States. Over the land lay deep snow and ice all winter, and quaking bogs
in summer. This made for a road system so rudimentary that  transport
went mainly by air or river, with access to security areas  available
only on official permit.

This provided the first problem. If the place was so hard to get at,
why should the unknown correspondent suppose anyone from outside could
get at it? Just as important, how had he got anything out of it himself?

Specialists in global transportation put up a possible answer to this.
The Siberian inland waterway system was very extensive. Two rivers in
the northwest alone, the Ob and the Yenisei, had some dozens of ports
with several others under construction. The reason for this was the
extension of the huge natural-gas deposit, the biggest in the world,
which lay between the two rivers. As Russian oil production declined,
the gas was due to replace it, both for internal energy and for external
trade. For both purposes the product was vitally needed;

and, as satellite observation showed, work was going on around the
clock to get it.

To finance the project (which included a tunnel to west Europe three
thousand miles long), massive foreign loans had been negotiated. The
loans would be repaid in gas and were being supplied in the form of
equipment. The amount of equipment was staggering. Apart from the  rigs
and drilling gear, there was all the piping to go inside the  tunnel.
There were giant compressors and pumping stations at intervals  along
it. There were thousands of earth-moving machines, tens of  thousands of
tractors.

In the lively scramble for orders. Western shipping companies had not
been backward. The equipment for the original field had been carried
largely by ships of the old Soviet Union, but for the new deal the
managing consortium had specified that new equipment, wherever possible,
should be transported in vessels of the countries supplying  it.

The countries supplying the new equipment were Germany, France,
Britain, Italy, and Holland. Ships from all of them were now ferrying
loads along the Arctic sea route. Russian icebreakers were  guaranteeing
the route from early June to early October, the latter  date varying
with the ice pack, a fact that led the experts to a  prediction.

It was now the first week of July, and the ice was building early. The
prediction was that nothing could be expected from the unknown
correspondent after the end of August. Western shippers, reluctant to
hazard their vessels even in a "guaranteed" September, were handing this
slice of business to Russia's own merchant fleet. It was not  thought
that a member of this fleet had posted the message. A foreign  seaman,
more familiar with foreign ports, and with greater privacy to  fiddle
with ambiguous cigarettes, had done it. He would not therefore  be doing
it after August.

But this raised other questions.

The ports opened to the foreign vessels were Dudinka and Igarka on the
Yenisei, and Noviy Port and Salekhard on the Ob. Because they were
guaranteeing a quick turnaround at these ports, the Russian authorities
had provided no shore facilities for foreign crewmen. None of them was
allowed ashore anyway.

If sailors were not allowed ashore, how had one of them got the
message?

Tentative answers were provided for this, too. An intermediary had given
the sailor the message. The intermediary must have had time to
establish a relationship with the sailor. The sailor had to be a regular
on the route.

However regular he was, the only local citizens he could meet were
those allowed on his ship--in the normal way, port officials or
dockworkers. But the area was a security area, which neither port
officials nor dockworkers were free to move in and out of at will. The
intermediary had to come from outside. He had to have access to the
ship--and also to the research station. What kind of intermediary  could
this be?

The experts proposed a transport worker. The foreign ships were not
leaving Russian ports un laden Some carried specialist return cargoes,
of a kind that might afford access to the ship of a specialist worker. A
closer examination of the ports concerned showed Dudinka. on the
Yenisei, as the likeliest to have specialist return cargoes. Dudinka was
the port for Norilsk, a large mining and industrial center, and its main
business was nickel and precision nickel-alloy parts.

A report was called for on the handling of nickel-alloy parts, and
meanwhile three working propositions were set out:

1. The message had been posted by a sailor who regularly worked the
Arctic route.

2. It had been given to him by an intermediary with access to his  ship.

3. The intermediary was a specialist worker whose duties allowed entry
to the research station and to the port.

These propositions (every one of them accurate, as it turned out) were
then addressed very vigorously.

"Let me hear thy voice concerning this matter the first day at
midnight, VOA," the unknown correspondent had asked. The Voice of
America was a wholly owned subsidiary of the CIA, so there were no
problems with this one. The first day.

in biblical terms, was Sunday, and the VOA had a taped religious
program that went out then. A substitution was made and a man with a
powerful voice preached a sermon on communication and identity. He  used
Exodus. 12:3--"I have heard thy voice"--and also Samuel, Joel,  and
Esther: "Where art thou?"; "Who art thou?";

and "What is thy request?"--and he said these questions needed plain
answers from everyone, particularly those in the waste howling
wildernesses of life. On the message itself were the prints of the man
who had written it,  and who had evidently rolled the cigarettes. They
were on the address  paper, too, but not on the envelope or the tape. On
all these appeared  another set of prints, some very smudged and
fragmentary, but similarly  traceable to a single source, evidently the
sailor.

For the reasons agreed, the sailor had to be a regular on the route. He
was the postman. His regularity had to be relied on. From the  internal
evidence of the message--"Wherefore do you not answer me?"--he  had been
used before. It was not possible to say when he had been used  before,
or where he had posted the message before. But it was known  where he
had posted it this time.

The global list of ship movements showed three vessels from the Arctic
as having been in Goteborg around the date of the postmark. One of them,
a Japanese tramp that had merely used the Arctic as a cheap  delivery
route for a random load to Western Europe, could be  discounted; but the
other two, a Dutch ship and a German, were of  greater interest. Both
were in regular service on the Siberian run,  and the Dutchman had
returned with a cargo of nickel parts.

Goteborg was not a regular stop for this ship, but part of its nickel
had been consigned there, and it had put in to the port for twenty four
hours: ample time for someone to slit cigarettes, buy an envelope, and
post the letter. This ship had then sailed for Rotterdam. The German had
gone to Hamburg.

CIA officials in Holland and Germany were instructed to obtain, by any
means possible, fingerprints of the crews of both these ships. But it
was known already that the Dutchman had come from Dudinka. The origin of
its cargo was not in doubt either.

Between Dudinka and the nickel mines of Norilsk was a road forty-five
miles long, and the cartographic department had every inch of it mapped.
Most of Siberia was similarly mapped. The maps came to them  from the
Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center at St. Louis,  Missouri, and
they were updated every few weeks.

They showed not only geographical features and roads but the progress
of all building works, both above and below ground.

The area around Norilsk was covered with a network of minor roads
linking its industrial center with outlying districts. The roads were
well maintained, summer and winter, and heavily used.

Although the complex was large--the largest in the Arctic Circle-it was
still only a dot on the vast expanse of taiga surrounding it. Much of
this area had been under regular surveillance for years, large numbers
of "objectives" being in it. The purpose of most of them was known,  but
a few still remained in doubt. These were the ones that came under
scrutiny now.

The major requirements for the secret establishment were still as
specified; but in analyzing satellite photographs a few other features
were added. It had to have buildings whose precise function was still
uncertain. It had to have barracks, probably with separate areas to
accommodate scientific, maintenance, and security staffs. And it had  to
have a road, to accommodate the transport worker.

Shortly afterward, in a flurry of activity, St. Louis was being  pressed
for further information: analytical material, to determine the  mineral
content of two lakes in the area, and gazetteer material to  support the
words "dark waters" as a local name for them.

Miss Sonntag, while this work proceeded, was getting on with her own.

Something had come to mind after her cold. She had an idea that an
envelope without a letter had appeared once before--she did not exactly
remember when.

But she didn't associate it with Sweden. There was not much
correspondence with Sweden. Her impression was that it was from Holland.
In the same post, if she was not mistaken, there had been a  number of
circulars from there--academic book promotions from Amsterdam  or The
Hague or Rotterdam, most addressed with bits of stuck-on paper.  Quite
often these mailings were duplicated. She had thought that one  was
duplicated. Nothing in the envelope and she had shot it into the  bin
and thought no more about it. But after her cold she thought about it.

She had mentioned it to Lazenby, and seemed to catch him by surprise.

"Holland, you say?"

"I think Holland."

"Ah .. . Rotterdam, would you think?"

"I

can't be certain Rotterdam. Perhaps Rotterdam."

"Well, I was supposed to... Hmm.

I wonder," he said, and was thoughtful for a moment.

"When are you off. Miss Sonntag?"

"Off? On holiday? Next week," she said in surprise. Next week was  the
middle of July, and every year she went off on holiday then; this year
to Florence, with her sister, Sonya, a retired nurse. The flight  was
booked and the pensione was booked.

"If it is quite convenient," she said, anxiously.

"Oh, yes, rather. Still ...." he said, and produced a list.

"I wonder if there'd be time for you to look out some letters. It
shouldn't take forever."

It didn't take forever, but it took four solid days, and it took place
in the basement. And by the time she got down to it she had the building
to herself, even Lazenby having gone off. He had left her his  telephone
number on the Spey.

He had not mentioned why the letters were needed, but evidently it was
his work on cell structures at low temperature. The low temperature
aspect, which was the only subject of correspondence with the Russians,
he had given up eight years ago. Everything before eight years ago was
in the basement.

The basement was exceedingly dusty, and ill-lit and hideous. Hundreds
of thousands of papers were there, in spring-lock boxes: lectures,
reports, lab books, all mixed in with the correspondence. These days she
kept an index of everything, but the only index for this heap of archive
was what was on the box labels dates and subject categories.  That was
what he had wanted when she had joined him fifteen years  ago.

At that time his wife (his former secretary) had just died, and he had
had the institute for only a year. And in the very earliest box Miss
Sonntag had come, with a pang, on condolences from foreign colleagues.
They had been written to the institute; always a private man, he had not
encouraged correspondence to his home. With the years he had  become, if
anything, even more private detached, sardonic. But never  with her.
With her he had always been warm, playful. In the early  years indeed
she had wondered ... she had still been in her forties, he  was not a
young man, quite bald even then ... But that was all nonsense. It was
nonsense, but yet she thought with a pang of this  also.

And meanwhile read on, very diligently, abstracting a paper here, a
paper there.

These she read out to Lazenby every night at his hotel on the River
Spey. She had read out twenty-four by the end.

"I have gone through two years more. Professor, after the last," she
told him, "and found nothing. Do you wish me to continue?"

"No. That will be the lot. That fellow can have them now the personal
ones included. Tell him to send a courier. I suppose nothing of the  of
the other kind has turned up in the post, has it?"

"No, nothing."

"Hmm. You are going off when?" "In two days. Unless you want me," she
said, with extreme caution,  "to wait on until you come back?"

"No, no. I'm coming now. Nothing doing here. No fish. But you've  done a
grand job, Dora. Really very good of you. Many, many thanks  indeed,
Dora."

Dora, Dora! She put the phone down, with mild rejoicing, and forgave
him the four days in the basement.

Then she took off to pack her sandals and other sensible shoes; and for
the rest of July walked about Florence with Sonya.

Nothing happened while they were away. No messages turned up in the
post.

Nothing of value had come from the basement.

By the end of July plenty of answers had turned up at Langley, and they
were bad answers.

No vessel at Dudinka had been boarded by anyone but port workers. No
special handling was needed for nickel-alloy parts. No fingerprints
supplied by the station chiefs in Holland and Germany matched the ones
on the envelope. And no name resembling "dark waters" was known for  the
two lakes near Norilsk, which furthermore were bituminous and of no  use
as a water supply.

All this was discouraging, and something obviously wasn't right.

In England, Lazenby had come early to the conclusion that things were
not right.

He had come to it actually in Scotland, listening to Miss Sonntag on
the phone.

He had let her read everything out, but even after the first few boxes
he had known that something was wrong. There wasn't anything from
Rogachev. Rogachev had been one of his earliest correspondents, and
should have turned up early.

But he hadn't. And as the boxes continued he had not turned up at  all.

Lazenby had only the sketchiest recollection of the man: a redhaired
fellow, jokey, rather too personal, and a drinker. Most of the  Russians
were drinkers, and Lazenby was not--a small Scotch  occasionally, a
glass of sherry. And they had got him drunk. At a  conference somewhere.
At night. He had a confused recollection of  lurching down a street with
a number of them, Rogachev making jokes.  There was something else in
the scene that was disreputable, but he couldn't place it.

This he did not manage to do until weeks later, back in Oxford, when he
had to get up in the middle of the night. Advancing age made it
necessary for him to get up in the night sometimes now. He was urinating
away, half asleep, when the impression came back. Urinating  against a
wall. With Russians. All jabbering in Russian. Rogachev on  one side of
him and a young Asian on the other. The young Asian, when  not talking
Russian, had been talking a transatlantic kind of English,  and talking
about Siberia.

Lazenby knew this was important. A number of things seemed to come
together here--of relevance both to the message and to the murky episode
itself. He couldn't recollect more of the episode, and in the  morning
still couldn't. But it still seemed important, so he wrote it  down. He
didn't write anything about urinating against walls. That  was personal
and of no importance to anybody. But Rogachev obviously  was. And the
young Asian might be.

This happened in September, when it was known that no further
communication was possible, but he completed his statement and passed it
on anyway.

By September, the inquiry had ground down at Langley. It didn't stop
but it settled where it had started: the biographical department.

In charge of it was a man called W. Murray Hendricks. He was an  elderly
lawyer who had been with the department since the mid-1960s,  when a
series of chaotic upsets to do with faulty cross-referencing  (which had
cost the country some billions in an unnecessary arms race)  had brought
about his rapid transfer from the Library of Congress.  There he had
been in charge of copyrights. Here he was in charge of  lives. He was an
orderly man with a mild manner.

W. Murray Hendricks, now able to examine all the papers calmly and
without pressure, had come to three conclusions.

The first was that the relationship between the unknown correspondent
and Lazenby was likely to have been social rather than professional. His
assessment of Lazenby was that he was a remote sort of fish:
Professional matters he might remember, social ones not. This one he
didn't remember. It was probably social.

To be social with Lazenby called for qualities of warmth and
gregariousness in the other party. Hendricks looked through the
candidates on the list, the roster of those who had had contact with
Lazenby, and found three warm and gregarious ones. Two of them, he  saw,
had sent Lazenby condolence notes on his wife's death--these had
appeared in the twenty-four letters sent from London--but one of them
had not. He looked this one up.

It was a Professor Rogachev--Professor Efraim Moisevich Rogachev--and
the department held a useful file on him. It stopped abruptly. In
examining where it stopped he saw why no condolences had been received;
why there were, in fact, no letters at all from him. Lazenby's archive
covered a period of sixteen years.

This man had gone missing seventeen years ago. He had had a motoring
accident at Pitsunda on the Black Sea. His wife had been killed and he
himself injured. He had returned to work briefly but had then had
something resembling a nervous breakdown, after which-nothing.

Hendricks looked up the man's activities before the accident. He found
that the week before he had been at a conference in England, at Oxford.
The department kept records of conferences, and Hendricks sent for this
one. It contained a full delegate list and also reports on the
conference activities. Leafing through, he saw that Lazenby and Rogachev
had met there on at least three occasions: at a welcoming  reception for
the delegates; as fellow panelists in a seminar; and as  members of a
subcommittee.

Before this they hadn't met for three years--far too long ago to be
relevant now, which brought him to a second conclusion.

Efraim Moisevich Rogachev was the likeliest man to have sent the
message to Lazenby, and he had done so as a result of the meeting at
Oxford.

The relevant meeting was probably the social one, the reception.
Something had happened at it. Whatever it was, another person had also
been involved. The message asked for another person. The person might
merely have been mentioned, but it was more likely that he was there. He
would be a Russian-speaker, and most probably a Russian. He was  being
asked to go to Russia. Without a fair knowledge of the place he wouldn't
get far in it.

But if he was being asked to go there, he was evidently not there  now.

Hendricks had a closer look at the Russian delegation. It was a strong
one;

twelve members. Three of them, he saw, had defected not so many years
afterward.

Third conclusion. The man required had been present at the Oxford
conference and was likely to be a Russian not now in Russia.

Hendricks had copies made of the photographs of the Russian delegates,
together with brief biographical details. But before dispatching them to
London he had second thoughts. The mission that was being suggested was
a hazardous one and needed a  young man at least not an old one. All the
Russian delegates were now  old. It couldn't be any of them. Just
possibly it might be some other  Slav who was present, a Pole or a
Czech, Russianspeaking. But further  reflection showed this to be
unlikely, too.

Getting someone into Russia on clandestine business wasn't a difficult
matter, but this was not a matter of simply sending someone to Russia,
but to Siberia.

And not simply Siberia, but a sealed area of Siberia. Quite a  different
proposition.

On the face of it, an impossible proposition.

Yet Rogachev thought it could be done. He thought he knew the person
who could do it.

Several interdepartmental discussions produced a fourth and final
conclusion.

A person who might get into a security area of Siberia was a Siberian
person.

More specifically a Siberian native person: non Caucasian mongoloid,
Asian.

There was nobody like that on any of the Slav delegations, or on the
Russian either. It left open some other kinds of delegation; but there
was no certainty that this man was a delegate at all.

Hendricks decided on a wider sweep.

He ordered a check on every academic who had been in Oxford at the time
of the conference.

This assignment, a large one, was methodically broken down. The period
in question had been a Long Vacation, which let out the students and
their normal mentors. The academic had to be of a certain age and  type.
His age, not more than the twenties at the time, suggested a
well-qualified graduate or a research fellow. His type, Asian, suggested
certain characteristics, perhaps even a name, that ought to  stand out
in some way.

The inquiry was thoroughly handled, as thoroughly as all the others had
been, and produced results that looked just as barren. Some colleges had
records of guest scholars of seventeen years before, but most did  not.
Halls of residence and bursars' accounts helped fill up gaps;

but even when the name came up it attracted no attention and merely
joined the others on the list that went to Hendricks.

From Hendricks it attracted immediate attention, and a series of
howling and uncharacteristic curses.

He already had a stout file on this man.

He knew he should have thought of him long before; and he also knew
that not much would be forthcoming from him.

He was brooding on the matter when Lazenby's statement turned up, and
he nodded wearily over it. It was a jumbled recollection of a jaunt
Lazenby had shared, time and location unknown, with Rogachev and a
young Russian of Asian appearance who spoke a transatlantic kind of
English.

Hendricks was now in a position to supply both time and location, as
well as the name of the young man, and a pretty ample biography into the
bargain. But still he hesitated.

He could trace the wild young man himself. This would take time. But
time was not something he was short of. Ships were now off the  Siberian
run and would not be back again before next June. Until then  no message
could come from Rogachev anyway.

He came to his decision, and on the following day set the new search in
motion.

That was on September 30, and two days later, on October 2, another
message arrived from Rogachev.

Miss Sonntag, at work with her paper knife, looked at the envelope, and
her mouth fell open. Then she ran in to Lazenby.

He had a look at it, and at Miss Sonntag, and at the envelope again.

PROF G F LAZENBY

OXFORD

ENGLAND

After this they looked at each other.

The new message was more robust in tone.

Go up, thou baldhead! How is it that ye do not understand I want that
man that speaketh the tongues of the families of the north! him that
pisseth against the walll As to my model it was written plainly in  the
beginning! I dwell in dark waters! Shew him all my words that  the
people shall no more sit in darkness! nor like the blind! stumble  at
noonday! Make speed! Baldhead. "This one does ring a bell. Prof?"

"Yes. Yes, it does," Lazenby said.

"We thought that. But there are some points here of even more interest
than the message."

These points were the postmark and the address. The postmark had been
stamped at Ijmuiden, Nederland, and the address had been written with a
Japanese ballpoint--its ink Japanese, of a formulation used only in
Japan, for Japanese script, not exported. The analysis had been made
after discovery that the only ship in from the Arctic at Ijmuiden had
been Japanese. In Goteborg, at the time of the earlier message, there
had also been a Japanese ship. On both messages the fingerprints were
the same, and in both cases the ship was the same.

This ship had not been to Dudinka, or to Igarka, or Noviy Port, or
Salekhard. It had sailed the Arctic from one end to the other, but it
had not stopped at any of those places.

Wherever it had stopped, the ship was now moving again. It was  steaming
down the coast of Portugal and going home, where it would  arrive in two
months if unlucky, or nearer three if not. This was  because it was
tramping, and would put in wherever cargo offered-in  general, to ports
not served by regular lines.

This was what it had done in the Arctic also. But between the Arctic
and its present route there was a difference. Wherever it put in now a
Lloyd's agent was likely to report the fact. No Lloyd's agents had
reported facts in the Russian Arctic. There its only listed port had
been Murmansk, which had been its listed port in June too. But it must
also have called at some port other than Murmansk, for the secret
establishment could not be anywhere near there. Murmansk was the base
for the Russian Northern Fleet, with extensive yards and service
facilities. No biological plant would be sited in that vicinity, which
in any case was under constant surveillance, all its objectives known,
in no way a waste howling wilderness.

This opened up the rest of the Arctic for consideration, several
thousands of miles of it; and it also opened up the inquiries in  Japan.

From Japan the answers were good and informative.

The ship was one of a line of six tramps, and the Arctic run was a
summer perk of the masters'. Only one of them had been taking it on  for
the past couple of years. The only regular business on the route  was
with Murmansk, and any other picked up along the way was the perk:  It
could be accepted or not at the captain's discretion. If he  reported
it, the owners took a share; if not, the crew did. The only sure
information was the crew's, and they were not likely to give it.  But
the ship was being watched, and inquiries would continue.

Wonderful, said Hendricks, and got on with his own. These were not
going so well either.

By Christmas--at Christmas--the next news arrived. The Japanese ship
had crept back into Nagasaki unnoticed. All the crew had crept off it,
and away on leave.

When they came back they were being dispersed and the ship broken up.
For its engines were clapped out and its equipment was clapped out, and
the ship was finished.

Hendricks passed a hand over his face. He felt like that ship.

He had at last received a reply from the wild young man. His own
previous letter, one of a series, had been dignified and discreet. He
had had it mailed in an area where the young man was thought to be at
present. It was on plain paper and gave a local post-box number for
reply. It said that the old friend mentioned earlier, from Oxford,
England, was making a last attempt to reach him.

The matter was urgent and personal, and a kind acknowledgment was
requested by return for the present letter.

The kind acknowledgment came back on the letter itself. It was in red
felt-tip and said fuck off spook.

Hendricks thought he could give up then. Nothing more would come, he
was certain. The crew of a Japanese tramp would show no zeal to help a
friendly intelligence agency. The young man was not friendly to any
intelligence agency, and had not been fooled by this one.

But still he postponed the decision. Not much money was being spent,
and he decided to consider the matter again in April, when the new
budgetary year came round.

April came round, and he considered it again. In particular he
considered Rogachev.

Not a bad record, but not outstanding; nothing at all out of the
ordinary. He had done time in a labor camp in the fifties, but so had
many other Russian scientists--it was a respectable thing to have done.
Respectable, in fact, was the description for him, and biology his
field--a teamwork field. If anything remarkable was going on in it, some
whiff would surely have come from other teams by now. No other  whiffs
had come. Was it likely that an old man pushing eighty had come up with
something on his own? It was not likely. Far more likely,  the years of
isolation had brought on childish delusions. There was  something
childishly gleeful in the tone of the messages.

Hendricks hesitated only briefly; then he closed the inquiry down:

papers to be kept current for six months in case by chance something
new did come up, although he didn't expect anything to come up.

But something did then come up. By chance something quite new came  up.

The satellite came up over the Indian Ocean, and twenty minutes later
it was over Siberia.

The satellite was one of a group of three delivered to the U.S.
military by Boeing, a development of the company's Big Bird series. Each
of the three had a telemetry package that allowed instantaneous  relay,
and each was in a slightly different orbit.

This one was in a polar orbit. Traveling north-south, it made a
complete circuit of the earth once every ninety-four minutes. Its
intelligence-gathering equipment was turned on only over the territory
of the old Soviet Union, however. There it had to monitor upwards of
five hundred land objectives.

An hour before another satellite had overflown the site, and there had
been no recordable activity. But when this one came around, three
hundred miles to the west of it, the fires were already burning.

At first the fact went unnoticed, for the satellite's current objective
was a missile base. Of this it had to take four still photographs and
ten seconds of video. All the stills were good, despite freckling  along
the right-hand edges, but the results showed no change and were  merely
saved for reference.

The video was different. Something was spotted moving in it. A loaded
flatbed truck was moving. This was unusual at three o'clock in the
morning, and attention was diverted to it to find out what it might be
carrying through deep snow at that hour. For this reason some time
passed before it was noticed that the right-hand edge of the video was
also freckled.

Optical enhancement brought up the freckles as flames, and interest
rapidly switched to the new development.

The location of the distant fire was soon established, as was its
probable origin in an explosion: The flames were still shooting one
hundred feet high. This was surprising, for the low-rated objective  had
not been known to house explosives. In earlier listings it had  been
marked as a weather station. Later analysis had shown the ground  to be
covered over a wide area with ventilators, indicating that work  went on
below ground, and too extensively for simple meteorology. The  radio
traffic and transport pattern showed no military significance,  however,
so the low rating was retained, but all visible structures  were marked
and thereafter updated. They consisted of a few concrete  buildings,
telegraph poles, generator housings, power pylons, and a  fenced area of
sheds, evidently used for storage, just off the landing strip.

The enhanced freckles were compared with earlier photographs, and some
differences emerged. The largest concrete structure, apparently the
dome of something below, had vanished, and so had the generator
housings. Pylons and poles had been toppled, sheds blown down, and
burning debris scattered over a wide area.

More optical work brought other images into definition. A thin
threadlike line of beads, at first glance glowing debris, was detached
from its background of flame and translated into a formation of men.
They were standing in line, each with his hands on the shoulders of the
man in front. They were bandaged about the eyes, and dressed only in
underpants--their clothing evidently abandoned in flight from the
burning buildings.

Slightly apart from this line was another man, also in underpants, but
with no discernible bandage. This individual had something in his hands.
It was not possible to see what it was, but a study of the  video showed
his head going up and down while those of the men in line  turned toward
him and away.

An anthropometrist was called in.

This expert's field was body movement and measurement; he concluded
that what was in the man's hand was a list, and that a roll call was
going on; and from the ten seconds of action that it was a rapid one,
not surprising for almost naked men in fifty degrees of frost. But  some
aspects of it puzzled him, and he asked for further imaging work  to
clarify the effects of flame and heat distortion. The imaging work  was
done but it did not solve the problem. He ran a few tests to prove  that
what he was beginning to suspect could not be true. But it seemed  that
it was true.

The men who stood in their underpants in the Siberian ice had arms that
were too long. There was something not right about their femurs, too,
and the whole shape of their legs. The man reading the list and  calling
out the names was built the same way. And however the

?7 anthropometrist juggled the results, the way did not turn out to be
human.

April was the month of this observation.

In April Lazenby was into a fish, and it was a magnificent one.

Last year he had caught nothing at all, but already this season he had
had several splendid touches. The river was in spate, red-brown with
peat and roaring like an engine. It was full of fish. The water  boiled
over the rocks, spray dashing high, and wherever he looked there  were
fish. The very air was full of them. He'd seen nothing like it!  An
incredible spring run!

He had tried all his normal flies, big sunk ones for the colored water.
Thunder and Lightning, Childers, Ackroyd. And they'd gone for them, oh
yes; some heart-stopping tugs. Tugs only, but they couldn't make out the
flies in all the peat. For the fish to take it needed something
flashier, a big old-fashioned Butcher, so he had tied one on, and right
away had the rod nearly snatched out of his hands. The salmon had
leaped, and dived deep, into the Long Pool. Lazenby backed up the bank
now and scrambled along it, letting out line. He could feel the fish  on
the end, very strong, twisting and turning.

It was snowing slightly and already getting dark. But what a wonderful
brute--thirty pounds if it was an ounce, maybe even forty! He couldn't
leave it sulking in the pool, had to get it out of there and into fast
water. But careful now. Getting dark. Beyond the deep pool he would have
to clamber back into the river again. Racing water, slimy rocks.
Careful. For now just keep pressure on him. Let him know he couldn't
stay there in the pool. Out now, come on, out.

Yes, he was out! Coming over the lip into white water--a gorgeous
brute, silver, tail flipping, very strong, not long in from the sea.

Lazenby let him take line, keeping on pressure, slithering down the
bank. He entered the water carefully, feeling his way between the rocks,
the current dizzying. The salmon had commenced a long dash  upriver and
the reel was whirring. Good, let him run, just a little  pressure. He
steadied himself against a rock, got both feet planted  firmly, and
started playing him, real pressure, the rod bending. Now  tire the
brute.

Minute by minute he wrestled the salmon. For forty minutes.

sK He was as exhausted as the fish when he guided him gently into the
shallows at last. He had the net there underwater, the long rod  crooked
under his arm so he could get both hands to it. He was so  tired he
nearly fell over the fish in the water. Then he had hauled it  out and
up onto the bank and he collapsed himself.

He pulled the Priest out of his pocket and dispatched the salmon and
sat a while longer, panting. His gear was some way back, and when he
reached it the light was too bad for him to see the gauge on his
weighing hook. He got the fish, and his gear, back up to the car and
drove to the hotel, and headed right for the fish room through the
garage block at the rear.

There, with a slight disappointment, he found it went nineteen  pounds.

"But yon's a beauty. Professor--fresh in! This here you can call a
fash!"

"Yes, not a bad chap, is he?" Lazenby said modestly, and watched as  his
prize was sacked and labeled for the smoker's at Aberdeen before he went
through to clean up and change. The passage led into the  reception
lounge and there, to his astonishment, he saw waiting for him  Philpott
and a grave fellow in a three-piece suit.

"Hello, Prof. I don't think you've met Mr. Hendricks--Mr. W. Murray
Hendricks.

He's got something very interesting for you."

Up in Lazenby's room, after dinner, Hendricks opened his briefcase.

Twenty hours after the first satellite, another one had overflown the
site, its cameras specially switched on. The first Bird had captured its
images from three hundred miles away at three o'clock in the  morning;
the second was directly overhead at eleven the same night. The  fires
were out, a gale was blowing, and masked figures in protective  clothing
were working under floodlights. They were working on the  structure with
the blown-off roof.

Military biology of some kind had been going on in the place, that was
certain;

despite the wind. a number of elements had been identified still
escaping into the air. What had produced the explosion it was not
possible to say, but the nature of the work in the establishment had
certainly been very varied.

Lazenby was shown some shadowy prints: a jumble of wrecked equipment
photographed through the hole in the dome. Transparent yn overlays with
sketched-in lines helped to clarify the mess, but  Lazenby still
couldn't make it out.

A ducting system, Hendricks explained. It had been identified as part
of a layout internationally designed "P4."

"Ah, P4. Not my field," Lazenby said.

"That's rather a high security label, the highest actually. It's a
system for the containment of tricky bacteria--E. coli, I believe,
normally. They use it to replicate cells, for gene splicing."

"Yes, E. coli is what they were using, and it was for gene splicing,"
Hendricks said.

"This is the remains of a genetics lab--quite a large one."

"Is it, now? What would they want with that?"

Hendricks probed in his briefcase again and showed him the photographs
of the individuals in line. There were over a dozen prints now, some
sections having been detached and enlarged. These images were also
muzzy, but again overlays had been provided to outline the limbs.

Lazenby examined them.

"Apes," he concluded.

"No, they aren't apes. Not now."

Lazenby peered again.

"Improved apes?"

"Yes, these can talk and read. This one can, anyway. He is reading a
list and calling out names, and the others are answering him. It's
clearer on the movie."

Lazenby looked at him over his glasses for some moments.

"You're not supposing this is Rogachev's work?" he said.

"Well, it's his place. There's no doubt about that. I can show  you."

He showed him a map. It was a section of a large-scale sheet of the
Kolyma region--some thousands of miles, he said, from where they had
previously been looking. Ringed on it was the spidery symbol for a
weather station, and close by the weather station a lake.

"Blackpool" had been handwritten over the lake.

He explained this, too. The name came from a book, one of a collection
gathering dust in the department's library; the cross referencing
system, though improved, had not caught it.

Lazenby looked at the sheet of paper handed to him.

ON FOOT THROUGH SIBERIA

Captain Willoughby Devereaux London 1862 [Extract, p. 194]

The water, enclosed in a basin of black basalt, has from a distance the
appearance of ink, hut is perfectly clear and in fact the purest in the
area. It is known locally as Tcherny Vodi (dark waters) but I preferred
the homelier appellation of  Blackpool; and at Blackpool I camped for
some days before returning the  thirty miles to Zelyony Mys (Green
Cape).

"Here's Green Cape," Hendricks said, unfolding a further section of
map.

"It's a port, on the Kolyma River, exactly thirty miles from the lake.
That's how Rogachev's cigarettes came out."

Lazenby looked from the map back to the prints.

"You think this is what he's trying to get out?" he said.

"No. I don't. What would be so secret about it?"

"This isn't startling enough for you?"

"Yes, it's startling. But more startling is why they've kept quiet
about it for so many years. Also where it's going on. Would you
experiment with apes in a place like this?"

"Well, the Arctic isn't their environment," Lazenby said.

"Right. It isn't. And this isn't just the Arctic. It's the most  secret
place they have--the remotest, the least accessible. There's  hardly any
information on it. On this place itself there's none. We  knew nothing
about it. Now that's startling. It's disturbing. We're  pretty well up
on Russian science. People change jobs, news gets  around. But nobody
has changed jobs here. That is, if you get a job  here you evidently
don't leave. And work has been going on in it for a  long, long time, we
can see that. Which raises another longtime question. What do you know
of a fellow called Zhelikov?"

Lazenby looked at him.

"Zhelikov the geneticist?"

"That's right. L. V. Zhelikov."

"Well, I knew o/him. Who didn't? He was the favored student of  Pavlov,
the dog man. He'll have been dead, what--thirty, forty  years?"

"Nobody knows when he did die. They didn't tell anybody. We think
because he died here. We think this was his place, and Rogachev took
over from him. Which would make it about seventeen years ago. You're
right that Zhelikov went out of circulation some forty years ago. He was
in a camp then, in the fifties. We think they let him out and  offered
him this, and he took it. Rogachev was in the same camp with  him. Did
you know that?"

"No, I didn't."

"Well, he was. They knew each other. Anyway, this place was here when
Zhelikov arrived. At least forty years ago, and probably established a
lot longer. After all, they wouldn't have sent a guy of his class up  to
Siberia to start something going there. Something must already have been
going, probably involving animals, since that was his field. But  not
just animals. Animal work isn't secret. This is secret. It's  very
secret--they've put it in their most secret place. So yes, the  pictures
are startling. But more startling is what else is going on  there. And
why he's trying so hard to tell us about it."

They looked at each other for some moments.

Philpott discreetly collected the papers and returned them to the
briefcase. He took another one out.

"We need your help," Hendricks said.

"Well, anything I can do, of course--although exactly what--" "Would
you go on a trip for us?"

Lazenby stared at him, and his mouth dropped open.

"No, not Siberia." Hendricks's own small mouth curved wryly.

"Somewhere else. We think we've traced the young man you mention." He
held a hand out and Philpott placed an enlarged photo in it.

"Would he look anything like this?"

Lazenby gazed at the photo. The young Asian of his nightmare evening
stared sullenly back. Broad, high cheekbones, eyes glowering from  under
a heavy fringe of hair.

"Well--that is him!"

"Could you put a name to him now?"

"Raven!" Lazenby said. The name had swum suddenly into his mind. A
number of other things had also swum there. Whisky after whisky.
Staggering down a road, the whole bunch of them. Red-haired Rogachev
joking away. Then round a corner, up against a wall--a familiar  corner,
a familiar wall... It was Oxford, damn it!

It had been in Oxford.

He looked up to find Hendricks and Philpott gazing at each other.

"Raven?" Hendricks said.

"You're sure of that?"

"Almost sure. Also a Goldilocks. There were several people ... it was
all very--confusing."

"Goldilocks?" Hendricks and Philpott were again exchanging glances.

"Look, Professor, if you were maybe into nicknames, could Goldilocks
have been Rogachev--a red-haired sort of fellow?"

"Nicknames, ah. Yes, I suppose it could be."

"With the other fellow as Raven because he was dark, very dark, in fact
black--his hair?"

"Possible.

"Raven' doesn't sound too Russian, does it?"

"No. This fellow isn't Russian. He's an Indian."

"An Indian?"

"A Red Indian. Canadian. His name's on the back there."

Lazenby looked at the back. The caption read: "J. B. Porter (Dr.  Johnny
Porter)."

"Doesn't the name mean anything to you?" "I can't say it does, no."

"Riots in Quebec?"

"Oh, him. Well, I wouldn't have connected " "No. He doesn't look like
that now. That's the way he looked at Oxford. We think that's where  you
met him."

"Yes, I think so too."

"Can you remember how you met him?"

"Well, during a conference. At a reception, I think. For the
delegates."

"He wasn't a delegate. What was he doing there?"

"That I don't know."

"Did he seem to know Rogachev already?"

"I don't know that, either. They were just talking away about  Siberia."

"About what aspects of it do you remember?"

"Well." Lazenby thought.

"Languages, people, I suppose. Physical impairment of some kind
blindness was it? Snow blindness, perhaps. Something of the sort.

About Siberia, anyway. Rogachev had worked there, of course, and I
thought this fellow some kind of native. They were talking Russian
rather a lot, and he certainly seemed to know the place, so I assumed "
"Yes, he knows Siberia. He's been there. There isn't any doubt this  is
who Rogachev wants. He won't talk to us. We think he might talk to  you.
Will you talk to him now?"

Lazenby stared at him.

"You don't mean now, of course," he said.

"We know where he is now. He's a difficult man to pin down. Now we've
pinned him down. He'll be there for the next four days."

"Where?"

"Montreal," "Montreal." Lazenby thought of his fish on the way to the
smoker's. He thought of the whole river full of fish.

"Well, damn it," he said, "I hardly know the fellow, really."

"That's all right," Hendricks said.

"Nobody does, really."

Two

Concernin <. the Raven 10

The name on his birth certificate was Jean-Baptiste Porteur but from
the age of thirteen he had become plain Johnny Porter.

He was a Gitksan Indian, one of the small bands affiliated with the
larger tribe of Tsimsheans who inhabited the Skeena River area of
British Columbia.

The language of the Gitksans was K'san, and only a smattering of it was
understood outside the tribe. Few of the tribes were mutually
intelligible. But almost as soon as he was talking, the young
JeanBaptiste could also talk Nisqa, the language of the Nass Indians.
Not long afterward he had some Tsimshean, too.

This was a language so unusual that linguists had been unable to relate
it to any other on earth. The other tribes found it incomprehensible. By
eleven he was fluent in Tsimshean.

It was this ear for language that took him, at thirteen, to the mission
school--that, and a disagreement with his uncle.

Like all Gitksan males (and males of the affiliated tribes) he had to
leave home at puberty and live with an uncle or some other male relative
of his mother's.

The society was exogamous--sexual relationships were prohibited between
members of a clan. The taboo was incest-based and prevented an
individual from sleeping with his mother or his sisters. For the society
was also matrilineal: Descent came through the mother.

This meant that the children of a marriage became members not of the
father's clan (which necessarily had to be different) but of the
mother's. The mother and her children were all members of the same clan.
They could marry into other tribes but not into their own clan  within
the tribes. This was of the first importance, and in matters of personal
status clan came before tribe.

There were four clans: Eagle, Wolf, Raven, and Fireweed. Porter's

/<7 mother was Raven, so he was Raven. At thirteen he went to stay with
a  Raven uncle. The uncle threw him out.

The disagreement arose over the boy's rebelliousness and his duplicity.
(All Ravens are duplicitous. Raven is Trickster. He is very resourceful.
He stole the sun and brought light to the world. He does  good, but only
by accident. He is very cautious. He takes nothing on  trust. He is not
to be trusted.) Porter's uncle didn't trust him.  Apart from not doing
what he was told, the boy lied about what he did  do.

Because of his facility with languages the uncle took him along
whenever he had dealings with the Tsimshean or the Nass. He told him  to
keep quiet but to let him know privately what they said among
themselves. The boy disliked this job and told him so, but was made to
do it anyway. After being worsted in several deals the uncle knew that
he had been lied to, and he beat the boy. This didn't make any
difference, and the boy went on lying.

The situation was difficult. He could not go on beating the boy, for  he
was growing too fast. (His father was a Fireweed and Fireweeds grow
fast. Fireweeds grow from forest fires; they are phoenix; their
ancestress married a Sky Being, and they have a natural inclination
toward the sky.) On the other hand, he couldn't keep a defiant boy in
his house. Also he couldn't send him home. And it would dent his
authority to ditch him on another relative.

He ditched him on Brother Eustace.

Brother Eustace was at that time the head of a mission school at Prince
Rupert.

He acquired boys mainly from the major tribes and would not often take
a Gitksan. Discipline at the school was strict, and the boys were
strapped if found speaking a tribal language. The aim was to detach them
from tribalism; and it was hoped to achieve it more thoroughly  when the
school moved that year (for reasons of a financial trust) to  Vancouver.

For the uncle the idea of having his nephew as far away as Vancouver
was like a light in the darkness. But there were difficulties. Because
of the removal no new entries were being accepted to the school. As a
Raven he laid his plans with care. He went to see Brother Eustace. He
asked him for religious tracts he could give to some weak people he had
observed sliding into wickedness.

Brother Eustace was touched by his concern and gave him the tracts. The
uncle thanked him, at the same time expressing the thanks of all
progressive Indians for the mission's work in educating their young and
removing them from temptation--in particular the removal to Vancouver,
and all the extra work it would entail.

Brother Eustace sighed, and said it was a cross that had to be borne.
The uncle sighed too, and he said the hardest job would be to stop the
lads talking their native language. They would do it even more, far from
home and feeling nervous. And Vancouver would be particularly dangerous.

Why would it be? Brother Eustace asked him. Why would Vancouver be
dangerous?

Not Vancouver itself, the uncle said. Vancouver as a large sinful  city.
And not the language itself, but the foolish myths embodied in  the
language; which, as a matter of fact, did not sound foolish in the
language. He explained this. He said that in K'san the Bible stories
sounded even stranger than tribal stories.

It was only in English and as a committed churchgoer himself that he
had been able to distinguish the truth of Bible stories from the
foolishness of tribal ones. For instance, in English Jesus sounded
wonderful, but in K'san he sounded crazy. The boys had to be discouraged
from even thinking in native languages.

Brother Eustace frowned and said the boys already were punished if
caught speaking these languages.

And a good thing, too, the uncle said. But first you had to catch  them.
And to know what they were saying not easy in a Vancouver  dormitory.
For a Nass would not tell on a Nass, nor a Tsimshean on a  Tsimshean,
and others could not understand their languages. He knew  these devious
people, and in dealing with them himself he had lately  taken the
precaution.... In fact it would be a very good idea if But  no. No, it
wouldn't. It would be a bad idea, and too great a sacrifice for him.

Brother Eustace looked at him closely.

What sacrifice? he said.

Falteringly, the uncle explained. He happened to have a nephew who
understood both Tsimshean and Nisqa as easily as K'san. The boy was
naturally gifted in that way, and a wonderful help to him. He accurately
reported what these tricky people said among themselves, and  had saved
him much time and money. Just at that moment it had struck  him that the
clever boy would be as great a boon to the mission as to  himself. But
no. He couldn't give him up. All the same ... He didn't  want to stand
between the mission and such a useful aid. Or between  the boy and a
proper education. But still But still. Brother Eustace  said, he would
see this boy.

A week later Jean-Baptiste Porteur joined the mission school (and lost
his fancy name for the no-nonsense Johnny Porter) and ten weeks
afterward accompanied it to Vancouver. Six months later, despite highs
promise as a pupil, he left, by way of a window, sick of being strapped
for not telling on his schoolmates. He found himself in a quandary. He
couldn't go back to his uncle, and  he couldn't go home. He went to the
harbor and hung around there,  washing up in diners and bars, before
coming to the conclusion that the  only thing for him was to get on a
ship. Shortly afterward, he found  one that would take him and signed
on. For the following three years,  he sailed the world. There was
regular traffic between Vancouver and  Yokohama, and between Yokohama
and everywhere else, so that for lengthy  periods he did not see
Vancouver again. But he was back in the port  and walking in the street
one day when a hand fell on his shoulder and  he turned to find Brother
Eustace.

"Porter? It is Porter, surely?"

The last time he had seen the hand, a strap had been in it. Now it was
being held out to him to shake.

"Hi, Brother," he said, and shook it. He now towered over Brother
Eustace.

"I am delighted to see you, Porter! I can't tell you how delighted I
am!

Whatever happened to you, my boy?"

Soon afterward, over a meal, he was telling Brother Eustace what had
happened to him. And Brother Eustace in turn was telling him the  reason
for his special delight. It was providential, he said. It was  an act of
God. Porter had been the most promising boy in the school,  and here,
today, this very morning, he had been asked by the government  to
forward the names of promising Indian boys for special treatment,  for
an assured life of leadership and prominence, for higher education.  He
had been racking his brains, and here Porter!

School, Porter thought, no.

I can't go back to school, he told Brother Eustace.

My dear boy, it isn't simply school! Not school! his old teacher said
excitedly.

You will need preparation, surely. Which I will be more than happy to
undertake.

The exam isn't the normal one but an assessment of intelligence,
ability. You'll sail through it.

Well, Porter thought, he had sailed enough sea. He was now sick of the
sea.

Maybe this was worth a turn.

But he gave no answer then.

First he made a trip back to the Skeena River, which he had not seen
for three years. The first thing he did there was to find his uncle  and
beat him up. He beat him thoroughly and methodically, without  rancor as
any Raven would, simply repaying old injuries.

Then he visited his parents and told them his intentions, at which his
mother, a well-known seer, went at once into a trance, exclaiming, "0
Raven, Raven! You bring light to the world but will die in the dark.  It
will end in tears."

"Okay," Porter said. He had often heard his mother pronouncing in this
way, and common  sense told him that people mainly did die in the dark
and all things  ended in tears.

Just two months later, on a date that happened to coincide with his
seventeenth birthday, he enrolled in the University of Victoria.

At Victoria the preferred course for the new intake of Indians was
forestry studies. Forestry was a major industry of British Columbia, and
one well suited to future native management. At the muscle end of  the
business, large numbers of Indians were engaged in it already.

Porter became engaged in it. The first required subject was botany,
which he liked well enough. But after a few weeks he discovered biology,
and decided to specialize in that. Switching studies so early  was
discouraged, but care was being taken not to disaffect the Indian
students, and his application was reluctantly approved. This was when
his career took off. He learned with exceptional rapidity. He learned in
all directions.

It took him no time to find out that although the meeting with Brother
Eustace might have been an act of God, the reason for the delight was
probably an Act of the U.S. government.

The U.S. government, in a settlement of claims with the Indians of
Alaska, was planning a cash payment of half a billion dollars, plus a
further half billion in royalties, plus 15 percent of the territory of
Alaska. This bounty was to be administered through Indian  corporations.

The Canadian government, with similar problems ahead, was thinking on
different lines. Rather than separate the Indians, and pay them, it  was
better to integrate them. Full partnership in the commonweal was  surely
of higher value than dollars, or royalties, or title deeds to  portions
of Canada. To do the job successfully it was necessary to  select the
brainiest and immerse them in the value.

Porter appreciated the value, and knew why he was getting it, but for
the time being he kept his head down in biology. Before he was twenty he
took a first-class degree in it, and as the outstanding student of  his
year was urged to go at once for his doctorate.

Instead he dropped the subject and immediately began studying another,
two thousand miles away, at McGill.

Although he was wayward, this was not a wayward action. There were  good
reasons for his choice. McGill was in Quebec, at the other side  of the
continent, but it had old connections with Victoria, which had  indeed
started life as a far-western affiliate of the older  university.

But the main reason was Quebec itself, and Montreal. Ethnic issues were
high on the agenda there--French separatism the principal one,  but with
Indian questions also to the fore. These were the questions  he planned
to study.

In his last year at Victoria he had started numbering Canadian Indian
claims against the government. There were 550 of them, few properly
documented, all poorly prepared. In the absence of a written language,
oral traditions had to be relied on, and the Department of Indian
Affairs did not rely on them.

Porter addressed himself to this. He broke the problem into two. In  the
first part he aimed to demonstrate the reliability of tribal  records,
and in the second to get the ones relating to claims admitted  as
evidence.

He began reading anthropology. He not only read it but famously added
to it.

(His Amended Syllabary of Tsimshean, unique as an undergraduate
publication, won him a gold medal.) "Syllabaries," in the absence of any
developed writing among the Indians, had been recorded for several  of
the languages. These sound clusters had been taken down by
anthropologists, none of them Indian. Porter was the first Indian at the
work, and he soon found that many of his predecessors had had a tin ear.
The languages were exceedingly complex, and a misheard click or  vowel
frequently altered, or even reversed, the meaning of whole  passages.

He followed up with other publications, and learned more languages--all
for his main work: a comparative study of tribal legends, designed to
show their line-by-line similarities. For as it happened there were many
similarities.

When he was a child it had not struck him as strange that the stories
of the Gitksan, the Nass, and the Tsimshean should be so similar. They
were grown-up stories that everyone knew; why shouldn't they be similar?
But now it seemed strange. These tribes were almost  unintelligible to
each other. Yet their stories, which took hours or  even days to recite,
were identical almost to the smallest detail.  Without writing, by word
of mouth, they had been faultlessly transmitted from generation to
generation over vast periods of time.

All this was useful evidence for the first part of his task, and he
published it to acclaim. And before he was twenty-three had taken a
First in anthropology also.

His energy at the time was prodigious, and his waywardness a byword.
His supervisors found him impossible to control. In this period he
became strongly politicized, and he also contracted a marriage--a sadly
unfortunate one. And his movements were erratic. Before publication  of
Comparisons, his study of tribal legends, he suddenly took off to Russia
for seven months--this the result of a letter from an institute  there
commending his earlier work and enclosing syllabaries of some  native
Siberian languages. The translations struck him as unreliable  and he
set out to learn the languages himself.

He returned to take his First, however, and as not only a prize student
but now Canada's prize Indian, was offered a Rhodes scholarship to
Oxford. He accepted at once, again for reasons of his own. (His young
wife was now, tragically, dead, and he was on his own again.) More than
ever he was immersed in his work, and a difficulty had surfaced in  it.

Proving that tribal storytellers had good memories was not enough. What
they remembered were stories. In official eyes the "claims" were also
stories. The repetition of them, in however much detail, did not make
them true. What was needed was other evidence, written evidence. A
single piece of it that could match, detail for detail, the oral version
of the Indians would not only authenticate that version but  help to
validate all the others he had researched.

At the least, it could take matters out of the Department of Indian
Affairs and into the courtroom.

The evidence he particularly wanted related to treaties made between
the Indians and the British in the years 1876, 1877 and 1889. In the
powwows preceding them, various agreements had been arrived at.

"These agreements," as a framed inscription in his room reminded him,
"remain in the memories of our people, but the government is willfully
ignorant of them."

The inscription was a copy of a mournful resolution by a convention of
chiefs.

"Yet the obligations were historic and legal ones: solemn agreements.
Indian lands were exchanged for the promises of the commissioners
representing Queen Victoria."

Unfortunately the commissioners' promises did not appear in the
published treaties, although the details relating to land had been quite
exact. When the British later gave up direct rule in Canada, no promises
turned up in the papers left behind. But they would be in  some papers.
Porter reasoned. Even to experienced colonial  negotiators, the
circumstances of a powwow were exotic enough to merit  record--in notes,
reminiscences, letters perhaps, which could still be  moldering away
somewhere in England. The question was. Where? Oxford was a likely place
to start finding out.

He had been in the town three months when the letter arrived from
Canada. His old professor of biology there wrote to say that he was
coming to Oxford for a conference on June 29, and looked forward to
seeing Porter. Which, on June 30, he did.

The event was a reception for the visiting scientists, and his professor
had taken him along as a guest.

"After all," as he told him, "you were one of us yourself, before you
fell into error." And he had introduced him to other biologists.

Porter, at the time, was an aloof, disdainful figure of twenty-three.
He was the tallest man in the room, and his hair was overlong. He wore
it cut in a fringe over his striking eyes with the rest hanging straight
and black like a helmet all around. At any gathering he would  have been
distinctive, and even at this international one he stood out.  Yet it
was not one of the welcoming hosts but one of the receptive  guests who
identified him first.

"A Canadian Indian?" said the twinkling Russian.

"Right."

"And from the northwest, I think. The Nass River?"

"Skeena River."

"Ah. Tsimshean."

"Gitksan."

"Gitksan I don't know of. But all you north westerners were late
arrivals in that continent. You still look like our Siberians. You  know
of them, perhaps?"

Unsmiling, Porter replied with a burst of Evenk, at which the Russian
held up his hands.

"Bravo! But it's the people I know, my friend, not the language. You
are ahead of me."

Porter was ahead of him in English, too. Although the Russian's
vocabulary was good, he was once or twice at a loss for a word; and
Porter supplied the word.

He could even supply it in Russian, and this was the language they were
speaking his professor having left them to get on with it when a third
man, an Englishman, was hauled in to join them.

The name of the Englishman was Lazenby, and the most prominent thing
about him was his own extraordinary head. The vast and gleaming cranium,
knobbly and extending in various directions, was devoid of a  single
hair. It contrasted weirdly with Porter's own powerful array  and was
the reason the ebullient Russian had called Lazenby over. But  they were
soon discussing a variety of topics the Russian's animation  very
infectious. Asiatic migrations, pigmentation, natural defects, blindness
... In some way they were on to Siberia, and discussing it in  a mixture
of English and Russian by the time Rogachev (Porter had at  last got the
Russian's name) had located the whisky.

Food had been amply available on the buffet tables, but not much to
drink. And Rogachev had found the drink.

This was one of the things Porter remembered next day: that the Russian
had found the drink, and could hold it. While the Englishman,
reluctantly matching them glass for glass, could not; he was unsteady
on his feet when they left, Rogachev jovially proposing that they
stagger home together.

In fact the Russian was being accommodated in college and Porter's own
college was in another direction. All the same they had walked Lazenby
home, and on the way Rogachev had arranged another meeting with the
young Indian, whom by then he was calling Raven, having learned his clan
and deciding the name was apter for him. In the same spirit he  had
allotted other names to himself and to Lazenby.

But it was Lazenby who had suddenly discovered an urgent need to
urinate. And Rogachev who had discovered the wall. And there the  three
of them had stood, companionably watering it, one set of chances  having
brought them there and another set, later on, to recall the  scene.

Lazenby flew to Canada on a Tuesday, but it was not a Tuesday in April
but in July; and not to Montreal but to Vancouver, several numbing hours
farther. And so many changes of plan had occurred in between  that he
was half out of his mind before he started.

The fellow Raven seemed to be wholly out of his mind.

He had university jobs two thousand miles apart. He seemed to attend  to
them when he felt like it. He cut lectures, left classes,  disappeared
into woods.

Lazenby would have kicked him out years ago;

except Raven (Dr. Porter, as they were calling him now) did not seem  to
be a person you kicked out so easily.

At Vancouver Lazenby was met by Hendricks and a young colleague called
Walters who had been making arrangements for him. These Lazenby heard
about over dinner at the hotel.

Porter, it seemed, was at a place called Kispiox. It was up north,  near
Prince Rupert on the Skeena River. This was his home ground--  Tsimshean
Indian country--and he was in the forest there. His  movements were not
known from day to day, but he was calling in  regularly at the Kispiox
post office.

"He's doing that twice a week, sir," Walters said. He was an  abnormally
clean young man with blue eyes and a blond mustache.

"And he's very prompt. He picks up his mail right at noon, and answers
it there, too. They all call him Johnny, he's a favorite son. I was up
there yesterday, and I phoned this afternoon. He hasn't been in  this
week, but tomorrow's Wednesday and that's one of his days. So  I've
fixed this, if you agree."

He had fixed a small jet to fly them to a place called Hazelton, not
far from Kispiox, which would enable them to get there before noon. In
case Porter did not look in tomorrow, he had also checked out hotel
rooms where they could wait for him the following day.

Every bone in his body aching, Lazenby considered these arrangements
somewhat sourly.

"What time would that mean getting up?" he said.

"Not too early." Walters smiled.

"It's only about five hundred miles, so if we're in the air by ten
we'll make it. I have transport arranged at Hazelton. From the  airport
there it's just a drive through the woods to Kispiox."

"You're coming, of course," Lazenby said to Hendricks.

"No, George, I'm not."

The relationship had flourished a little between them.

"The fewer people the better. I only came to introduce this young
fellow, your escorting officer. He's done all the work anyway. He's been
around Porter for weeks."

"Have you spoken to him?" Lazenby asked the young man.

"No, sir, I haven't. My orders were to make no contact."

"You make the contact, George," Hendricks told him.

"He's a very suspicious man with a big phobia about us--probably
warranted.

This ethnic thing of his is quite wide-ranging, and we've been
observing him a long time. He's stirred up a lot of minority-group
activity, not just Canada--it's worldwide. But he's on vacation now, and
relaxed. The best thing is just to come to him and talk straight.  Tell
him what you know, and hope he'll listen. If that's all right  with
you."

Lazenby closed his eyes.

The idea of "making a contact" with a very suspicious Indian five
hundred miles into the Canadian wilderness was not more surreal than the
other things that had happened to him today. He still seemed to be
floating somewhere between the Atlantic and the Rockies, and more than
anything he just wanted to get to bed.

"Yes. Fine," he said.

"Fine."

So next day, the air again, in a small jet, buzzing north.

Mountains, lakes, forests drifted mistily below, veiled in rain. It  was
still raining at Hazelton, a dismal small airport with not much activity
going on in it. The transport was waiting, however, a Toyota  pickup,
and they hurried into it. They drove for some time on a hardtop road and
then were off it and  bumping and lurching along an old lumber track.
Dense stands of spruce  and hemlock dripped on all sides, and square
stacks of trimmed logs,  soaking gloomily in the dim light.

Kispiox itself, when they splashed into it, was not much cheerier. It
lay in a large clearing, an Indian village with totem poles and frame
houses and a white-painted frame church. Full washing lines were  strung
everywhere, clothes hanging like distress signals in the steady
downpour. Apart from a few battered pickups there were no other signs of
life.

The post office seemed to be a general store. It was empty apart from
an old man smoking his pipe in a rocking chair.

"Hi," he said, peering.

"You the guy was over from Rupert--Mr. Jackson, ain't it?"

"Right," Walters said amiably.

"How you doing? I called up yesterday afternoon.

You said Johnny would be in today."

"Oh well, shit!" the old man said. He took his pipe out.

"I clean forgot that. I should have told him you was in. I wrote down  a
note about it. Went right out of my head!"

"He's been in?" Walters said.

"Telephoned. About couple hours ago. He's over at the Takla. Been  there
a few days, apparently. Hell, I'm sorry about that. Had him  right there
on the phone," the old man said.

"You come over from Rupert special, then?"

"Hazelton. Did he say how long he'd be at the Takla?"

"Well, he wants his mail sent over. That takes two days. Has to go to
Takla Landing, see."

"Where is Takla Landing?" Lazenby asked.

Walters was worrying his small mustache.

"About fifty miles," he said.

"Maybe sixty."

"Seventy, more like," the old man said. He was looking at Lazenby.

"You English, mister?"

"Yes," Lazenby said.

"Thought that. Glad to know you." He was extending a hand and Lazenby
shook it, observing for the first time that the man was an Indian. The
big-boned face had quite a merry look, merrier than the recalled
somberness of Porter's. He suddenly realized he remembered Porter's face
quite well.

"It's a shame you come special," the old Indian said.

"Still, if you're only over at Hazelton .. .

Maybe I can call him for you, leave a message? Since I forgot it
before."

"No, don't worry about it," Walters told him.

"He's staying at Takla Landing, is he?"

"No, he ain't staying there. The mail goes there. Then by float plane
over to Bear. That's where he is. Least, he said to readdress
everything to Noreen's."

"What's Noreen's?"

"North end of Bear. That's Brown Bear--the lake. Floatplane is the  only
way in.

It ain't no trouble for me to call there. Only government money," the
old man said merrily.

"Is it a logging camp?" Walters asked, puzzled.

"No, Noreen's ain't a camp," the Indian said, amused.

"She has that lodge down by the lake. Puts up a beer, chow, a few
bunks--it's like for guys come up fishing. It wouldn't be no trouble  at
all," he told Lazenby, "for me to call and say you looked in. Mister
what was it?"

"This is Mr. Brown," Walters said, "and it isn't even worth  mentioning.
He wanted a look at Kispiox anyway."

"Nothing to look at, all this rain. Been raining for days," the Indian
said.

"It ain't raining at Bear. Johnny found that out. Think he's doing a
bit of hunting, fishing there. Anything else I can do for you,  then?"

"Sure, I'll take that note you wrote--could mix you up," Walters  said.

The Indian found the note, behind the till, and they went back out in
the rain, to the Takla.

The Takla was a chain of connected lakes and rivers stretching for 150
miles, and Takla Landing was somewhere over halfway up it. They left the
pilot to wait with the jet there, and hired a float plane

Bear Lake was another half hour.

It was still not two o'clock when they touched down on it, the water
very somber. On all sides the trees stood like a wall around the lake.
They taxied up an inlet to the jetty, and when the engine stopped the
silence was massive. It was very gray and still here but, as the old
Indian had said, not raining.

"When you want to be picked up?" the pilot asked.

"I don't know," Walters said. He mused.

"You busy this time of year?"

"Well, fish are rising. Char and Dolly Varden, big ones, all the way
up. People are coming in. I could wait a while for you if you want,  see
if Noreen can take you. That smokestack is hers. through the  trees. But
there's other places."

"Okay, thanks. I'll leave the bags," Walters said, and helped Lazenby
out.

The air was very heavy as they tramped through the trees, and there were
swarms of midges about. But they did not have to tramp far.  Noreen's
was a rambling wooden structure with a broad porch and  mosquito frames
over the doors and windows. The hall inside was dark  and empty, and
Walters rang the bell on the desk.

Noreen came rubbing her hair with a towel, a round comfortable figure
in dungarees, and she said she could take them, "long as you boys don't
mind bunking up together."

Walters went out for the luggage while Lazenby, with some misgiving,
was led to the room he was to bunk up in. He saw with relief that the
beds were at least on opposite sides of the room, which was spacious and
cedar-clad.

"Plenty of cupboards," Noreen said.

"This one here is for tackle, but no smelly stuff. That goes in the
fish room. You over from England, then?"

Lazenby said he was and asked if a Dr. Porter was staying there.

"Johnny Porter?" Noreen said. She looked at him curiously.

"No, he doesn't stay here. You looking for him?"

With a sinking feeling, Lazenby realized that Porter didn't seem to
stay anywhere. The elusive shadow was always somewhere else. He felt
exhaustion sweeping over him again. Already today he had taken off and
landed three times, and plenty of afternoon still remained to pursue the
phantom elsewhere about the lake. Except that, as a roar outside
announced, the plane had just taken off.

He was explaining the matter of the mail when Walters returned with the
luggage, and Noreen's face had cleared.

"Well, if he arranged that," she said, "I guess he'll be in. He does
that has mail sent on here. I don't mind. He's okay, Johnny. When  you
know him. You know him well, Mr. " "Lazenby," Lazenby said  firmly.

"Professor Lazenby." He had seen Walters's mouth open, and had not  come
to terms with "Mr. Brown."

"Nice to have you with us," Noreen said. But her eyes were on the
luggage.

"You boys not planning on any fishing, this trip?"

"Not this one," Walters said.

"The professor here just wants to see Johnny college business."

"Well, he won't be in till dark, if it's just for mail. And not till
tomorrow, any case. Don't come till then. Can I fix you boys  something
to eat?"

They had a moody lunch; after it Lazenby took a nap, and woke up rather
more cheerful. Noreen had indicated that if he was a fishing man he
could take a rod and a boat tomorrow. This seemed such a reasonable  way
of filling in the time until Porter showed up that he took himself
briskly off to inspect the lake. A few boats were coming in before dark,
and he was encouraged still  further by the splendid specimens they
brought with them. Enormous  great things, species of trout, presumably
the char and Dolly Varden.  And rainbows, glorious jobs, he'd never seen
such a size. No salmon,  of course, in this landlocked water, but things
were definitely looking  up.

And looking up to such an extent that as he sat with a sherry in a nook
off the bar--Walters having discreetly taken himself off to play
pool--he saw that the remarkable locality did indeed have salmon.
Strange salmon, kokanee, lake-dwellers. A type of sockeye, no doubt.
Yes, so they were: sockeye. His eyes fairly goggled through the  fishing
magazines. Rainbows over ten pounds. Char to thirty. God  alone knew
what the kokanee went to. Spin, troll or fly ... The flies  also of
great interest. Variations of patterns he had used himself to good
effect on the Spey. But also others that might get an even bigger
effect. He mused over Mickey Finn, and the Goofus Bug--"good floater,
deadly on fast water." The Spey was the fastest water. He took note  of
the supplier of Goofus and was screwing up his eyes over the
illustration when a voice spoke in his ear.

"You were asking for me?"

He spilled his sherry.

A face like a totem pole's made handsome was staring into his.

The cheekbones were high and flat, the eyes dark, penetrating, and
unsmiling.

The long figure was bent over him, a pair of hunting boots on one end
and drawn-back glossy hair on the other. The wide mouth had a mustache
on it now.

"Raven?" Lazenby said faintly.

"Hi, Goldilocks," Raven said; and in the same moment Lazenby recalled
the Russian, and his too-personal jokes. Go up, thou baldhead. Oh  yes.
He, Baldhead, was Goldilocks! Very funny.

The Indian was taller than Lazenby remembered, and quieter than he
remembered.

He was very quiet indeed: a grave, composed figure, exceedingly
reserved. They had dinner together, and Lazenby took stock of him across
the table.

The youthful bull of the seventies had gone. His fringe was no more,
and the heavy helmet of hair. It was drawn sleekly back now, lengthening
the face and chastening it; an austere pigtail hung down  the back. Only
the mustache seemed to add a normalizing touch. Lazenby set the ball
rolling by asking him if he had met Rogachev  again, and he said he had.
He had met him again and talked with him  again, two nights running had
talked both nights away, all on that same  visit; but afterward he had
heard nothing more. Yet he stayed silent  during Lazenby's story, and
made no comment when it was over.

Lazenby chewed at his own meal for some moments.

"Anything you'd like to ask me?" he said.

The Indian consulted a neat forkful of food.

"He wants me because I look like a Siberian, right?"

"That, and your other qualifications. But that, yes. I should think
certainly."

"How does he suppose I could get there?"

"This man Walters knows about that. That's Walters of the CA."

"Uh-huh. You have these ... messages?"

"I don't, no. This CIA man has copies. Will you meet him?"

The Indian examined his forkful again, and ate it.

"Yes. I'll meet him," he said.

They found Walters having his dinner on a tray in the bedroom. He
scrambled to his feet to be introduced; and he said he was honored to be
introduced.

The Indian merely shook his hand, and said nothing.

"Well now," Walters said, as they were seated, "I guess we know why we
are here.

How do we feel about it?"

The Indian produced a small tobacco sack and rolled himself a
cigarette.

"Are you the one in charge of the arrangements?" he asked politely.

"No, sir, I am not. I am here as an escorting officer, and I would
continue in that role for you. But I can answer any general questions
you have."

Porter lit the cigarette.

"You have some papers for me," he said.

Walters reached in a breast pocket and produced an envelope. There was
a wax seal on it. The Indian looked at the seal, but merely inserted a
thumbnail under the flap and tore the top off. Two numbered sheets  were
inside. He read one and then the other, and smoke began to issue  slowly
from his mouth. Then he read them again, and pocketed the  sheets. His
face hadn't changed.

"You know where I'm supposed to go?" he said.

"Yes sir, I do."

"And how I get there?"

"Yes, sir. I know that too." "Tell me," Porter said.

Walters looked at Lazenby.

"I don't know if you are authorized to hear this, sir," he said.

"Not at all. I am sure not," Lazenby said hurriedly, and rapidly left
them; and in the room behind him Porter smoked as the plan was laid out
for him.

When it was over he carried on smoking.

"Is there anything more I can tell you, sir?" Walters asked  presently.

"I heard the plan for getting there. I didn't hear how I was to be
dropped off."

"That part isn't fixed yet."

"Or how I get back."

"That isn't fixed either. Obviously it won't be the way you get in.  But
a number of options will be arranged for you, and you would have
backup."

"What backup?"

"Operatives on the ground. You don't need to worry about that. I stay
with you through training, and anything that isn't clear, I get it
clear. That's right up to when you go."

Porter stubbed his cigarette out.

"This day-to-day job you've dreamed up for me out there. You know I've
never done anything like it?"

"Yes, sir, I know that. In camp you'll be doing it in your sleep."

"What camp?"

"An operations camp we have, down south."

Porter considered this.

"This area of Siberia--I'd need to know it. If nobody has been there,
how do I get to know it?"

"All I can say is that if you don't, you won't go. That applies to any
stage of this operation. If you don't feel you can do it, you cut
out--right up to the drop-off. Because at that point you'll be on your
own."

"What about that backup?"

"Just then there isn't any.. .. But I can assure you there's no way
you'll go in unless you'll feel one hundred percent at home in the
place."

"With my own apartment."

"Yes, sir."

"I just turn the key and walk in?"

"That's what you do."

"In this sealed area where nobody's been?"

"That's right."

a) "What do the neighbors say?"

"You'll learn about the neighbors. We're working on it."

Porter thought about this.

"What information is there on the place?"

"It's being collected. Is there something special you'd want to  know?"

"Sure, the slang, the dialect. What they talk about there. Knowing  the
languages isn't everything."

"Okay." Walters produced a small book and made a note.

"I'll try and get it for you," he said.

"From this sealed area, you can get it?"

"I'll try."

Porter took out his tobacco sack again.

"Who are the operatives on the ground?" he said.

Walters smiled.

"Even if I knew that, sir," he said, "I couldn't tell you. You know
what you have to know. That protects the operation, and it also protects
you."

Porter slowly rolled a cigarette.

"You know," he said, "I don't believe that without me you have any
operation."

"Yes, sir, that's right."

Porter lit the cigarette.

"Why the end of August?" he said.

"That's the date for getting you in position on time. The schedule is
very exact. After that there's no point in getting you out there at
all."

"Why do you want to get me out there?"

Walters smiled again.

"I don't know the object of this mission at all. I do know we're the
only ones that can get you there. But my orders are not to press you  in
any way. If you want to go, you go. But if so, I've got to know  fast.
Could you be available right away?"

"No. I've got to run down to Prince George," Porter said.

"I'll be there until--maybe ten days from now."

"That's too long," Walters said.

"That's too bad."

"Can't you drop it? We really don't have that margin."

"I can't drop it.. Maybe I could cut it a little." The Indian thought  a
while.

"This stuff you're going to get me--when would you have it?"

"In a few days, perhaps. Where are you staying there?"

"The general post office," Porter said.

Walters made no comment on this but merely noted it in his book.

"Well, do I tell them to start?" he said.

The Indian paused. "I'll see this stuff first," he said.

"Tell me again--it's guaranteed I can pull out any time?"

"That's guaranteed."

"With no arm-twisting, no funny stories planted about me in funny
places?"

Walters put his book away.

"Look, sir," he said, "I know you have problems over contacts with us.
It's certainly not in our interest to reveal them."

"Not at this time," Porter said.

"Not any time. We have other critical relationships. It would be
counterproductive even to try."

"So long as we both know that."

"I think we do. Well, thanks for this meeting, anyway. We got over  that
one," Walters said smiling.

"Sure," Porter said, and for the first time smiled back.

"Well, now," Lazenby said.

"What do you think?"

They had the room to themselves, and the Indian was carefully rolling
himself another cigarette.

"I don't know. Maybe I'm being fixed," he said.

"Fixed? In what way fixed?"

"I don't know the way." He neatly licked the cigarette.

"But I guess you know I'm a big pain in the ass out here. This
government we have, they'd like me far away and in deep shit. But  could
they set up something like this, with their brains and resources?  I
doubt it. The CIA, now--that's a different story. So what is with  them,
I wonder?"

"Well, I don't think," Lazenby said, "that there is anything with them.
I gave you a very fair summary, I believe, of events as I saw them for
myself."

"You didn't see any events yourself." Porter lit the cigarette.

"You saw what they showed you. All this rigmarole with satellites,  lead
pencils, ballpoints.

You analyzed any of it personally?"

"Obviously I didn't."

"That's right. They did. Don't trust the bastards--governments,
government agencies. They rig things, they fake things."

"You're not suggesting somebody faked all this?"

"Why not?"

"I didn't receive these bizarre papers from Rogachev?"

"You received bizarre papers from somebody."

"Then, if not Rogachev, that somebody was certainly a most gifted
clairvoyant.

There were things there that couldn't possibly have been known--things
I barely remembered myself." "Pissing up against the wall?"

"That, yes. Who else could have known it?"

"My roommate at Oxford? The guy I told next morning the Yankee Rhodes
scholar who went into their State Department? He couldn't have
remembered the crazy story and passed it on to the Department of
Spooks?"

Lazenby stared at him.

"You told somebody about it next morning?"

The Indian blew out smoke and shook his head.

"No. There was no Yank. I merely illustrate a point, Goldilocks. Take
nothing on trust. Many tricky dicks walk the trail. You want a  drink?"
He had taken a half-pint flask from his jeans pocket.

Lazenby gazed at this most cautiously.

"A very small one, perhaps. What is it?"

"Rye." He poured for them both into tooth mugs.

"This is a weird plan they make for me. Goldilocks," he said.

"Don't tell me about it. I don't want to know."

"Okay." He took a long drink. Then he took the two papers from his
pocket.

"This the stuff they showed you?"

Lazenby examined the sheets.

"Yes."

"What's it supposed to mean?"

"Well what it says. That he obviously believes he has something
important and thinks you can get to him."

"They discuss it with you, what it meant?"

"We puzzled over it, yes. We couldn't see any more than that. Can  you?"

The Indian poured himself another drink.

"These are very tricky dicks," he said at last.

Lazenby watched him drink the rye.

"Tell me," he said mildly, "why you suppose anyone should go to such
great labors to 'fix' you in a distant place."

"Scenarios?" Porter nodded.

"Maybe they want somebody in that place. But nobody can get to it. So
they look in the computer, and bingo, / can get to it. I'm just the
girl. I have the looks, I have the patter. For what? God knows for what.
To take something, bring something? You'd never know even while  you
were doing it."

Lazenby gazed at the Indian. The sudden loquacity, after his reserve  at
dinner, did not disguise an essential stillness about the man. There was
an austere, watchful quality about him.

"Well," he said, terminating the discussion.

"I've told you what I came to tell you. All I can add is that at one
time I also thought it great nonsense."

"You believe it now, do you?" "Oh, yes. Certainly."

"Would you go yourself?"

"I?" Lazenby stared at him. "/ wouldn't. Good God, no!"

The Indian didn't say any more. He didn't even look at Lazenby. He  just
sat and smoked his cigarette. He did this until it was finished  and
then pocketed the bottle, and nodded, and went.

And two days later, job completed, Lazenby himself went, home. He
watched most contentedly as portions of British Columbia receded at six
hundred miles an hour.

What the Indian had decided to do he had no idea. A very complicated
fellow, tricky. Suspected everybody of tricks. Up to plenty himself,  of
course. He'd decide nothing in a hurry.

In Prince George it was raining and the girl came in drenched, with a
dripping umbrella and a bag of groceries.

"Oh, God, are you still watching that?" she said.

Porter's eyes hadn't left the screen.

"Quiet. The man is making a joke."

"He was making the joke when I left."

"That was another joke."

"Who is that little bastard? Why are you watching him?"

"He's a jolly little bastard. I like him."

The little man on the screen was very jolly. He wore high reindeer
boots and was smacking them as he laughed. His male companions were also
smacking theirs. The women's boots couldn't be seen, but they  were all
elaborately dressed and just as jolly, dark eyes sparkling  under their
center partings. They were taking part in a talk show.

"Is that Eskimo they're talking or what?" the girl said.

"Eskimo is Inuit. The people are also called Inuit. This isn't  Inuit,"
he said.

The tall blonde was an ex-student of his and should have known better.
At the present time she should have known much better, for she was
editing a book, his last, which was about the Inuit.

"Go and take that bath," he said.

"You said you were going to take it with me."

"All right." Porter reluctantly switched the tape off. There were  about
twenty snippets on it, bits of newscasts, talks, chat shows. Snatched by
satellite evidently. No information had come with the tape. Just the
tape. He'd watched it a few times and would watch it some more. He
reached for his wallet and took out the much-handled messages again,
comparing them side by side.

/ am he that liveth. I am yet alive in the north country in dark waters!
in the vast howling wilderness Wherefore do ye not answer me? I Behold
new things do I declare! The eyes of all shall be opened Send me
therefore the man understanding science! of every living thing! Let me
hear thy voice concerning this matter/ the first day at midnight! Voice
of America. Go up, thou baldhead How is it that ye do not understand?! I
want that man that speaketh the tongues of the families of the north!
him that pisseth against the wall! As to my abode! it was written
plainly in the beginning! I dwell in dark waters! Shew him all my words!
that the people shall no more sit in darkness! nor like the blind
stumble at noonday! Make speed! Baldhead.


What the hell! Had they really not seen it, the CIA geniuses? Or had
they manufactured it themselves? He still couldn't tell. Some stuff here
was meant solely for him. Could they possibly have known what had been
discussed? He wasn't clear what to do. Drop the whole thing and go back
to Montreal, east? Or find out more at the operations camp the young
spook had mentioned, south? He followed the girl into the bathroom,
brooding. Sleep on it. and then decide. East, south, where? Three

North by Northwest 14

On August 28 Porter arrived at Narita airport, picked up his bags,
negotiated Immigration and Customs, and descended to the train. A car
was waiting for him outside, as he knew. He had no intention of taking
it. The airport express could get him where he wanted, which was Tokyo
central station.

He made it by five o'clock, to find the rush hour in progress. This  was
the second rushawa of the day, the homeward-streaming one, and the
familiar riot was in progress. He spent some minutes getting his
bearings, and located the Lucky Strike. It looked no different from  the
other "business efficiencies" around the station, but it stood on a
corner and had two entrances. This was its attraction, and he remembered
it. They wouldn't remember him.

"How many nights?" the Lucky Strike clerk asked him.

"I'm not sure; say four."

"Say four, you pay up front four."

"Okay," Porter said, and gave him a credit card.

The man looked at it and turned it over.

"You American, Australian, what?" he said. He had been shouting in  slow
Japanese himself.

"Canadian."

"Ah. Sorry. Thought Korean," the clerk apologized.

Porter was pleased about that.

"Give me some telephone tokens," he said.

"Give me ten. I'll pay now."

"Sure. Canadian is all right," the man said. He gave the tokens and
Porter waited while his card was checked out. It was very hot and steamy
and he was sweating under the wig. His pigtail was fixed tight  inside.

"Isn't the air-conditioning working here?" he said.

"Sure, everything working. Only it gives me a cold so I turn it off. And
if you want room-cleaning service," the clerk said, "service is  extra."

"I don't want service."

"Okay. Room 303, The elevator's around the corner."

"Where are the stairs?" Porter said.

"Past the elevator. Next to the coffee bar. Go around the corner,
you'll see."

Porter went around the corner and found the stairs, also the coffee
bar. Also the other entrance. It was as he remembered. It wasn't
necessary to go through the lobby to get in or out of the place.

He skipped the stairs and rode up to 303. It was a neat small
efficiency.

Compact kitchen and shower room. European bed, not a futon for the
floor. Normal furniture. Phone. He switched the air-conditioning on  and
used the phone. Then he unpacked and had a shower. He took the  wig off
in the shower.

He was resting in a towel, with his wig back on, when the doorbell
went.

"Excuse me," murmured the individual outside. He was a neat Japanese
with tortoiseshell glasses and a briefcase.

"I don't know if this is the right place.

I am looking for a Mr. Peterson."

"Okay, come in," Porter said. They were both speaking Japanese.

The man came cautiously in.

"You drink rye?" Porter asked. He was drinking some himself  already.

The man did not disclose what he drank. He carefully looked the
efficiency over, and then he looked Porter over.

"Maybe you have something to show me?" he said.

Porter reached for his jacket and took the headed letter out. It
introduced James B. Peterson of New Age Technology, Vancouver, to
Makosha Microchip KK of Tokyo.

The man carefully examined the letter.

"Some other details? Some details you yourself have to say to  Makosha?"

"Oh, well, shit.. . ," Porter said, but he gave the details.

"Hey," the man said. He seemed nonplussed.

"We were waiting with a car at the airport. What are you doing  here?"

"I thought I'd come here," Porter said.

"This isn't good. We don't make changes."

"I'll remember," Porter said, and gave him his drink.

"What's your name?"

"Just Yoshi. On the phone also you just say Yoshi. You don't say all
the things you said."

"Okay." Porter said.

"What have you brought me?"

Yoshi was looking round the room.

"You can't stay here," he said. "There's a place waiting for you. You
have to wait in that place.  I've brought the material but I can't leave
it."

"Just show me what you've got," Porter said.

Yoshi opened his briefcase and took out a passport and a seaman's pay
book Both were South Korean and in the name of a Sung Won Choo. Porter
had a look at them.

They were well-thumbed and greasy. His photograph was slightly
different in each but the same seaman stared out with the same piercing
eyes, the same bushy mustache. His pigtail was over his shoulder in  one
and up in a bun in the other.

"And the ship blueprints," he said.

Yoshi took a transistor radio out of his case and turned it on.

"You don't need them," he said, over the row.

"There's better material. It's waiting for you. In the place where  you
have to be."

" Where's the ship?"

"At Nagasaki. It's still in drydock."

"What's the sailing date?"

"The thirty-first. You'll learn all this."

"That gives me only two days in between."

"It's a week before you're needed. You'll be briefed on it. We have  to
keep to plans."

"Okay," Porter said. He took a cigarette and offered Yoshi his pack.

"I shouldn't, it's not healthy," Yoshi said. But he accepted a
cigarette, and blew out a stream of smoke.

"What's the stop-off schedule?" Porter asked.

"You do not need this," Yoshi said, mouthing above the din.

"Not here. It's not finalized, anyway."

"What have you got?"

Yoshi put down his cigarette and took out a map. A sheet of scrawled
Japanese was attached to it. He opened the map out on his knee.

"The west coast you know it?"

"No."

"No, it isn't used much by international lines. This is a cheap line.
It does cheap business. Here, Nagasaki." Yoshi put a finger on it.

"And here, Niigata the first stop, about seven hundred miles up. In
Niigata it discharges and loads."

"It loads what?"

Yoshi ground his teeth a little, but he checked the paper.

"Forklifts, agricultural machinery, skates," he said.

"The skates for Goteborg and Rotterdam, the rest Murmansk."

"Containerized?"

"Containerized." "As deck cargo or what?"

Yoshi blinked.

"The loading isn't finalized," he said.

Porter looked at him. Yoshi was the man he had to deal with, and he  had
been told he was a good man. But Yoshi didn't know this. There  would be
other things he didn't know. That was why Porter was at the  Lucky
Strike.

"Okay," he said.

"What's the discharge cargo?"

"Wool. The ship is coming now. It runs there and back from Australia.
It drops the wool at Nagasaki, and feeder vessels move it on. This one
will. First of all to Niigata."

"Wool is a baled cargo."

"Yes, baled," Yoshi said, checking.

"The ship handles break-bulk and container."

"It handles everything; it's a tramp. It goes to places the others
don't," Yoshi said.

Porter thought about this.

"Okay, Niigata. What then?"

"Then Otaru. Up here on the island of Hokkaido. The same thing, load
and discharge. And final bunkering. It's the last stop in Japan. It
drops the remainder of the wool, then off--up to the Bering Strait and
the Arctic."

"What's the date for up there?"

"Nagasaki-Murmansk is twenty-eight days, their speed. They go a slow
speed, it's cheaper. But they allow more for turnaround and delays.  The
one sure date, they'll be at Murmansk the first week of October.  After
that there's a good chance they'd be iced in."

"How about Green Cape?"

"I don't know about Green Cape. There's no consignment yet. There  still
could be. The Russians always leave it to the end. It wouldn't  be the
last word, anyway."

He explained. On rounding the strait the ship would radio its arrival
in Russian waters, and the Russians would radio back if they wanted them
to stop.

"Stop for what?"

"Fish. They have a small fish business with Murmansk." Murmansk was  not
on the map but Yoshi pointed out where it would be, somewhere near  the
door.

"Way out there. That time of year nothing much goes that way. The
traffic is all the other way, to the Pacific. Maybe this is the last
ship of the season, so they'll want it."

"What if they don't?"

Two flutes of smoke came out of Yoshi's flat nose.

"If they don't, there's a plan," he said.

"And if they do, there's also a plan. You'll learn all this."

"Where do I join the ship?" "At Otaru. It happens fast, before they have
time to let anyone know.  Actually, they won't want to let anyone know."

"Why?"

"No. Enough," Yoshi said. The minimal nose and the shell glasses gave
him the appearance of a tough cat.

"There's a lot for you to learn , but not here. In the place set up  for
you to learn. You stay out of sight there till it's time for you  to
move."

Porter nodded.

"Yoshi," he said, "do you know what I have to do at Green Cape?"

"No. I don't have to know that," Yoshi said.

"It's not as healthy as smoking cigarettes."

"So?"

"I am the one that's going, not you."

"If you don't keep to the plan maybe you can't go."

"If I don't like the plan," Porter said, "I won't go."

Yoshi looked at him, blinking slowly.

"What's wrong with the plan?" he said.

"I don't know," Porter said.

"I'll find out at Nagasaki."

"What are you talking about?" Yoshi said. His mouth had fallen open  and
his blinking had accelerated.

"I told you--you join the ship at Otaru. You can't go to Nagasaki. You
can't go anywhere. You have to stay out of sight. If there's anything
you want to know, we'll find it out. What is it you want to know?"

"What equipment have they got on the ship?"

"What equipment? I've got a man who knows the equipment. He knows the
ship.

He'll explain it all to you. Everything is taken care of. I promise
you!"

"Has the man been on the ship during refitting?"

"He doesn't have to go on the ship. He's a--a professional man. He
knows these things. I can't tell you here--it's confidential!" Yoshi
mouthed over the radio row.

"Yoshi, I've learned these ships have the worst accident record in the
world, and a new man gets the shiftiest jobs. Unless I arrive in one
piece at the other end there's no point in going at all. I have to  know
about this ship. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Yoshi said. He was looking troubled.

"But you can't get in the yard anyway. We also tried to get in, for
information. We got it from the freight forwarders in the end. It's a
private yard, very secure, they don't let anyone in."

"But they have to let workers out. Which yard is it?"

Yoshi checked with his paper.

"Takeshuma. Around the bay, near Mitsubishi." "I know Mitsubishi. You
can look into it from the hill. How near  there is it?"

"I don't know," Yoshi said. He took his glasses off, and put them on
again.

"Listen, come back with me," he said, "and you'll understand. Leave  the
cases here, if you want. They can be sent for. Just agree to that  for
now."

But Porter wouldn't agree to it. He said he planned to rest and look
over the blueprints and his documentation. Yoshi wouldn't leave the
documentation but he reluctantly agreed to leave the blueprints. He
unfolded the sheets and carefully scissored off a strip along the
bottom, which gave the date and the drafting details. Then he cut off
another along the top.

This gave the name of the ship, which was the Suzaku Maru.

Rain was smashing down when he woke.

It was very dark, and the room was chill from the air conditioner. He
took a warm shower and went down to the coffee bar. This place he  found
shut, so he crossed the street to the station. Plenty of small  cafes
were open there.

The rain had stopped but the night was damp and hot, alive now with
neon. It glistened in the puddles, and cast a red glow over the enormous
city. The station was still crowded, the streets clogged with  hooting
traffic. He found a sushi bar and picked at his plate,  musing.

His Japanese would do. Over the years he had been running there and
back; the last time, as it happened, to Hokkaido, where he now had to
pick up the ship. On that occasion he had been picking up Ainu, from the
remaining aboriginals there.

Japanese yes, but his Korean no. On the ship he was going to need
Korean. He had brushed up a bit at the camp, and more had been  arranged
for him here. It was the ship that worried him more. As  Yoshi had
snipped off the details he had noticed the date. The  blueprints were
thirty-five years old.

He went back and studied them anyway.

He saw there was no provision for containerization. The ship hadn't
carried containers thirty-five years ago, although evidently it did now.
And what of the deck equipment: the derricks, cranes, capstans? Stinking
old machinery, for certain, and by now dangerous. A ship that  went to
"places the others don't" made heavy use of its own lifting  gear, soon
worn out. A line like this would either get a cheap repair  job or
replace it with scrap yard junk. In any case the deck gear  wouldn't be
where it was on the blueprints--not if container shafts had  been put
in.

-7/; He pored over the sheets all the same, memorizing the equipment and
its positioning. He did it until two in the morning when his eyes were
closing, and then he phoned Yoshi's number again. It rang for a long
time and then was abruptly answered by a female-very angry, almost in
shock. He left a message for Yoshi, and went to bed.

The Theosophical Society of East Asia had a beautiful small courtyard,
totally secluded, and approached by a long alley ending in a tunnel and
solid wooden doors. The doors opened silently after Yoshi had beeped his
remote control and received an answering beep.

A little old man with a rake was watching as the car entered and came
to a halt.

Yoshi nodded to him as they got out, and the old man nodded back. He
was wearing a conical straw hat and scraping lines in a sand garden, and
in addition to the rake he was holding the electronic gadget that  had
opened the doors.

The morning was very heavy and gray and they had driven for over an
hour through back streets to get here. Away from the center the
prosperous city was suddenly in the Third World: few pavements, puddled
lanes. This area seemed more salubrious but was still a jumble of sheds,
factories, small apartment blocks.

The Theosophical Society itself was wedged between a book depository
and a tin-roofed works; but inside the gates was another world. A
fountain played.

Carp swam in a pool.

"You like this place?" Yoshi asked.

Porter looked around it, nodding.

A heavily eaved house, evidently ancient, covered with an elegant
creeper, it enclosed all four sides of the courtyard, the tunnel and the
gates merely set into it.

"You'll work well here, you'll concentrate," Yoshi told him.

"You can rest in the garden. And this is Machiko," he said, as a young
lady in glasses appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a track suit
and an unsmiling countenance.

"We spoke," she said.

"On the phone. At two o'clock this mo ming

"Sure. Sorry about that," Porter said.

"It's okay. It's just that I like to get out and jog first thing. I
didn't jog too much today." The appearance was little-girl Japanese,
with black pudding-bowl haircut. But she was not a little girl. And the
language was not Japanese but pure Canadian.

"She does all kinds of voices. She will do regional Korean," Yoshi  told
him.

"Also your legend. You'll work with Machiko on the legend."

"What have you got for me here?" Porter said.

"You'll see it after breakfast."

"Maybe I'd better see it now," Porter said.

"Okay. We'll meet up later," Yoshi told the girl, and took Porter
inside.

The house was a warren of corridors, with a faint smell of incense
hanging about.

"It's from the walls," Yoshi told him.

"Religious people lived here a long time." The walls were of rough
plaster, and brass oil lamps hung from them.

Electric bulbs were in the oil lamps now. They turned a corner and  then
another, and went up a flight of stairs, to a room evidently over  the
entrance tunnel.

Yoshi unlocked the door and switched the light on and relocked behind
them.

The room was cell-like, with a single shuttered window. It had tatami
matting on the floor and two chairs and a table. On the table was a
model of the ship, a meter long and brightly painted.

"The man will come and explain it to you," Yoshi said.

"He's a ship architect with the government." He took a side off the
ship and exposed the interior.

"You see what a good job it is? It's better than any blueprint."

"Yes," Porter said. The model was very good, immaculately finished,  and
in much better shape than the original was now likely to be.

He looked at the interior. Two shafts had been installed, he saw. For
vertical container stacking. Little containers were stacked in them.  He
moved the containers up and down.

"When was this put in?" he said.

"They did a big job ten, twelve years ago. The man will explain it all
to you."

Ten, twelve years ago made sense. Then it was worth the expense. They
wouldn't have spent much since. In particular they wouldn't have spent
much on the deck gear. The deck gear was where it was on the
blueprints--impossible in view of the shafts. Whoever had made the model
was not interested in the deck but in the ship's interior. The  interior
was very precise and showed many changes; to holds, lockers, shuttering.

"Who built this?" he said.

"The man did it himself. He's an expert. He'll take you through it
blindfold. He works for the narcotics bureau." "What has the narcotics
bureau to do with it?"

"We brought them into it. You're a narcotics agent, with the U.S.
government. We supplied good papers. We've done a lot of work. And  they
keep excellent relations with the police, the transport  ministries, all
kinds of authorities.

We're getting maximum help, and they know we'll be discreet. So you  see
why you can't go poking around and screwing things up. I'll tell  you
all about it. You can take your wig off now and we'll have  breakfast."

The girl didn't appear at breakfast.

"She doesn't have to hear what I'm going to tell you," Yoshi said.

He began telling Porter as soon as the remains were cleared away. He
produced two folders from a safe, and emptied one of them on the table.
A number of photographs and papers spilled out, including the passport
and the pay book

"This is his wife. Parents. Children. The house they all live in,
street plan.

His service record--every ship he's been on, and where. Police
record--some violence, as you'll see. Medical record. Letters from  his
wife. Examples of his own writing. You'll work through all this  with
Machiko."

"This is a real person?" Porter said.

"Of course. It's always the best."

"Where is he?"

"In Kobe. His throat was slit in a prison fight there three weeks ago.
We're holding the ashes awhile. They'll have to go back, of course; he
was a Buddhist.

The family has not been informed yet-bureaucratic delay. We'll hold
everything until you're on that ship, and off it."

"Had he served with this line?"

"Some time ago. You'll see it there."

"Won't any of the crew know him?"

"No. They're all signed, and we've checked every one out. Not one of
them was ever in the same port with him, or even on home leave, at least
not in the last six years. It's a very slight risk."

"Who else knows he's dead?"

"Outside the prison, a few officials. Inside it, maybe the hospital
staff. Not even them, for certain. He was shifted out in an  ambulance.
A police surgeon was the only one with him when he died.  The police
know, of course. That is, it will be on a computer  somewhere, if they
have any reason to check you out. They won't have a  reason. You'll be
staying out of sight. I'll have one of your cigarettes now," Yoshi said.
Porter gave him one and lit it.

"Wasn't there an inquest?" he said.

"No. The narcotics department helped. They have asked that you stay  out
of sight. It's the only thing they've asked. They can't  compromise the
police."

"So how long am I supposed to stay here?"

"From now, six days. Perhaps seven. Your kit is all here. You pick  it
up at Otaru."

Porter thought about this.

"All right. What's the timing, from Nagasaki?"

"From Nagasaki," Yoshi said, "the ship un docks on the thirty first and
loads.

This is a fast operation, wool the only cargo. I'll have more
information later, but provisionally she arrives at Niigata on the third
of September."

He opened the second folder and took some sheets out.

"Niigata. A fully equipped port. It handles all loading and discharge
ship's own crew only partially required, so one watch goes ashore.
Normal turnaround there is twelve to eighteen hours again, I'll know
more later. But trouble develops onshore among the crew, and it
continues on the ship. A hundred miles or so out the captain suddenly
has a casualty on his hands, quite serious."

He explained this, and Porter drew on his cigarette.

"This is already fixed?" he said.

"Oh, yes." Yoshi looked through his papers and turned one face around
on the table.

"Here's the deck crew."

Porter counted twelve names; four of them highlighted with red
outliner.

"What are the red ones?" he said.

"One of them is the casualty."

"How do you know who'll be the casualty?"

"I don't," Yoshi said, "but the list is alphabetical, and they work the
watches the same way. One of these men has to be the casualty. And three
of them served together on a previous voyage, which will be  useful.
Anyway, I want to know what happens in Niigata before starting  you off
in Otaru."

Porter considered this.

"How long from there to Otaru?"

"Two days," Yoshi said.

"With this man in bad shape."

"Very bad shape."

"So what happens?"

Yoshi told him what he thought would happen.

"Won't there be questions about the casualty?" "It will happen fast,"
Yoshi said.

"And the captain will leave Otaru fast. After shipping another  hand."

"Are we certain he absolutely needs another hand?"

"Yes. For a voyage through the Arctic, late in the season," Yoshi  said,
"he needs another hand. These ships already operate with minimum crews."

Porter smoked silently for a while.

"Okay. Green Cape," he said.

"There isn't anything for Green Cape. I told you, the Russian trade
mission here is always late. They could still give instructions even  at
sea. But whether they do or they don't," Yoshi said, "you get off
there." And he explained this, too.

"After which," he ended, "you know what to do. And I don't have to
know. I've got you on the ship, and I've got you off it."

"Well. Okay." Porter said.

"Maybe. If it works at Green Cape."

"I have no doubts about Green Cape. If you get on the ship, you'll get
off it at Green Cape. And you will get on it, if you keep to the plan.
You look good. You look how you're supposed to look," Yoshi said. Porter
was now gnawing the end of his pigtail.

"In seaman's rig you'll look even better."

Porter studied his image in the passport and the pay book

"So here's the next thing," Yoshi said.

"Why you stay out of sight. Koreans aren't liked here. Working people
don't like them, the police. They regularly get stopped by the police.
On no account are you meeting any police."

"I never had trouble before."

"It wasn't so bad before. And if it had been bad, you were a Canadian
with good papers. Now you're a Canadian with funny papers. And a  wig."

"Without the wig, with Sung's papers?"

"They run you in right away. One call from a police box, and they find
you're not Sung."

"Why would they call?"

"They do call. I tell you, it's routine, Koreans have a bad time. They
don't like them. Maybe there's been trouble recently, violence, theft,
whatever. Then what? At Tokyo central, a man on the switchboard, he
knows the arrangement with the narcotics bureau? Don't even think of it.
This plan is nice because the timing is nice. Interfere with it in  some
way get yourself locked up, an investigation and there is no plan. This
is why you don't go out," Yoshi said.

Porter continued gnawing his pigtail.

"Yoshi," he said, "I have to see the ship. They're probably patching it
up for one last voyage, like the other ship, and using cannibalized
parts. The man who made that model was interested in compartments  where
narcotics could be hidden--not deck gear where it wouldn't be. /  am
interested in deck gear. I'll be using it. I have to see it before  the
ship leaves dock. It's the only place I can see it before  boarding. And
if I don't see it I won't be boarding."

Yoshi slowly blinked at him.

"If the ship can be seen," he worked out, "then it can be photographed.
Why don't we photograph it for you?"

"All right. I'm still going to see it. I can't take a chance on  this."

Yoshi continued blinking.

"Today is too late anyway," he said.

"It's a long trip. And you can't go on your own. If you go out at  all,
it's as a businessman in a suit, and we go together."

"Okay," Porter said.

"Keep me company."

Nagasaki airport was at Omura, about twenty-five miles from the port.
They landed there before noon, into almost subtropical heat, and Yoshi
hired a car.

The waterfront came in sight presently, sparkling far below, and they
followed it around. Houses clung to the hillsides, and narrow winding
streets tottered down to the bay; the place was built on a series of
terraces.

Yoshi had better information on the yard now and also a Port Authority
map. On the map the dockyards were shown as a line of numbered blocks,
and a key on the edge of the map gave the names. Porter kept his  finger
on Takeshuma's. As Yoshi had said, it wasn't far from  Mitsubishi, and
they slowed as they neared the area.

Just at two o'clock, they saw it.

The yard passed below, barely distinguishable; they drove on to the
next pull-in and walked back. A steady stream of traffic was passing  on
the road, but on the hillside, above and below the road, people were
picnicking and taking photographs. There was plenty to photograph. Far
below, winking in the sun, was the Park Lane of the marine world--a
glittering array of success--super tankers giant container ships,
prosperous monsters of all kinds, lined up row on row.

Mitsubishi was the most prominent of the yards, its activities not only
visible but audible, even palpable. The thump of its heavy forges echoed
between the hills of the bay, rhythmically shifting the air.  Just about
here Madame Butterfly had taken the air while awaiting the  one fine day
when a plume of smoke would herald Lieutenant Pinkerton.  Yet it was not
Pinkerton but another American who had occasioned the  most momentous
plume of all. The B-29 with its atom bomb had flown directly overhead,
with  Mitsubishi as its target the yard, the steel works and the
munitions  plant that had lain alongside. The bomb had landed almost
half a mile  away, demolishing the lot, and ultimately 73,000 citizens.

They climbed the hill, above the picnickers, and peered down through
binoculars.

Right away Porter saw why not much of Takeshuma had been
distinguishable from the road. High shuttering screened it off from  the
road. From this height, not all of it was screened off. Two ships  were
in the yard. They were lodged side by side, on chocks, in  separate dry
docks All the after parts were visible, maybe even three  quarters of
the ships' length.

"I don't know which one it is," Yoshi said.

"It's the nearer one," Porter told him. He couldn't see a name, but  the
gantry was clearly visible. It was a forty-tonner, right specifications.
The other ship was a coaster, wrong shape.

"It's that one," he said.

He examined it for some time. Not only the gantry but the wheelhouse
was in its blueprint position. He went over the ship section by section.
Two of the derricks were in dismantled heaps on the deck. But  he could
see another, installed and standing. He couldn't make out the
container-shaft openings. The sun was aslant now and casting heavy
shadows. It was blazing fiercely down, however, and the workers below
were swarming half-naked in the heat.

They were swarming everywhere on the dock, on the ship, in cradles over
the side. Propped high in the cement pit, the hull looked horrible; a
bulbous shell, rusty, scabrous, salt-scarred. The men in the cradles
were scraping at encrustations with longhandled implements, and being
followed by others with power hoses and red lead. Floodlights were
rigged round the dock and it was plain that work would be going on all
night if the ship was to come out on time.

He heard a click and saw Yoshi at work with the camera.

"Let me take a look," he said.

Through the binoculars everything had quivered in the heat. He needed  a
clear view of the derrick.

The Nikon had a big telephoto lens and the reflex view was good. But
the thing was hard to hold steady. Again the derrick swam in the air
currents. A fraction of a second could make a difference.

"Is this thing motorized?" he said.

"Sure."

Yoshi set the motor and Porter held the camera and shot off half a
roll. Then they moved position and he tried again. The view was no
better here; the derrick was even obscured for some seconds by a group
of men in hard hats gesticulating over it. But he kept the camera  going
and shot off the other half and they went back to the car.

It was after ten when they returned to Tokyo, and almost eleven as they
rolled through the tunnel to the Theosophical Society. They had left  it
at seven in the morning, and thirteen hundred miles had been covered  in
between. Of the thirty-six photos four were good and one very good,  and
this one Machiko enlarged.

Midnight passed while she did this, and the thirty-first of August had
arrived.

For the thirty-first of August the plan called for Porter to have his
first session with the ship's architect, and also his try-on.

The architect came first, and he studied the photographs made the night
before.

Porter had also studied them, without being able to identify the
derrick. The architect couldn't identify it either. He said the
equipment was obviously old;

he would have it looked up and get a copy of the works manual. But he
was anxious to proceed with instruction on his model, and Porter moodily
allowed himself to be instructed.

They spent the morning on it, but Porter barely listened. He had
realized now what he had to do, and it worried him. In the afternoon  he
had his try-on.

The kit was all suitably shabby: shoes scuffed and well worn;

darned woolens, oiled stockings, long Johns, sweatshirts, jeans, sea
boots, donkey jacket, headgear. They had had his measurements for  weeks
and little alteration was needed, but what there was Machiko  attended
to. Then she packed everything in a kit bag and a rope-bound  case, all
to go by hand next day to Hokkaido.

Afterwards they worked on his "legend." This girl seemed exceedingly
responsible, acting as housemother in charge of the servants as well as
of himself. Yet Yoshi instructed him to tell her nothing of his
identity. The success of an operation, he said, depended on people
knowing only what they had to--but attending to that with maximum
efficiency.

This aspect he demonstrated himself by returning, after taking the
ship's architect back, with the manual for the derrick.

"He'd have forgotten about it in the morning," he said.

"I stood over him while he searched. It was a long search." Porter
looked at the manual and saw gloomily why this was the case. It  was
dated 1948.

"Is there a working model of this around anywhere?"

"Only on these ships. It's been out of use a long time."

"Can we get hold of somebody who's used it?"

"No," Yoshi said.

"We can't. But he'll study it himself and explain it to you in the
morning."

"Yoshi, if this thing is out of use," Porter said, "it's because it's
dangerous.

I need somebody who's used it."

"We can't have anybody who's used it. We can't have anybody else at
all. In any case, he doesn't know anybody."

"I know somebody," Porter said.

Yoshi listened to him, aghast, as he explained what he was going to  do.

"Are you mad?" he said.

"You can't do this. I've told you why. Don't you understand?"

"Yes, I understand," Porter said. But he knew he was going to do it
anyway.

The bus was almost empty, and in the dark he couldn't see through the
rain-smeared windows. But the driver was calling out the stops, and
when he called out "Bund" Porter got off.

He could see the Bund Hotel twinkling to the left, and the Marine Tower
to the right. He located himself then. This bit of Yokohama he knew.  It
was only half an hour's train ride from Tokyo, practically a suburb. The
bus from the station had been grinding around the harbor, and in  the
open air now he could smell the diesel fumes off the water.

He was in jeans and a sweatshirt, his pigtail hanging. He had changed
at the Lucky Strike. He had walked into the place as Peterson and walked
out of it as Sung, by the side exit.

He crossed the road and cut through to the tinny music and the traffic
of Chukagai. Away from the harbor the town was quite sedate, a  commuter
belt for the capital. But this area was not sedate. He  passed the
massage parlors and the pachinko parlors, the little steel  balls
rattling as the gamblers fed in coins.

The topless places had now become no panty, he saw. The gaudy glow of
Chinatown hung in the air.

In a few minutes he was in the middle of it. The streets shone in the
drizzle, narrow, crowded, crawling with cars. Restaurants lined both
sides, the vertical Chinese signs flashing at each other. He looked for
the laughing pig and the debonair donkey. The pig he couldn't see  but
the donkey was still there. He was flashing on and off in the air,  legs
crossed, leaning on his cane, asinine ears shooting up and down.  Then
he saw the pig, too. Its lights were off but the red-and yellow  snout
still grinned its cheerful, cheeky grin.

The alley was a slit between the two buildings and emerged to the
street behind.

Shabbier bars and coffee shops. Ichiko's lane had had a barber's on  the
corner.

Yes, still there. He went down the lane and found Ichiko's.

The same lantern over the door, the same curtain in the doorway and the
smell of cooking coming out. Half a dozen men were supping up their
noodles on stools at the counter. His pigtail attracted no attention
here. He ordered grilled eel with his noodles, the specialty of the
house;

Ichiko, when on leave, used to catch them himself in the harbor. He
supped his bowl with the rest and kept an eye open for Ichiko. He  could
hear pots rattling in the kitchen; evidently Hanita at work.

"Is Hanita around?" he asked the bar girl.

"Who?"

"Hanita. The boss."

The sleepy girl looked at him and went in the back room. A man came  out
with her, wiping his hands on a cloth.

"Who did you want?" he said.

"Isn't this Hanita's place?"

"She died--two, three years ago."

"Oh." He absorbed this.

"What happened to Ichiko?"

"The sailor? He moved out."

"Do you know where?"

"No. I let him have a room for a while. But he went. He's around
somewhere still. Ask at the koban, they'll tell you. Just along the
street at the crossroad, you'll see it."

"Okay," he said.

The koban was the police post.

He went out, brooding. He had attracted no attention so far. Yokohama
was a seaman's place, and plenty of Korean seamen were in it. He
wondered if he dared risk the police post. The koban would only be a
neighborhood box, one of thousands. The streets were mainly unnamed,  as
everywhere else in the country.

Each koban had its patch: the police there knew the streets and who
lived in them, who moved in, out, who got drunk, who came home late.

The drizzle had eased a little, and now he could see the koban. The  box
was dimly lit. A policeman was sitting under the porch smoking a
cigarette. He saw the man was looking at him. He took Sung's passport
out of his jeans and held it in his hand, poised to snatch it back and
run if it was inspected.

sa "Excuse me, I'm looking for a mate," he said.

"Ichiko Nagoya. His wife ran a noodle bar up the street."

The policeman stared at the passport in his hand but didn't ask to see
it.

"They said he'd moved away. They said you'd know."

The policeman looked back through the open door behind him. Another
policeman was inside, writing.

"Ichiko Nagoya--was he the one that went cuckoo?" he called.

The other man came out. He also stared at the passport.

"Sure. They had him in the bin. He's out now. Along there," he said,
pointing, "maybe ten minutes--the taxi office. It's the all-night one,
lit up in red. He has a room at the back.

He won't be there now," he said, as the "Korean" thanked him and began
moving away.

"He works as a night watchman, at the Kawakami works, farther along."

"Kawakami--is that far?"

"You can't go in there." The man stared at him.

"What do you want with him? He owes you something?"

"No. Just to say I was sorry. About his wife," Porter said simply.

"Maybe I'll leave a note, at the taxi office." He still kept the
passport in his hand. They were watching him as he turned to thank  them
again. The drizzle had stopped now, but he was damp with sweat  and
didn't put the passport away till he was out of sight of the  koban.

He saw the all-night taxi office presently, but didn't stop. Farther
along, the policeman had said; the Kawakami works. There were few people
about now and the street lamps were farther apart. There was  the odd
bar, a tenement, sheds. From some of the sheds he heard  lowing: cows.
There were few fields in the area, and milk for the town  came from
hundreds of sheds; Ichiko had owned a couple himself.

He walked fast for another ten minutes, and then wondered if he
shouldn't go back to the taxi office after all. There was nobody in  the
street and nothing like a factory. He stopped and looked about  him, and
in the silence heard a distant clanking and screeching. The  marshaling
yard behind the station. He must have walked back parallel  with the
railway line. Except the screeching was not that of rolling  stock. He
walked on again, and as the sound became louder suddenly saw  the
factory.

Now that the rain had stopped the sky had cleared, and the ugly shape
loomed against a slice of moon. It was a breeze-block structure, big,
square, with hangar doors. Above the roof, iron letters were mounted  on
stilts, and he picked the Japanese characters out against the sky:

KAWAK-A-M-I. The screeching set his teeth on edge. It was coming from a
gap in the  hangar doors, open a few inches, perhaps to let air in. He
peered  through and saw nothing: total blackness. Then a kind of
glimmering  like the markings on a luminous watch. Denser shapes of
blackness were  shuddering along the markings.

He tried to pull the doors wider but couldn't manage it, and felt with
his hands in the gap and found a safety bar in position. He tugged it
upward, and at once an alarm bell went off. He stepped back, but he  had
been seen; a flashlight was shining on him from inside. He stood  away
as the light approached, and then put his face into the gap.

"Ichiko! It's me--remember?" The light was blinding him.

"It's Johnny. I came to see you."

The light swung about his face, then down to the safety bar, and the
alarm bell stopped. The door slid open, and the flashlight waved him in.
Inside, the noise was horrendous, the screeching and clanking  grossly
amplified and bouncing back off the walls. His arm was being  tightly
gripped, and the beam shone up to Ichiko's face. He had  earmuffs on,
and he touched his lips and shook his head.

He put the safety bar back on and pointed the light at an end wall, and
moved there. A little glass cabin, dimly lit, was up on the wall. An
iron staircase led up to it and he followed Ichiko there.

In the cabin Ichiko took his muffs off and closed the door, and the
noise abruptly decreased: The glass of the cabin was multiply glazed. A
long desk and a console looked down on the factory. But it looked down
on nothing--only the room lights shining back off the glass. Then, as he
moved. Porter saw one panel greenly illuminated, like an aquarium,  and
a scene of weird activity taking place in it.

As if through night glasses, the whole factory was luminously in view
there, and all of it crazily at work. Like a computer game, a hundred
things were jerkily going on. Carts moved along aisles, moved,  stopped,
moved again. They moved along glowing lines in the floor.  Skeletal arms
reached out from bays at either side, and skeletal  fingers weaved and
bobbed in the air. They were picking up bolts,  screws, drill heads;
touching, feeling, coming back for more, occasionally letting off
showers of sparks and filings.

"Ichiko, what is this?"

"The new world, no people. No people needed."

"They told me you were here. I went to Hanita's."

"She's gone. Not required anymore. Nobody needed."

"Ichiko, I'm sorry. I didn't know." It was only four years since he  had
seen him last, when Ichiko had just left the sea--always a  cantankerous
but a forthright and robust man, jovial in his way. Now he was like an
automaton, withdrawn, as jerky in his movements as the  machines below.
He had shown no curiosity whatever at seeing Porter.

"So how do you like the night work?" he asked.

"It runs itself. I only watch. Nobody needed."

"What do they make here?"

"Robots. Robots make robots. You see? Who's needed?"

"Ichiko," Porter said. He had a lowering feeling he wasn't going to  get
far.

"You used to give me advice." Ichiko didn't say anything, only looked
at him with hollow eyes.

"I need something, Ichiko," Porter said.

Ichiko came closer, and glanced absently through the panel in  passing.

"I'll give you something," he said. Through the panel Porter saw the
carts had suddenly stopped and small bulbs on the console were flashing.

"It's only coffee," Ichiko said. He was filling a mug from a flask.

"No drink allowed."

"Ichiko, something has happened below. Are you supposed to do anything
about it?"

"The robots do it. A drill broke and they're replacing it. They look
after themselves, they doctor each other. They're cleverer than we  are.
Here," he said, and gave Porter the mug.

"Aren't there any workers here at all?"

"A small shift in the day. They sharpen parts, take away what's been
done. At nights it's just the robots and me." He sneezed and blew his
nose.

"Johnny?" he said suddenly. He was blinking at him.

"What do you want here?"

"I came to see you." Porter smiled at him, relieved at the abrupt
return to sense.

"I have to go to sea again, Ichiko. I need some advice."

"Leave it alone. That's my advice."

"It's just for a short while."

"You said you were going to the Ainu in Hokkaido."

"I went. This is something else."

"Another one of your projects?"

"Yes, another one."

"Ah." Ichiko looked through the panel and pressed buttons on the
console. Below, the subdued row began again.

"Where are you going?"

"North, the Arctic."

"Your Eskimos, eh? Well, best regards to them," Ichiko said. He  screwed
the top back on the flask.

"Ichiko," Porter said. He was glad to see the old robustness back, and
he took the enlarged photograph out of his pocket. It was folded small
and he opened it out.

"It's one of the Yakamoto ships. Remember, you did some trips with
them?" "Stay away from the bastards. They're dangerous."

"One trip only. But I don't know the deck gear, Ichiko, the derricks.
Take a look here. Maybe you can make it out."

Ichiko peered at the photo.

"Make it out? This is the bitch that took Kenji's arm. Kenji--that  fine
boy, you remember?"

"Kenji?" There were many Kenjis.

"The whistler, eighteen years old. He helped me catch eels. His first
trip on the ship and they put him on this! They gave him nothing for the
arm. I tell you--stay away, it's a killer."

Porter looked again at the photo. It was one of the last of the roll,
among the shots he had thought obstructed by workmen, but it had come
out the clearest.

"Ichiko, what's so bad about' this derrick?"

"What's so bad? It cripples you! It belongs in a museum! See how it
happened with Kenji," Ichiko said, and picked up a piece of pencil and
began drawing on the back of the photo.

But he didn't draw for long and he didn't explain for long, his
animation suddenly expiring.

"No, I don't know. I forget. I don't know anything anymore.

There isn't any more." He opened the door and the hellish uproar
returned.

"Just stay away from it, I tell you!"

"Ichiko, a single second!" He held the man's arm and tried to close  the
door, but Ichiko resisted.

"About the greasing again--just once! You said with the greasing--" "I
don't know about greasing. I don't know anything anymore. Leave me alone
now.

Let me go," the old man said, and put his muffs on.

Porter followed him down the stairs and through the tumultuous
blackness to the slit of sky in the wall.

"Ichiko, I'm sorry!" he shouted. But Ichiko couldn't hear him  anymore:
and at the hangar door, when Porter held his hand out, he  didn't seem
aware of that either, for he put the safety bar on and  turned away.

It was still early, not yet eleven, when he got out of the train in
Tokyo. He crossed the station forecourt and made for the side door of
the Lucky Strike. No one inside, and he entered quickly. But the
indicator showed the elevator descending, so he took the stairs, and let
himself into room 303 with a sigh.

All as he had left it, his business suit on the bed, his wig in the
wardrobe. From the wardrobe he took the bottle of rye and poured himself
one,  and drank it. Then he poured another, and sat and looked at the
photograph and at the penciled markings on the back.

Yoshi wanted him to return tonight. He had promised to call when he  got
back from Yokohama. Well, he would call; but he wasn't going back
tonight. Tonight he had to think. It suddenly struck him that this  was
the fourth of the four nights he had booked at the Lucky Strike. A
figure produced at random, but the right one. This was somehow an  omen.

He drank his whisky and called the house. Yoshi answered and he told
him what he had to tell him. Then he hung up. It was a few minutes to
midnight.

At just this moment, as it happened, the Suzaku Maru, under
floodlights, was slipping out of the dry dock at Nagasaki.

For the first two days of September the Suzaku Maru steamed steadily
through the Sea of Japan at her customary rate of nine knots. She had
left behind the southern island of Kyushu and was hugging the mainland
coast of Honshu. The weather was very fine and the bosun took  advantage
of it to turn the hands to painting ship. The hurried  departure had
left no time for this in harbor, and he knew her leprous  appearance
would produce rough treatment from the dockers at Niigata.  She was in
poor enough shape already.

Eight hours before Niigata the captain radioed his expected time of
arrival, 1600 hours, and asked for his berth.

Would he require bunkering facilities?

No, he wouldn't; he would be refueling at Otaru.

He was given the berth and went off watch. He had stood the night  watch
himself for he intended to sleep the rest of the day. He knew he  would
be up all night:

The loading at Niigata was the main one of the trip and he meant to
keep an eye on it.

Also his stomach was out of order. There had been much nervous
excitement before he had got out of Nagasaki, and several backhanders to
various officials. He knew the ship was not in the pink of  condition,
but there was ample time ahead to rectify what was wrong and  work in
both ship and crew before they reached the Arctic.

He had taken breakfast on the bridge. Now he went below to the
officers' head. the small convenience he shared with the mate, and eased
himself  before going through to his cabin. He looked over the loading
plan  before turning in, and also initialed the note left for him by the
mate  authorizing a six-hour shore leave for the off-duty watch.

At 1600 hours, exactly to timetable, the ship nosed into harbor, and an
hour later, as unloading of wool commenced, the four off-duty men, in
their best rig, trooped down the gangway and set off jovially for
Taking's place. This was the first of a round of places, just outside
the dock gates, and it was usual to sink a glass in each before finally
tumbling into Yasu's. Yasu's was the ultimate place, an enormous cellar,
the liveliest and most popular of all among the seamen. Madame  Yasu was
herself enormous, the widow of a sumo wrestler. In his  retirement her
late husband had given exhibitions to the clientele, and the
establishment was still known for its entertainment. At Yasu's you
could eat, drink, sing along, or accompany certain of the girls
upstairs, where they served as efficiently as at table; there was always
a steady turnover of talent at Yasu's.

By seven-thirty the jovial four had arrived there. The place wasn't  yet
crowded and a table was promptly found for them. It was found for  them
by the very latest talent, and they took an immediate interest in  her.
For one thing, she was a pert and pretty little thing, and for  another
she had taken an immediate interest in them, eagerly hurrying  forward
as they stood grinning and swaying on the entrance balcony. She
efficiently took them in tow, shepherded them down the steps, and got
them seated.

Madame Yasu watched the young woman's work with approval. She liked
enthusiasm in a girl, and this one was very enthusiastic. Following
house etiquette, she first of all gave her own name, which was Toyo, and
then invited theirs as she whipped round the menus. And she was
coquettish. She avoided the groping hands but still managed a playful
pat for each of them as she took their drink orders.

But in serving the drinks, as Madame Yasu noted with a frown, she was
less than perfect, for in announcing the names and setting down the
glasses she managed to upset one, leaving a disconsolate sailor without.
She rectified the accident quickly enough, and gave him an  extra big
one, together with a contrite little peck on the cheek while  he drank
it, so everything passed well enough. All the girl needed was  more
experience.

From the off-duty four there were no complaints. Toyo was a little
beauty not, unfortunately, available for duties upstairs but very
willing in all other departments. The place was famous for its  seafood,
and she swiftly served up helpings of sashimi, all fresh, raw  and
glistening, with seaweed and noodles, and rice amply drenched in soy
sauce; together with several more drinks, not one of which the  bright
little girl spilled again.

By a quarter to eleven, in good heart and voice, the off-duty men were
staggering back inside the dock gates and wending their way to the
Suzaku Maru.

She was bathed in floodlight and loading was in full progress. On the
bridge the captain watched the containers swing aboard. On the deck  the
bosun watched his paintwork.

By ten o'clock next morning she was at sea again and settling to her
stately nine knots. Not too much damage had been done to the deck works,
so the bosun put the men over the side. His best chance of  getting an
Arctic sea coat on her lay between here and Otaru, two days  away. It
couldn't all be done in the time, but beyond Otaru the  weather would
worsen, so he kept them at it for long hours, ignoring  all grumbles;
except, in the late afternoon, from one of the hands who  had to be
pulled up in his cradle on the grounds of feeling dizzy and unwell.

The bosun looked at him as he came up.

"Dizzy and unwell? Of course you're dizzy and unwell, you prick. You
got pissed last night."

"I got pissed last night," the man allowed, "but it isn't that. I'm  not
right, bosun."

"What's up with you?"

"I'm just not right."

He wasn't right. And he didn't look right. He looked green. His  teeth
were chattering. The bosun told him to turn in for a spell. But  over
supper, with the engineer, the bosun was again called to the man.  He
had fallen out of his bunk and was shaking so much it was a job to  hold
him back in it.

The bosun went to see the mate.

"Who is he?" the mate asked.

"Ushiba. Seaman first class. He was ashore last night."

"What did he eat there?"

"Fish. Shellfish."

"Ah. Food poisoning."

"All the others ate the same."

"Yes, it's chancy, seafood. Give him castor oil."

The effect of the castor oil was to throw the man into convulsions, and
at ten o'clock the captain was sent for. By then Ushiba was vomiting
black, and his color had deepened. He was still shaking violently and in
a high fever. The heat could be felt radiating off him from a  distance.
The captain returned to his cabin and reached for his Mariner's  Medical
Dictionary. He went slowly down the list of fevers until he  found the
matching symptoms. At these his eyes bolted. But he read  doggedly on
through the rest of the fevers before returning to the  fateful one.
Then he reached for the voice pipe and asked the mate to  step below.

"Where's this fellow been to?" he asked.

The mate failed to understand the question until he, too, read the
symptoms.

Then he got out the crew records. Ushiba had last been in Java
waters--East Timor. Two other members of the Suzaku Maru's crew had been
there with him. All three of them had been drunk and disorderly,  and
Ushiba had fallen into the harbor. The ship's captain had paid a  hefty
fine for them all before being allowed to leave port the same  night,
July 28.

The mate looked at the calendar. It was now September 4, and he  counted
the days from July 28. He made it thirty-eight. Then he  looked at the
Mariner's Medical Dictionary again. Under "Yellow Fever  (Jav) (rare)"
the captain's finger still held the place: "Incubation  period--14 to 42
days; highly infectious." At thirty-eight days the  sick man was within
the incubation period.

By midnight, Ushiba was locked up in the after head. This tiny toilet
and shower, shared by the bosun and the engineer, had the advantage of
being over the engines, so not much noise could be heard from it. None
at all was now coming from Ushiba. He had been injected with a strong
sedative. The mate and the bosun had waited for the crew to go to  sleep
before strapping him to a stretcher and carrying him through the  fore
ends.

There was not enough room for Ushiba to lie flat in the head, so the
stretcher had been wedged at an angle, with his feet under the shower
and his head over the toilet hole in the floor.

An anxious conference had taken place between the captain and the mate.
Nothing seemed wrong with the other two men who had been to Java, but
only Ushiba had actually fallen in the harbor. Obviously, he had to be
put ashore in Otaru. But just as obviously, the ship must not come under
suspicion there; the shortest delay could abort the entire  voyage.

At a further meeting, joined by the bosun and the engineer, some other
matters were agreed. The latter men would now of course have the use  of
the officers' head. There was no need to alarm the crew over a case  of
food poisoning. For Ushiba's comfort, and theirs, he had been  removed
to the convenience of his own head. If still unwell he could  go ashore
for medical treatment in Otaru. For the same reason, there was no need
to alert Otaru yet. After  refueling had been completed, and if he was
still indisposed, Ushiba  could be put ashore just before sailing.
Meanwhile it would be a good  idea to have his bunk disinfected.

The bosun should attend to this himself, preferably at a time when the
crew would all be above deck painting. It would also be a good idea to
have a replacement standing by in Otaru in the event that Ushiba did
elect to go ashore there.

These matters took time to resolve, and it was the early hours before
the captain at last climbed into his bunk. He took his Mariners  Medical
Dictionary with him. There were details there that worried him  and he
wanted to read them again.

The disease was viral, he saw; "water-borne v." And unlike the
constipation of normal yellow fever, the variant was "commonly
accompanied by diarrhea, excessive perspn." dehydratn." & blood in vomit
(black v.). Dvlpmnts: jaundice, convulsns." Yes, Ushiba had all  those.

"Patient should be restrained, washed frequently, kept out of light.
Treatment: saline solution, rice water, vitamins (inject, only); no
solids. Duration of fever: 2 to 4 days, frequently fatal."

The captain got out of bed and looked in the medical chest. Vitamins,
but no saline solution. Rice water was not a problem. And in the
snugness of the after head, restraint was not one either. Nor were the
requirements for washing and reduced light. There was a light switch
there, and also a hose.

But the brief duration and frequent fatality of the disease worried
him. Otaru still lay thirty-two hours away, and a further six would be
spent in the port.

Total thirty-eight hours. If Ushiba had been ill for twelve hours
without knowing it and the intensity of his symptoms suggested this then
his fever would have run fifty hours before they got out of Otaru.  If
he should prove one of the forty-eight-hour fatalities, he could be dead
before they left port. In which case they wouldn't be leaving  port.. ..

The captain stroked his chin. His present ETA at Otaru was 1000 hours.
An increase of speed could get him there earlier. But this would give
time for inquiries. It would be better to cut the time in port.  Ideally
he should cut it to two hours. That would allow him to leave  at 1200.
With Ushiba going ashore at, say, 1145. Still only forty-six  hours into
his fever. And in no position to give any details of it.

Yes, that was the best thing to do. He was not clear at the moment how
to do it.

But after a sleep his head would be clearer. He looked at the bulkhead
clock as he switched the light off. Two a.m." September 5. 18

At two a.m. in Tokyo, Porter was also switching the light off. He had
spent the last three hours alone on a final check of his notes. Since
leaving the Lucky Strike he had slept every night at the Theosophical
Society, the last two of them with Machiko; but this one he spent on his
own. It was the last.

For most of the time he had been speaking Korean with the girl-the
Pusan dialect of Korean, which was Sung Won Choo's. In this dialect he
had repeated his legend; recited the parts of the derrick, and also the
parts of the ship.

She had used a pointer on the ship, and he had given all the
alternative routes for getting from one place to another. Machiko was
now satisfied with his accent and his knowledge of Sung Won Choo. And he
was quite certain he knew the ship from one end to the other.

Their knowledge of the Suzaku Maru} movements had become increasingly
refined.

Everything had gone as planned at Niigata, and they knew to the hour
her timing in Otaru. She would dock there on the seventh, at 1000 hours,
and leave six hours later: 1600. Apart from refueling, there  was only a
single cargo to load and the remainder of the wool to  unload. He would
present himself at the dock soon after 1500 and be  away by 1600. There
were no uncertainties anymore, and he didn't plan  to study anymore.

He switched the light off and went to sleep.

Next morning, over a leisurely breakfast, Yoshi gave him a final
briefing. There was no change in arrangements. The Suzaku Maru was
keeping to her timetable, and Porter would keep to his. His kit was
waiting in Otaru, his accommodation confirmed at a rooming house there,
and his name and particulars lodged with the port office.

"So that's it," Yoshi said.

"No problems?"

"No. No problems."

This leg, he had insisted, he would do by himself. He felt better by
himself, and Yoshi had been forced to agree.

At 9:30 he said good-bye to Machiko. Then, with his single piece of
luggage, an executive attache case, he got into the car with Yoshi, and
they took off to Haneda domestic airport. There Yoshi shook his hand and
wished him luck, the car left, and he was on his own. To Sapporo, the
provincial capital of Hokkaido, it was six hundred  miles, and the 11:30
plane landed him there just before one o'clock. He  took a cab to the
railway station and bought a ticket to Otaru. The  port was only forty
minutes away and he arrived there, his last planned  destination in
Japan, exactly on schedule, 2:55. An arrow pointed to  the toilets, and
he locked himself into one and changed his clothes.

Out of the executive case came the jeans, shirt, and rope-soled shoes
kept back for this occasion, and also a folded canvas grip. Into the
grip went his wig, and then every trace of the identity of James B.
Peterson. He added the executive case itself, zipped up the grip, and
went out to the left luggage office. There he deposited the grip, took a
receipt, and in the station mailbox posted it off back to Tokyo in  the
prepared envelope he had brought with him.

Somebody would be picking up the grip within forty-eight hours.

Now it was almost 3:30.

He had half an hour to wait.

He had a cup of coffee in the station cafeteria and kept an eye on the
left luggage office. The two men there had been on duty since eight a.m.
and were due for relief. At four the new shift would come on  until
midnight, when the office closed; they would have no knowledge of  a man
who had just deposited a grip. All this had been scouted out for  him.

At four the new shift arrived, and five minutes later a Korean seaman
presented a grubby receipt from his wallet. The attendant looked  sourly
at him, shuffled among the racks, and cursed as he hefted the  heavy kit
over the counter.

Porter shouldered the kit bag, lifted the bulging rope-bound case, and
went out to the cab rank. In twenty minutes he was pulling up at the
rooming house.

It was a shabby, run-down place, close by the docks. The proprietor  was
drowsing on a stool outside. He didn't bother getting up for the  Korean
seaman but confirmed that he was booked in and told him where to  pick
up his key in the lobby. Room 11, second floor.

Porter took his gear up and let himself into the decrepit room. Not a
sound in the building. No one else seemed to be in it and he wondered if
the phone worked. He had seen one, on the wall, in the passage  below.
He went down to find out.

"Phone? Help yourself," the proprietor said.

"It takes tokens."

There was a push-button light in the dark passage. He read the number
on his piece of paper, shoved a token in, and dialed the port office.
The light went out twice before he had the right department, and he had
to put another token in the phone. But they had his particulars and the
man at the other end was irritable. They had been given them that  same
morning, he said. Why inquire again? There was nothing new.

No long-haul ship in. Maybe one would come, in a day or two. They had
his number. He got them to repeat it, and found they had it wrong. He
gave them the right one, and smiled grimly. Yoshi had told him just to
wait. Keep to the plan and wait, he said. Well, it was on just such
details--as with the derrick--that the best plan could come adrift.
Check everything. He hung up and went back to his room. Now he could
wait. Tomorrow; after three p.m.

A good sleep and a calm morning watch had cleared the captain's mind,
and he now knew what to do. The load to be picked up at Otaru was a
broken cargo of canned tuna--126 tons of it, salvage from a container
ship, gone overboard and declared unfit for the Japanese market. The
Russian Trade Mission had snapped up this bargain, for delivery in
Murmansk. The crates had been reassembled on several hundred pallets,
and were due to go in number one and number two holds.

This cargo, as a further reading of his orders confirmed, was "at
captain's discretion." It was a late booking, and the Russians had
squeezed a cheap rate.

He decided he would exercise his discretion. A pity, but the fiddling
job involved much crane work and would take hours; certainly three.
Three hours gained. That left only an hour to dispose of. Not so bad. He
would think of something.

He took what he needed from the medical chest, and went aft to inspect
Ushiba.

He unlocked the door of the head, switched on the light, and relocked
behind him. The man's sweating face was going to and fro on the
stretcher, and his eyes fluttered dazedly in the light. He was quite
secure, however, firmly pinioned, couldn't hurt himself. It was hot in
the tiny compartment and he was naked. The bosun had hosed him down a
couple of times but the place still smelled very bad.

The captain held a handkerchief over his nose.

"Ushiba, how do you feel, man?"

he asked nasally above the rumble of the engines.

Ushiba's mouth opened and closed but only gurgling came out of it. He
had been doing this for some hours. His lips had a white crust, probably
from the rice water. It had stopped his vomiting, anyway. His  color was
the same.

"Ushiba, I'm going to give you another injection," the captain told
him.

"It's very good for you."

He tore open a new needle package and a vitamin ampule. Ushiba jerked a
little as the plunger went home. The book had recommended buttocks  but
the captain was not anxious to pick about Ushiba's underparts; he  chose
a thigh.

"There we are." A little blood, not much. He stuck a dressing on  it.

"Keep your spirits up! Bosun will be seeing to you soon."

Bosun was at that minute seeing to Ushiba's mattress, over the stem
rail. No seamen were working there. He had scrubbed out the bunk with
antiseptic, and now peeled off his rubber gloves and sent them after the
mattress, into the Sea of Japan.

Before turning in, which he did very late again, the captain discussed
final plans with the mate.

Otaru was not a busy port and would not need much advance warning. They
would need some warning, of course. For one thing, he wanted a fast
turnaround, and for another they had to be told that he was not picking
up the tuna. Since the cargo had been specially assembled, and was
waiting for him, this could cause irritation in Otaru, and quite
possibly requests for confirmation, from the freight forwarders or the
ship's owners. This would not be a good idea.

A much better idea was to leave it to the last moment, a moment when
Otaru would not be in a position to ask silly questions but would still
have time to make the arrangements he wanted. The arrangements were only
to dump his wool and take on oil. Two ship movements involved, it  was
true--for the refueling dock was not a cargo dock-but quite  possible to
do it within a turnaround of two hours. And also possible,  since he was
expected anyway, for them to arrange it at three hours'  notice. This
would mean radioing them at seven in the morning.

The mate agreed with the reasoning and the captain asked for a shake at
6:30, and at last got to his bunk. Two a.m. again.

But the anxious moments ahead robbed him of sleep, and his temper was
not good when he spoke to the seven o'clock idiot at Otaru.

"/Vo loading. Just wwloading," he barked.

"And oiling. I want to discharge, oil, and leave by 1200 hours. Have
you got that?"

"Captain, you can't discharge and oil at the same time."

"I know that! I'll discharge first. I'll discharge and then oil. And
there's one thing more. Are you there?"

"Yes."

"I want another deckhand."

"Yes."

"I want you to get another deckhand."

"Yes."

"Do you understand all that? I want to discharge, oil, and board
another deckhand. Are you there?" "Captain, I can't get you a deckhand
at seven in the morning."

"I don't want one at seven in the morning. I want one when I get
there!" the captain howled.

"You've got my ETA. Have you got my ETA? Hello-- Otaru? My ETA is  1000.
Please confirm my ETA. Otaru, can you hear me?"

This taped conversation, greatly enjoyed by the next shift, was
subsequently ordered to be kept under lock and key; but that was for a
board of inquiry and some time later.

Meanwhile the Suzaku Maru plowed on, and at 0830 rounded the point and
entered Ishikari Bay. Just a little later, peering through his  glasses,
the captain discerned the cranes of Otaru, and decided it was  time to
go below and have a look at Ushiba again. He invited the bosun  to step
below with him.

Ushiba, to the captain's eye, looked much the same. His head was going
to and fro and he was gurgling. The bosun thought he was worse. He  said
he was no longer keeping down the rice water, and he hadn't slept.  He
had not been hosed much in the past few hours, but there was not  much
to hose. His strength was going, and without the rice water he  probably
needed more vitamins.

The captain made no comment, but he took a different view. It seemed  to
him (and he had it confirmed by the mate at the subsequent inquiry) that
despite failing strength Ushiba was still too vocal. Better than  a
vitamin injection would be a sedative one. A sound sleep would do Ushiba
more good than vitamins, particularly while being landed and  stowed in
an ambulance.

"It was my honest opinion," he said. And he acted on it as they  entered
harbor.

But he was back up on the bridge as they tied up, which was at 1000
hours precisely.

A hammering on the door woke Porter at half past ten in the morning.
The proprietor had insisted on his sharing a bottle of cheap shochu the
night before and his head was thick.

"Phone for you--the port office," the man called hoarsely. He was
cursing.

Porter scrambled down the stairs in his underpants. The phone was
swinging in the passage.

"Sung Won Choo?"

"Yes."

"A ship needs a deckhand--long haul, through the Arctic, you
interested?"

"I might be. When is she in?"

"She's ;'/;. Half an hour ago." On time then. Bang on time.

"What ship?" he said.

"Suzaku Maru, a tramp."

"A tramp. Well, I'll think about it."

"There's no time. If you want her, go right there--I'll let them know.
She's sailing in ninety minutes."

Sailing in ninety minutes? He couldn't understand any of this but he
went rapidly back upstairs. Give them less than an hour, was the plan.
He'd barely have an hour. He took a shower, yelled for the proprietor to
call a taxi, dressed, paid up, and departed with his breakfast in  his
hand.

For an extra 250 yen the driver took him onto the dock, inquired for
the berth, and drove him right to it. The berth was vacant, and much
confusion was going on in the wake of the ship's apparently rapid
departure. In the confusion it took time to discover where she was  now.
She was now evidently at an oiling wharf.

But for another 250 yen, the driver said, he would take him there,  too.

The oiling wharf was also in a state of confusion. Hoses throbbed as
fuel was pumped into the Suzaku Maru. Everywhere hands were busy
clearing up tufts of wool scattered from bales broken open in the
hurried discharge. In the wheelhouse the captain anxiously watched.
Almost 11:30 and no new hand had shown up yet. On the dockside he  could
see the ambulance, its doors open. He could just make out the  ambulance
men themselves, on the deck. LJshiba was on a stretcher  there, in a
patch of shade. He had been inserted into a pair of pajamas and was now
quite peaceful, eyes closed, a clean sheet tucked  up under his chin.
The ambulance men seemed unsatisfied about  something. The captain
drummed his fingers and looked at his watch.

On the deck the ambulance men were talking to the bosun.

"He's a funny color for food poisoning," one of them said.

"Isn't he? It's his liver. Masked by the booze, you see," the bosun
explained.

"Came back aboard pissed out of his mind and in the morning he was like
this--shellfish."

"They don't usually go to sleep, though."

"No, you're right. He couldn't. Throwing himself about. Captain  thought
the best thing was, give him a sedative."

"Well, that wasn't the best thing. Hard to say what's up with him now.
Still, they'll find out in the hospital."

"Sure," the bosun said. and watched them lift the stretcher. He was
still watching, from the rail. when the taxi drew up below. A Korean got
out. Pigtail.

Sloppy kit bag and case. Always trouble, Koreans. Late, lazy, lippy.
This one was going to need gingering up. "BoyI You!" he yelled, as the
man had the nerve to stop and look at  the patient, actually start
chatting with the ambulance men.

"Get up here!"

The man came up the gangplank.

"You the new hand? Sung?"

"Yes."

"You're late. Dump your kit here and go up and see the mate, on the
bridge. Look lively, now."

The new hand went up to the bridge and saw the mate, who rapidly
checked him out. Papers in order; had served with the line; knew the
ships. He took him to the captain.

The captain had watched these proceedings with relief. The deck crew
was back up to the needed twelve hands. He briefly catechized the new
hand and got him to make his signature. A series of thumps had  signaled
the disconnection of the hoses. He signed for the oil, told  the mate to
cast off, heard the bawled orders to let go fore and aft,  and took the
ship out himself.

As the wharf slid away he reflected that in the confusion the ambulance
men had not asked for Ushiba's belongings, not even his papers. Without
his papers it was not possible to say where he had been. Well, it
wouldn't interest them at the hospital where the man had been. They'd
have their own procedures for finding out what was wrong with him.

In due course.

His stuff could be sent back from Murmansk; perhaps Sweden; even
Rotterdam. The owners would have to be informed, of course. He would
radio them after putting on a bit of seaway. Quite a bit of seaway. He
decided to put it on fast.

"1315 hours. Cleared Ishikari Bay," reported the log.

"Speed 12 knots. Heading 135. North." Later he would have to go
northeast. Much later still, with the Bering Strait behind him and  Cape
Dezhnev to be rounded, another correction would be needed. North  by
northwest.

Five days and thirteen hundred miles out of Otaru, the bosun decided it
was time to ginger up the new hand.

No definite signs of laziness had come out of him yet, and he hadn't
been caught late for watch keeping But he was lippy. He seemed to turn
things over in his mind before carrying out an order. He had  commented
on the new mattress in his bunk, had asked questions about  Ushiba. And
he showed too much interest in the ship's movements. All  out of order
for a new deckhand, and a Korean deckhand at that.

The bosun went briskly forward. He was a giant of a man, very thick in
the neck and built like a tank. Despite his bulk, long years at sea  had
kept him nimble on his feet. He rattled down the steps now, and  looked
briefly into the fore ends.

"Sung! Topside now. Look alive!"

He said it once only, and was waiting in the lee of a container, out of
the wind, as the man came up on deck, his eyes still puffy from  sleep.

"Now then, Sung. Ever greased a Takanawa?"

"Not when I'm off watch," Sung said.

The bosun's lip tightened.

"You're on again at night," he said, "when it's dark.

I want to see you do it now. We'll be frosting up soon."

So they would. Sakhalin and the Kuriles were well behind them. The
Kamchatka Peninsula had been passing for some hours on the port side.

"Tomorrow afternoon," Sung suggested, "I will be on again. Then it  will
be light."

"And maybe iced up. Get your gear."

The man gave his momentary stare, then shrugged and went below. But he
was soon back, with his woolen hat and donkey jacket; also gauntlets,
grease gun, and chipper from the locker.

He went through the drill properly enough, first switching on the
eleven-ton derrick's electric motor. And standing back smartly as the
dangerous thing kicked and the big arms shuddered around.

"All right. Now manual," the bosun said.

"Manual needs two men."

"Here I am," the bosun said, and winked. They could all work by the
book.

"Set her up for greasing."

He watched as the man unhoused the equipment, and located and fitted
it: brake lever and distance piece, reduction gear and turning assembly,
all properly fitted. He gave him little help. Whatever the  book said,
the job could easily be done by one man in calm seas. Two  men were
needed only with pitching and slippery decks one to revolve  the cogs in
turn and clamp home the bar brake, the other to get in with  the grease
gun. That was when the accidents occurred to arms and legs,  and
invariably to the grease man. No grease was needed yet, and both of them
knew it. No seas had been  shipped and the dockyard grease was still
thick. But the man did the  job without comment, then took down the
equipment, re housed it, and  stood and looked at him, pigtail flapping
in the wind.

"Any more?" he said.

The bosun's big hands itched at the Korean's mulish stare.

"Not now. When we get into some weather will be time. You can get  below
now."

The man turned and went without a word, and the bosun's hands itched
again. With surly crewmen he was used to ruling with his fists. Break
them quickly; it was always best, and saved time in the end. With this
one he knew the time would have to come soon.

Porter, returning to the fore ends, knew it, too. He saw the other men
watching him from their card game.

"Bosun been riding you?"

"Tried to get me greasing a derrick."

"Why, the bastard they don't need greasing yet."

"I know. Just got me at it."

"Watch yourself with Bosun. Show him respect. That's all he wants."

"Sure." He turned back into his bunk. There were no problems with the
crew. He had soon established a reputation as a moody fellow, best  left
alone. Because of the two other Koreans aboard he had also  established
a prepared speech impediment. And because of his size  nobody had mocked
him for it. But his accent had passed with the  Koreans anyway, and he
was on reasonable terms with them all. He had  dropped in bits of his
background; had shown his photos, had looked at  theirs. No; no problems
with the crew.

But the bosun was something else.

The man didn't like him. Obeying orders wouldn't help. He would pile  on
the orders, give him every lousy job on the ship, until resentment
showed, some spark of rebellion. Then Bosun would use his fists, beat
him into submission.

And get him greasing the derrick. He remembered what Ichiko had told
him about the derrick. Greasing the derrick was the most dangerous  job.
The bar brake was hard to handle, couldn't be left for a second;  and on
icy decks, the operator slithering, it could slip with the  grease man
in among the cogs. Someone else would have to grease, some  more
experienced hand. He wouldn't. So Bosun's first job would be to  make
him. Well, it had to be faced sooner or later, and sooner was  better
than later.

He turned over and drifted off to sleep. The dumb insolence had been
designed to bring it sooner. Soon enough now the ice would come. * * *

Two days later, five hundred miles north, the ice came.

Despite her economical rate, the ship had now chugged almost three
thousand miles from warm Nagasaki into the approaching Arctic winter.
From the Bering Strait, still some days off, a howling blast of wind and
sleet had them pitching in heavy seas. Since early in the forenoon  the
hands had been securing the cargo, first down in the holds, then on
deck, sliding about as they checked the container locks and cables.

They were warming themselves over mugs of coffee when the bulky figure
peered down the companionway.

"Sung! Matsuda! On top now. Smartly."

The two men bundled up again and went on top. The bosun was waiting  for
them, hanging on by the gangway.

"Derricks icing--get your gear. And start with number three. You'll
need harness, she's pitching." He was already clutching a safety harness
himself, and moved away at once.

Cursing, Matsuda led the way to the lockers.

"The bastard derricks can be steamed off! Who needs them now?" He had
fallen foul of the bosun the day before. He was a little wizened  fellow
with a wall eye. Right away Sung knew he was not having him on  brake.
They got the gear and the harnesses and staggered slowly  through the
uproar of wind to the bosun. He had secured himself to a  bollard
amidships;

number three derrick was close by.

"Okay, hook up!" The bosun had to shout above the wind.

"Matsuda, you're on brake!"

"Bosun," Sung said, "I haven't greased in these conditions."

"Good. Now you can learn."

"I'll be better on brake. I'm stronger than Matsuda."

"Ah, strong man! No--you grease, strong man."

Sung shook his head.

"It's an order," the bosun told him cheerfully.

Sung leaned over.

"Fuck the order!" he said into the bosun's ear.

"And fuck you."

The bosun looked pleasurably at him, and then around, scenting the
freezing wind. The lights were on in the wheelhouse and the wipers  were
going there.

Behind the wipers he could see the mate looking down, and beyond him
the dim shape of the wheel man.

"Matsuda, go below for a while; I'll call you," the bosun said, and
began unhooking himself.

"Step aft. Sung."

Sung stepped aft, his heart beginning to thump. Aft, behind the
wheelhouse, was where scores were settled, and he prepared himself to
move fast.

But they were still below the wheelhouse, and he was unprepared, as his
head was jerked sharply back. The bosun had come swiftly on him, yanking
his pigtail with one hand and smashing the other into his face.  He went
over backward, his feet sliding, but was not allowed to hit  deck. His
pigtail was still held, and his face still being smashed,  two, three,
four times. Then, still shocked, his feet still scrabbling  the icy
deck, he was being swung round and dragged by the pigtail  farther aft,
before the bosun let go and fell on him.

The bull of a man landed with his knees, knocking the breath out of
Sung's body, the attack so sudden and so ferocious he was utterly
stunned. He was still stunned as the bosun began pounding his head on
the deck. His only thought was to get out from under, but with the bosun
leaning his full weight forward he couldn't move. He brought his  hands
up and went for the man's eyes to get him to lean back. but the  bosun
evaded them easily and butted him for good measure. He felt the stunning
blow on his nose, and knew his face was already running with  blood, and
through the shocked pain felt sudden raging anger as the  bosun hawked
and spat in his face. He had not been angry before. The  fight had been
coming, and he knew and accepted it. But now he was  angry.

He clutched at the butting head as it came down again, and hugged it
fiercely, using every atom of strength to draw it closer and closer
until the bosun, straining, twisted his head to try and release it, and
brought an ear within range, and Sung sank his teeth in it. He hung on
tight and savaged the ear, shaking it from side to side, and heard the
bosun swear; the man leaned sideways to ease the ear, and with the
weight shifting on him. Sung came out from under.

He slithered fast on the icy deck and was on his knees, in a position
now to go on top. But that was not his idea. The man had caught him
okay, he had relied on a sudden attack, and on his weight and toughness.
What the bosun had to learn was that with all his weight,  with all his
toughness, on level terms, or any other terms, he could  never win.
Never! That he was simply entitling himself to a hard  time, and that
this time would come to him not by any fluke or  momentary disadvantage,
but always, every time, whenever he chose to  have it.

Sung had to explain this to the bosun, but his head felt scalped from
the dragging and was splitting from the battering, so he thought he had
better disable the man first. He let him stumble to his feet and begin
his rush, and even backed and got his hands up to defend himself and
swung one back to strike, and when the bosun swung himself, he nimbly
sidestepped and used his greater agility to kick the bosun in the
crotch. He kicked him as hard as he could, and when the man grunted  and
held himself, he chopped him in the neck and kicked his feet away,
sending him crashing to the deck again. Then he jumped on him with  both
boots. Then he knelt beside the bosun.

"Bosun," he said humbly.

"Leave me alone. I'm a hard man. I fought many fights, very dirty,  and
I always win. Pick on me, and I'll cripple you for life. You'll  never
work again I swear it. And I don't want that. I've got my own  problems.

They say I'm maybe crazy. Okay, I've done crazy things and I've done
time, it's there in my papers. But it's only when people pick on me. I
can't take that.

Bosun. You understand me?"

The bosun didn't say if he understood him. He was crooning and  gurgling
in his throat as he held himself, his head down. This seemed  to enrage
Sung, who took both of the bosun's ears and shook them  savagely,
bringing the bull head up and staring into its eyes.

"You no talk to me? Only spit in my face? Ah, you better fucking
answer, man! I tell you, you better or I tear your fucking head off. You
don't treat me like shit! Understand? Understand me?"

The bosun's head was shuttling so violently that his eyes were
squinting. His mouth was still contracted in its painful crooning
circle, but through it he grunted his understanding.

"Well, that's good. I've got things to say to you. Bosun. Look, give  me
orders, make me work. It's okay. I'll do what I should. But  something I
don't want to do, or I can't do, you figure it out, and I  don't do that
thing. Okay? Because you try to make me, I cripple you.  I don't care,
see. Just don't make me mad!"

The bosun was recovering slowly, and he shuffled himself into a sitting
position.

"Sung, you're a crazy bastard," he said, "and you don't know what
you're doing. I'll break you."

"How you do that, Bosun?" He wasn't sure if he was coming on too  strong
with the broken Japanese, and his impediment had slipped. But  the
general craziness was working, he could see.

"You want to put me in irons, you want to lock me up? And explain why.
Go to the captain, say, "Captain, this man too tough for me." Or get
help from the crew. What you need with that. Bosun? Look you beat me up,
you mark my face, anyone can see. I didn't mark your face. What I  say?

"Hey, I beat up the bosun?" Everyone laugh at me. I no say that. I  no
say anything. I just want you off my back," These arguments, he  could
see, were getting through to the bosun, who was slowly pulling  himself
together.

"Sung." he said, "you're going to be sorry for this. It's a long voyage,
and you're going around the world. And you know what you'll  get out of
it? You'll get fuck-all. Not a yen. I'll have every bit  of pay docked.
I'll get you for one thing after another. See how  you'll like it, big
boy."

Sung stared at him and his eyes glowed.

"You think about that, Bosun. You think again, eh? You do that to me,  I
come wherever you are. I find you. I'm crazy?

Okay, I put your eyes out. I break you up. I break your bones, your
knees, your hands. You no step on a ship again. Say like now: I want  to
stamp on your balls, I do it. You walk bad for days. I don't do  that.
But I give you something, so you remember, eh? Give me your  hand,
bosun."

The bosun wouldn't give him his hand so he jumped hard on the bosun's
thighs and as the man jerked in agony chopped his bull neck so that the
head crashed back again on the deck.

"Sit up, bosun. Give me a hand. Right hand."

The bosun gave him his hand, and he carefully picked the little finger,
and showed it to the bosun, and broke it. And then with the man  gasping
in agony he helped him to his feet.

"Don't ride me, bosun," he said simply.

"I no hurt you anymore. See what a face you gave me. I go below and
show that face and everybody see. You beat me up--all right? Just  rest
your hand and remember. You do something to me I don't like, I  come and
find you. Wherever you are, I come and find you!"

On the nineteenth of September the Suzaku Maru negotiated the Bering
Strait, rounded Cape Dezhnev, and radioed her arrival in Russian waters.
The captain had his notification acknowledged, and set himself  to wait
in patience.

He regretted the loss of the tuna cargo for Murmansk and was hopeful
that something might turn up at Green Cape. He thought it very likely.
From radio traffic he knew that fish in the area had been plentiful. His
refrigeration capacity was limited, but if the stuff was boxed and
ready-palleted he would lift it.

In the matter of instructions the Russians were not so much tardy as
crafty.

They waited till the last moment to catch you. They knew it would cost
him nothing, except a few hours' loading, to carry the stuff along to
Murmansk. On the other hand. he knew that nothing else was going his
way. All the Russian vessels were now going the other way, to the
ice-free ports of the Pacific; his, certainly, was the last foreign ship
of the season. He could wait.

His charts showed him at roughly three and a half days' steaming from
the mouth of the Kolyma River, which was where he suspected they would
have the stuff sitting in barges. Foreign vessels were seldom allowed
upriver to Green Cape itself; and crewmen were not allowed ashore at
all. God alone knew what the Russians feared: that foreigners might
seduce their citizens, tempt them to smuggle the gold and diamonds of
the area. No. They were simply Russian:

suspicious by nature, crafty.

That he had no cargo for Green Cape did not at all displease him. No
trudging there and back up the Kolyma. He had been keeping close watch
on the weather reports, and they were not good. The storms of the past
few days had abated, but in the frigid calm the icepack was spreading
rapidly from the north. He wanted to be away and out of it, Murmansk
well behind him, before the whole sea froze.

They would know this in Green Cape. They wouldn't delay long. They'd
call him.

But by the next day, when he was again on watch, they still hadn't
called, and the captain hummed to himself. Cat and mouse. He was
evidently supposed to call.

Any fish you want carried? Nice price. Well, he wouldn't. Let them
call. It was growing colder and the wheelhouse windows were on permanent
defrost. The new crewman. Sung, brought him up a flask.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Hot soup. Captain."

"M'hm." He hadn't asked for it but the man was showing himself  willing,
a welcome change from his surliness in the first few days. His  face was
badly marked, one eye black, the nose swollen, mouth cut about  and
puffy. The bosun had evidently taken him in hand. The captain had
noticed the bosun sporting a bandaged finger himself and had tactfully
refrained from inquiry; a too-enthusiastic collision with the Korean's
face, he saw. The bosun had to keep order his own way, and a heavy  hand
was sometimes needed with the scum they had aboard. The captain  kept
himself above it, preferring to regard them as criminal children
simpleminded ones, very often. This one was now gaping all about him,
the view here much better than from deck.

"First time north?" the captain asked him gruffly.

"First time. Captain, first. Is it Siberia?"

"Yes. Chukotka, this region."

"Near Murmansk?"

"Three thousand miles near." He saw the fellow gaping again, but
realized after a moment that he  was doing it over his shoulder.

"Look, Captain, look! They've got airplanes!"

The captain turned and saw a small one rising above the ice strip at
Cape Schmidta, now going astern on his port beam. He studied it  through
his glasses for a moment and as he turned away noticed with astonishment
that the Korean was bending over the chart table; that he  actually had
the impertinence to be tracing with his finger the  penciled positions
of their track. The captain had not long before  added the last point
reached: "Cape Schmidta: 1648 hours."

"All right. That's enough," he said curtly, and watched the man go.
Simpleminded idiot! He watched the plane a little longer, and  commenced
humming to himself again. From Cape Schmidta it was under  420 miles to
the Kolyma. They had less than forty-eight hours to call  him now.

Sung, going below, knew that he himself had less than four hours now.
He didn't know how much less. As well as Cape Schmidta he had seen
Wrangel Island on the chart, directly north. When the cape and the
island were in position, he had been told, there were 420 nautical miles
to go to his destination. The time of arrival depended on their  speed.

He sat down again to the letter he had been writing. He had left it
open on the fore ends table, and saw from the grinning faces around that
one of the Koreans must have read it out to them. The salutations  and
loving sentiments were exceedingly high-flown and imaginative. So  was
the account of his heroism in recent icy storms. He hadn't  mentioned
being beaten up by the bosun. Now the storms were over and  they were
sailing seas no one else dared sail and going fast as the  wind. He
paused a little over the last words.

"How fast we going?" he said.

The man opposite hid his smile and listened for a moment to the
engines.

"The normal. Nine knots," he said.

"Only nine?" Sung said, disappointed, and wrote on.

Nine knots into 420 nautical miles came to just under forty-seven.
Forty-seven hours to go. Or rather forty-seven hours from the last
marked timing, which was 1648. It was now after 1730. He had less  than
three hours. He had less than two and a half. It would have to  be at
2000, eight o'clock.

* * * At eight o'clock he went to the head and locked himself in. He
unzipped his jeans and produced his penknife. The small bulge was in the
waist of his long Johns and he carefully unpicked the stitches. The
capsule was wrapped in a tiny polyethylene envelope and he removed the
envelope. To ensure complete and rapid ingestion he had been told to
bite it, in which case it would take twenty hours to work, as it had
with Ushiba. Ushiba's dose had been much bigger, to secure a spectacular
and unmistakable result. He wouldn't be as ill as Ushiba,  but he would
be very ill indeed.

He put the capsule in his mouth and bit it. There was the faintest
taste, vaguely clinical, and then it was gone. Twenty hours to wait;

until 1600 tomorrow.

He didn't relish the hours ahead. In particular he didn't relish being
in the hands of the bosun.

Between 1600 and 2000 the watches were split into two-hour shifts, the
first and second dog watches. Next day the captain took the second dog
and came on at 1800, very fractious.

The ship was off Cape Shelagskiy and swinging wide, to stay well clear
of Chaunskaya Bay. Some kind of military base was in there, at Pevek,
and the Russians were suspicious--as ever--of anyone coming near it.

The mate handed over the ship and went below, and the captain stood at
the chart table, humming. Still nothing from Green Cape. What the  devil
was up with them?

He was barely twenty-two hours away. Either they had no fish, or they
were playing games with him. Well, to hell with them! They could keep
the fish. Or send it by air. Yes, very good, let them try that. He
wouldn't call, anyway.

He brought the ship's head around after half an hour and kept distance
with Avon Island, steadying his course. No more compass changes now till
after the Kolyma.

He would sail right past. He wouldn't stop now if they begged him.

The mate came hurriedly into the wheelhouse.

"Captain," he said softly, and motioned him away from the helmsman,
"there's some trouble below."

"What is it?"

"The new hand. Sung. He's in a bad way."

"The bosun been at him again?"

"No, no. He has a fever. He's vomiting badly. In Ushiba's bunk."

The two men stared at each other, and the mate slowly nodded.

"I think you'd better take a look at him," he said. The captain went
below. He found Sung being held by two men as he  hung out of his bunk
and vomited into a bucket.

"Captain, sir!" The bosun anxiously drew him aside and explained.

It seemed that Sung had tried to turn out for his watch, the first dog,
but had kept falling over. The bosun, recalling that the man had somehow
banged his head on the deck a few days ago, had thought this  might be a
delayed reaction and had told him to take a spell off. But  then he had
started being sick.

"And shaking.

And turning green," the bosun said, peering into the captain's eyes.

"How long has it been going on?"

"Over two hours. First dog! At first I thought nothing of it. There
didn't seem any need to " "Was it like this with with " "The same. Teeth
rattling."

The captain thought for a moment.

"You destroyed the mattress?"

"Mattress, cover, blanket, everything. All fresh, from the stores."

"And scrubbed out the bunk?"

"With my own hands. Antiseptic. A whole bucket of it."

"Captain, Captain!"

He was being called, hysterically. Sung was calling him.

"All right, what is it? I'm here." The captain went and leaned over  the
bunk. He saw with dismay the complexion, the glassy rolling eyes,  the
chattering jaw. The man was gesturing wildly.

"Send them away, Captain! Only you! Only talk you. No one else send
them away!"

"All right," the captain said, and told the men to step back.

"And bosun! No bosun. Only you. Captain!"

"Very good. Leave us, Bosun. What is it?" the captain said. The man  had
gripped his arm, and with his other shaking hand was pointing to  his
face. His teeth were chattering so much, the captain had to bend closer.

"Bosun marked me.

Captain. See my face. No leave me with Bosun!"

"All right."

"No with bosun like Ushiba in head! No like that. Captain. No with
bosun. He mark me again mark me bad!"

"All right. I'll see to it," the captain said, chilled by the man's
extensive knowledge of Ushiba; evidently fore ends' tattle.

"Promise, Captain! Promise you no leave me!"

"I promise. I'll see to you myself. Rest quietly now. I have to look
into some matters."

Which he certainly did. He went straight to his cabin and reached for
the Mariner's Medical Dictionary. The ominous symptoms told him  nothing
new, but he read through them all again most hungrily. The man  would be
having convulsions soon, and diarrhea. He couldn't be left  where he
was. It was the bunk. Antiseptic was no use against a virus.  It might
even have activated the virus.

"Water-borne v... ." Whatever had activated it, Sung had now got it.  It
was the bunk;

Ushiba's bunk. But with Ushiba there had been the convenient haven of
Otaru to dump him in. Where in this godforsaken waste of the Arctic  was
he to dump Sung?

For a moment the golden idea of dumping Sung in the Arctic glowed in
his mind, but died immediately. Fore ends' tattle .. . Somewhere in this
waste there would be a medical station. He fumbled through his  "Notices
to Mariners" for the area. Longitude 170.

"Pevek: sick bay facilities." Well, not there--a military base. He
continued west through the consecutive sheets, longitudes 169 to 163,
and found nothing--nothing at all to find in this desolate area--and
came on 162, and the ultimate irony.

"Tchersky: hosp. & isolation wing (call Green Cape)."

Call Green Cape! Which he had vowed not to call. Which he now would
have to call. He looked at his watch--seven o'clock--and decided there
was no point in calling them now. They would have closed down for the
night. He was still twenty-one hours away. Morning would be time enough;
before noon, anyway. That would still give them time to call  him. And
give him time to work a few things out.

At 2100 Sung was removed to the after head, in convulsions but not yet
diarrheic. He became diarrheic shortly after, and the captain hosed  him
down himself. The mate spelled him on the bridge during the night, which
was a restless one, for he looked in on Sung every hour. The man  looked
bad. His head threshed on the stretcher, his teeth rattled, and  he
gurgled continuously. Also his deepening pigment seemed to show up  the
bruises more, which worried the captain. The bosun had volunteered twice
to take charge, but the captain kept the key himself.

At eleven in the morning, still sleepless, he called Green Cape and
received a cheery response.

"Suzaku Maru, Suzaku Maru, hello! Good to hear you. Maybe we have
something for you." The captain smiled wryly. Playing games after all.
For certain they  had something for him. And now they'd got him. His
Russian was  rudimentary but serviceable.

"Green Cape, is good to hear you. I have something for you, too."

"For us? What for us. Captain?"

"I have a sick man aboard. I need assistance."

"What's the sickness, Captain?"

"I think jaundice; I'm not sure."

"It's not a problem. What's your ETA?"

"My ETA is 1600, repeat 1600."

"ETA 1600, good. Captain you want a cargo?"

"What's the cargo?"

"Maybe fish. Boxed and palleted."

"Salt or frozen?"

"Maybe both. You want some?"

"How much is there?"

"Maybe not much. It depends."

Of course it did. It depended on the rate.

"Well, let's see," the captain said.

"For sure. We'll see! Okay, Captain."

"And my sick man?"

"We'll let you know."

They'd let him know. At the last minute they'd let him know. It was
their way.

They certainly wouldn't let him know before 1400.

At 1400 they let him know.

"Suzaku Maru, Suzaku Maru! Green Cape here."

"Hello, Green Cape. Suzaku Maru."

"Captain, you are to stand off Ambarchik. A medical officer will board
you there, okay?"

"Stand off Ambarchik, okay," the captain repeated.

"Where off Ambarchik?"

"A boat will meet you at the point. You follow that boat. Captain. We
made all the arrangements, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you, Green Cape."

He knew Ambarchik well enough. He hadn't made this passage for three  or
four years. Another one of the line's ships had been doing it, the  one
they'd broken up a few months back. Still, he remembered the  place. It
stood at the eastern mouth of the river. Several mouths led  out of the
big messy estuary, but he recalled that this was where they  liked to
keep the fish, waiting in barges. It was waiting for him  there now, he
didn't doubt it: they had "made the arrangements." ..  . He now had to
make some himself. He went below and let himself into  the after head.

By 1530, when a voice from the bridge reported they had the boat in
sight. Sung was cleaned up and in the captain's cabin. Rice water had
abated the diarrhea, but an arrangement involving towels and a rubber
blanket was still necessary.

The man was snugly wrapped in blankets and the stretcher was on the
cabin floor, so the retaining straps were no longer required. He was
lightly sedated, his head still moving restlessly, eyes open and glazed,
some gurgling coming out of him. The captain had thought it  unwise to
put him out completely. In the case of Ushiba a fast exit  from Japanese
waters had been required. In this case the ship would be  in Russian
waters for days: time enough for them to stop him whenever  they wanted.
It was common sense to let them find out right away.

The boat led them around the point, and once they were in the estuary
the captain changed places with the mate and took the ship in himself.
He saw an old hand from Green Cape watching him through glasses in the
boat, remembered him from years back, and returned his wave. And he
nodded to himself as he saw where he had to pick up his buoy: half a
mile offshore, near the first of the small islands. Four barges were
strung together there, all laden. About a hundred tons, the captain
estimated. The haggling would begin after they'd taken Sung off.

It was half an hour before the quarantine boat arrived, and he had the
ladder out waiting. The medical officer, a bulky individual hugely
wrapped in a dogs king coat and cap, came nimbly enough up the ladder,
and the captain went down to meet him. To his surprise it was a woman
and he led her down to his cabin, somewhat moody. He knew right away  he
had got a bad one here, haughty and officious, unlike the jovial rascals
he knew from Green Cape. She looked down at Sung while  divesting
herself of her coat, irritably shaking off the captain's  efforts to
help her.

"How long has he been like this?"

The captain briefly outlined the duration and symptoms of Sung's
illness, omitting all mention of Ushiba.

"Why is his face bruised?"

"Seamen fight." The captain shrugged.

She looked at him sharply, and bent to Sung.

"This is not jaundice," she said presently.

"I thought the yellow " "Jaundice is present, but this is not all. Have
you kept specimens of his feces?" The captain admitted that he hadn't,
and by way of lightening the  atmosphere remarked mildly that the
process was continuous and that she  might yet find some.

She looked sharply at him again.

"The man is very ill. I will need more details. Show me his  quarters."

A purgatorial half hour began for the captain. The termagant examined
not only Sung's bunk, now bare again, but every inch of the fore ends,
the galley, and the head. Fortunately the captain was the only
Russian-speaker and he saw to it that nothing compromising came out of
the crew.

But he observed with gloom that the light was going. The haggling over
the fish had still to be gone through, by which time it would be too
dark to load. He would have to stay overnight.

"Very well," she said, back in the cabin.

"I will take him to the isolation wing at Tchersky. I need his
documents. Do you intend waiting for the results?"

"How long the results?"

"Five days."

"No," the captain said.

"Then I will take his belongings, also. They will need treatment, in
any case.

What is your destination, Captain?"

"Murmansk."

"I'll contact them. Of course, if this is what I think, they won't let
you in.

You understand that?"

"Won't let me in?" the captain said.

"It's a highly infectious fever. You would be well advised to stay  here
until we can identify it."

"But the sea will freeze!"

"Then go on, if you want. I can't stop you. Or turn back."

"I have a ship full of cargo! I have to pick up more cargo here. For
Murmansk."

"What cargo?"

"Fish. Tons of it, out there in the barges."

"That's quite impossible. I can't allow it. You have fever on this
ship."

The captain felt himself unhinging. He couldn't pick up the fish. He
couldn't stay here for five days; he'd never get out at the other end.
He couldn't go back to Japan with a shipload of cargo for Murmansk. And
they might not let him in to Murmansk.

"Well, decide for yourself. Captain. I have no power to prevent you,
but I definitely prohibit the loading of any fish. Meanwhile, the  first
thing is to get this man off the ship." And this was the first thing
that happened. Sung was loaded into the  quarantine boat and taken
upriver to Tchersky. And the captain, after  frantic cogitation, arrived
at a decision, and took it, fast.

"1820. Ambarchik. Weighed & left. Speed 13 knots."

General direction, Murmansk.

Tchersky, four kilometers south of the river port of Green Cape, was
the administrative capital for the Kolymsky district of northeast
Siberia. Though small (population under 10,000) it had a sizable
hospital, the only fully equipped one for an area the size of Holland
and Denmark combined. The isolation wing was in use mainly during the
brief mosquito-ridden summer, and it was empty when Porter was admitted
on September 23.

The hospital's doctors were all specialists. General physicians, rare
anywhere in the Russian Federation, were unknown in Siberia, and their
function was supplied by a corps offeldshers--experienced paramedics.
The senior ones, graded as medical officers, were each responsible for a
particular area; and Medical Officer Komarova, who brought Porter to
Tchersky, was responsible for the lower Kolyma including Ambarchik and
the coastal strip.

At the hospital she registered her patient as a suspected case of
yellow fever and he was assigned to Dr. P. M. Gavrilov, a young
specialist from St.

Petersburg. Dr. Gavrilov had not before encountered a case of yellow
fever but was soon aware, from his observation of the symptoms, that
this might be the rare Java variety. This excited him. Very little
existed in the literature on this form and he instituted a series of
careful tests, meticulously noting the results.

Porter knew nothing about any of this. As the only occupant of the  wing
he was left to be ill in peace. Drip-fed, bed-bathed, and sedated  as
necessary, he was aware of very little for the first two days. But
waking from a sound sleep on the third he found a woman doctor examining
him.

"Do you speak Russian?" she said.

Her face was vaguely familiar.

"Little Russian," he said.

"Little."

"I have no Korean or Japanese."

"Little Russian." "You are in hospital. I brought you. You understand?"

"Yes. Hospital," he said.

She looked him over for a while. A face mask was hanging loose around
the neck of her white hospital coat. She felt his head, and he was aware
that his pigtail was now up in a bun on top of it.

"How you feel?" she said, smiling suddenly.

It took him a moment to realize she had said it in English.

"Okay," he said, and closed his eyes at once.

He must have babbled. He had tried to train himself in advance not to
do this.

He wondered what he had babbled.

"You ill. Maybe you little better now." Again English.

He decided to keep his eyes shut and presently she went away. He
thought about the English, but soon drifted off.

A male doctor came to see him. This man he didn't recollect at all.  The
man also spoke to him in English, quite fluently.

"I am Dr. Gavrilov. How do you feel now?"

"I don't know how I feel. What happen here?"

"You were brought in with a fever. This is Tchersky hospital. You  don't
remember anything?"

"Just--sick. How long I'm here?"

"Three days now. I think you have been ill maybe four days, perhaps a
little more. We can talk of it later. Is it hard for you, speaking
English?"

"When I speak English?"

"A few words, in delirium. I couldn't understand the Korean," Dr.
Gavrilov said, smiling.

"Where my ship?"

"Don't worry about it. You're very weak. Rest now."

Next day he was off the drips and on light food, and the woman doctor
came again.

"Good. You're much better," she told him in Russian.

"What fever I have, doctor?"

"We thought yellow fever, but it isn't. Some other kind of virus."

"I can go?"

"When you're stronger. You've been very ill."

"But they wait for me on ship!"

"The ship went."

"It went? All my things there!"

"No, they're here. We have them."

"Well--what happen to me?"

* * * It was a good question, and it was to exercise the hospital
authorities all that day and the next. The seaman was the first
foreigner ever to be admitted as an inpatient to a hospital in the
Kolymsky district. Normal patients, upon recovery, went home. This one's
home was in Korea, some thousands of miles away.

The Kolymsky district, which was anyway a restricted district, had no
procedure for dealing with such a case. Presumably he could be flown  to
Vladivostok, or more likely Nakhodka, which had a shipping service  to
Japan. Nakhodka would then have the problem of getting him home.  But
even getting him to Nakhodka was a problem.

Tchersky could not deal directly with Nakhodka, which was in another
autonomous region. The matter would have to go through Yakutsk, the
capital of Yakutia, which was Tchersky's autonomous republic. Dealing
with Yakutsk was a major headache at any time, but after a preliminary
talk with the hospital's director the medical officer was given to
understand that an even bigger one was looming.

In whisking the seaman off his ship, she had omitted to get a guarantee
for his upkeep and future transportation. The matter had never arisen
before. But Polar Aviation would want payment for taking him to Yakutsk,
and Aeroflot for taking him to Nakhodka. At Nakhodka, they  would want
to know who was picking up the bill to Japan.

Obviously, the man's employers were liable for all bills. But between
liability and payment there was a hiatus, which Yakutsk would want
closing before doing anything. This could take weeks. And meanwhile  the
man was causing the hospital grave problems. Although recovered he could
not be moved out of the isolation wing. The area was banned to
foreigners and it was impermissible for him to be placed in a general
ward with other patients. He couldn't be allowed the run of the
hospital, and he couldn't be allowed outside it.

In his frustration he was also creating considerable uproar himself.
While he was ill his pigtail had been unpicked and disinfected. He
wanted it regreased and re plaited He also wanted his mustache  groomed.
Above all he wanted to get out. And since, in his fury, he  had lost
what meager command he had of Russian and English, he had  taken to
bawling loudly at the staff in Korean; and when they didn't  answer,
even more loudly in Japanese. The hospital director tried to  explain
that everything possible was being done to get him out; but it still
took time to make him understand that they were trying to get him  out
to Japan.

At this he almost went out of his mind.

"No Japan! Ship! Ship!"

"The ship has gone."

"Job on ship! Money. No Japan. Ship!"

"But it isn't here. The ship went." "My job ship. Ship wait me."

"The ship didn't wait for you. It went."

"Yes, went. Where he went?"

"To Murmansk. It's gone."

"Murmansk no gone! Wait. My job ship."

Amid the gibberish the hospital director at last discerned the drift.
The man seemed to think the ship would wait for him in Murmansk. But the
ship had now been gone five days and would have left Murmansk. He didn't
bother explaining this. The medical officer, whose patient he  was,
seemed to have a better time with him, so he thought she could  explain
it. But before informing her he checked on the ship himself. A  call to
Green Cape revealed that the Korean might not after all be out  of his
mind. The ship was a slow tramp whose upper speed would not  have got it
to Murmansk yet. A few minutes later the port called him  back to say
that the ship was still three days out of Murmansk.

He hung up with considerable elation. This put a new complexion on
things. If the ship's captain signed the bills, there was no need to
worry about Yakutsk, Polar Aviation, Aeroflot, or Nakhodka. And the
captain would have to sign the bills, or he wouldn't get out of
Murmansk. A single call to the militia or the security service would fix
everything. Then Komarova, who had signed the seaman in, could  sign him
out, the isolation wing could be closed down, the Korean would  stop
shouting at everyone in Korean, and they would be rid of him.

And this the following day all came about. Komarova handed her patient
and his belongings over to the militia. The militia put him on Polar
Aviation's flight for Yakutsk. At Yakutsk he was escorted to the
Aeroflot flight for Irkutsk and Murmansk. And at Murmansk, late at
night, he was conveyed to the International Seamen's Hostel and signed
in as a transit visitor awaiting ship. Here he was given a locker and  a
bed, and after the long day slept most soundly.

Transit visitors at the hostel were not allowed "shore rights" but as
most of them were foreigners with hard currency this was never a
problem. Five dollars was the recognized contribution for taking a
breath of air, and taxis were always available at the end of the street.
Since all passports were retained by the hostel, and there  could be no
question of absconding anywhere, the system worked well  enough. It was
usual for discreet taxi-loads of three to take the air  together, and
the taxis took them to the red-light district.

Porter made up a threesome at eight the following evening. His Norwegian
companions couldn't understand him, so at the first place  they amicably
agreed to split. There was no shortage of taxis in the  red-light area
either, and he took one to the airport, again using  dollars and taking
his change in rubles and kopeks. With the kopeks he  made three
telephone calls, at precisely twelve-minute intervals. He  allowed each
one to ring twice, and then cut off. Then he made a  fourth, and let it
ring twelve times, when it was answered. He said in  Russian, "I am
here."

Murmansk was a major naval base, and the airport was thronged with
uniformed sailors. He watched quietly from a seat in the concourse and
saw the man arrive thirty minutes later. The man had a seafaring look
himself: a solid, chunky individual dressed, like Porter, in donkey
jacket, muffler, and woolly hat. He carried a hefty grip. The plan,  if
no seat was available next to Porter, was to move elsewhere. But a  seat
was available, and the two men were soon in warm conversation.  Then the
new arrival asked Porter to watch his bag while he made a call  and
suggested that they meet in the Automat. Porter agreed and off the man
went; and so presently did Porter, with the bag, following the  arrow
marked toilets.

Familiar with the routine, since Otaru, he locked himself in and went
swiftly to work. In the grip was a set of clothing, new documentation, a
wallet, and a toilet bag. He started with the toilet bag, taking out the
towel and wrapping it around his neck, and then the scissors and  the
hand mirror. He cut off the pigtail at the roots, and dropped it  in the
bag, and then scissored away all over his head until it was down  to the
shortest fuzz he could manage. This too went from the towel  into the
bag. Then he lathered his scalp and his mustache with the  liquid soap
and started work with the razor.

He had been clean-shaven before but never totally bald, and the effect
was startling. He wasted no time examining it but right away changed
into his new clothing. This was handsome: winter-weight velvet
corduroys, fine white woolen turtleneck, a stylish fur-lined leather
jacket, two-tone ankle boots, and a splendid bushy mink for his shaven
head. Kolya (Nikolai) Khodyan was a snappy dresser. Dark snow glasses
were in the top pocket of the jacket. He briefly tried the effect, and
took them off again. Then he packed everything of Sung Won Choo's in the
bag, and went back with it to the concourse.

The seaman was in the Automat, by the samovars, at the busiest corner ,
as planned. Porter jostled his way through and got himself a glass,  and
they amicably exchanged a few words. Then the man picked up the  bag,
they nodded to each other in the crowd, and he was gone. Porter remained
a while, finishing his tea, and made his way to the  left luggage
office, fishing the receipt out of his new wallet. The  two pieces
awaiting him were every bit as opulent as the rest of  Khodyan's
effects: a fine large Scandinavian case and a soft antelope  grip. He
took them over to the check-in desk.

In his breast pocket he had the sheaf of open-flight tickets. It took
almost thirty minutes to get the stages of the journey booked, a
computer being out of action at one of them. Then he handed in the case,
and went and bought himself another glass of tea. The place was  still
swarming, flights still being called to take the fleet sailors to
distant parts of the country.

But he was smoking in the lounge when, at midnight, the first of his
own flights was called. This was to Irkutsk. At Irkutsk he changed  for
Yakutsk. At Yakutsk, in a blizzard, he made Polar Aviation again  for
Tchersky.

Three days after leaving it he was back. This was the second of
October, just over a month after his arrival at Narita airport in Japan,
and ten weeks since he had first heard of inaccessible and  forbidden
Green Cape. He now took a taxi there, and fifteen minutes  later let
himself into the apartment. Four

The Pale Women of Siberia 23

He switched the light on, closed the door behind him, and stood quite
still, looking and listening.

He was in a living room, a warm and fetid one. A faint smell of  rotting
fruit.

The place had been empty for four months, its last occupant hurrying
out to catch a plane in June. He had left a mess behind--newspapers on
the floor, a discarded grip, scattered work boots, half-open drawers. A
toy panda sat on the sofa, cutely watching. It had lipstick on. He could
see all the flat at once, all its doors open, bedroom, kitchen,
bathroom. A subdued noise of music and voices came from surrounding
apartments.

He waited some moments longer, then moved to the window and closed the
curtains.

He saw that the port was not visible from here, or even the street. He
was at the back of the building, third floor--a big block, 165
apartments. Directly opposite was its twin, five stories of lighted
windows. At the end of the stamped-snow courtyard the two blocks were
joined by a glassed-in walkway.

Through the panes of the walkway he could see, beyond, a supermarket,
part of the same complex. A few lights glimmered in it, but the place
was shut. It was late. He sighed and took his mink hat off.

Apart from the night's sleep at Murmansk he had barely stopped moving
for three days. He took Khodyan's jacket off too, and prowled the  flat,
sniffing, touching. The furniture looked new, Finnish, good  quality.
Bed left unmade; a huge king-size; fine pillows, plump  duvet:

"Swansdown," the label said in English. The slob who owned all this  was
a bachelor who liked his comforts. Wardrobe stuffed with winter
clothing, all good.

The bathroom too--towels of fine quality, fluffy foreign ones;

the tub and shower also far from standard, all extra, all paid for by
this high earner. There was a lingering smell of used clothing. He
looked around and saw heavy winter socks and underwear spilling out of
a laundry basket. A bra and panties were mixed in with them.

In the kitchen further signs of hurried departure: rinsed breakfast
things upside down on the drainer and, in a sink-tidy alongside, the
source of the fruit smell, orange peel and pear cores. Not much food  in
the cupboards: tea, coffee, a few cans. He had a look in the  fridge.
Sausage, eggs, fuzzy cheese, all due for dispatch. But not  tonight.

Tonight sleep. But the sheet, on closer inspection, showed signs of
use, so he changed it first. Piping hot from the linen cupboard, the new
one was beautifully silky, the elasticated edges slipping neatly  and
smoothly under the mattress. He marveled at it. He'd never had  such
stuff himself. They lived high, in the Arctic. Alexei  Mikhailovich
Ponomarenko had lived high.

"Alexei! Are you back, Alexei?"

In his sleep he'd heard the ringing and thought himself again in the
hospital.

But now an accompanying rapping at the door brought him to, and he
turned out.

He turned out in Ponomarenkos's fine woolen dressing gown. It was  eight
o'clock in the morning.

"One minute, I'm coming!" he called, as the rapping continued.

"Alexei! It's good to hear you again. Welcome back, Alyosha!"

"Yes, but it's not Alyosha," he said. He was smiling as he opened the
door.

Kolya Khodyan was a smiler; sometimes taciturn, always temperamental,
mainly a smiler. He smiled at difficulties. All this had been worked
out.

"Oh." A little old lady in carpet slippers was gazing at him. Her  face
was lined and like a tabby's, and it was now gazing up in  astonishment
at the startling Siberian native with his shaven head.

"Isn't Alexei here?"

"No, he's still at the Black Sea. He lent me the place for a while. He
can't come just yet."

"Is he in trouble there?"

"No trouble! He's enjoying himself."

"Ah. A girl, is it?"

"A beauty. Don't worry about him."

"Again--that bad boy! But you--excuse me--you're--?"

"Khodyan. Nikolai Dmitrievich--call me Kolya," Porter said, and warmly
shook her hand. He hadn't stopped smiling.

"You don't know me, but I know you, Anna Antonovna. I know everything
about you! He never stopped speaking about you down there."

"He did? At Batumi he spoke of me?" The old lady was delighted.

"All the time. He said you kept him like a prince here. He said you'd
do the same for me. So here I am!"

r-> The old lady did not have many teeth, but all of them were now
radiantly on display in her smile.

"Well, well," she said, and nudged his arm.

"But he could have dropped me a line at least. If only to say you were
coming. I've got his mail here. I've been emptying his box, he left  me
the key." Over her arm he now saw she had a string bag stuffed with
papers magazines mainly, by the wrappers.

"He didn't have an address when he left. Does he want it sent on  now?"

"No, no. He knows it's only his magazines. Keep them for him," Porter
said.

"And meanwhile keep me like a prince."

The old lady was peering past him into the room.

"Well, the usual mess, I see. I thought it was him banging about I'm
just next door. You want me to start now?"

"No, I'll take a shower first," Porter said. He hadn't investigated
Khodyan's cases yet and wanted to do so without the old babushka's
scrutiny. There was a sharp look on the catlike face. He hadn't been
banging about. He had made no noise at all. She must have spotted the
light come on before he'd drawn the curtains last night.

She asked, "Have you anything to eat here?"

"I brought something with me, enough for now. I won't waste time. I
want to run down to the port office."

"Ah, you're on boats, too?"

"Boats?" Porter said. Some of the sunshine faded from his smile.
Ponomarenko was supposed to be a truck driver.

"The trucks. You're not a driver?"

"Ah, you know our slang!" It was as well that he did himself now. The
first example of the casual dangers.

"Sure. On the boats. How are things shaping here this season?"

"The usual mess at the beginning they're running in all directions. But
the ice is nearly right. They'll be glad of you. You're not from  these
parts, then Kolya, is it?"

"Kolya. No from Chukotka, the Magadan circuit. But I go anywhere a
boat's a boat."

"Of course you boys! Well, give me a knock, Kolya. You want the same
arrangements to carry on: wash, clean, get in the shopping?"

"Everything. Whatever you did before, old lady, do it again. You'll
tell me what you need and I'll leave the money."

"And if I find anything?" Her eyes were still roaming the little
apartment.

"Return it? Or?"

"Let me take a shower, a mouthful of coffee," he pleaded, "and I'll
come and see you."

But he was thoughtful as he closed the door behind her. It wasn't till
he was in the bathroom and his eyes fell again on the bra and the
panties that it occurred to him what the "or" meant. There would be a
claimant for these goods.

That was another thing they hadn't told him.

The Tchersky Transport Company, at this season, had the running of
Green Cape.

The river had frozen, not solidly as yet, but solidly enough for all
the shipping to have vanished. The half-mile length of dock showed no
trace of a gangplank, and would not show any for eight months. Now it
was crammed with freight, the last frantic unloading of ships that had
dashed for open water before the ice trapped them.

Not only the dock but the sheds that lined the dock were crammed;

and the huge warehouses on the hill above the dock, acre upon acre of
them, all crammed. Through this one small Arctic opening all northeast
Siberia was supplied: its gold and diamond mines, its processing plants
and power stations, and all the industrial settlements that had
developed around them.

In the short summer, when the Kolyma flowed, barges carried the
supplies south, for distribution through the river's tributary system to
east and west. But that was in summer, and in the south. Up here  no
long-distance tributaries ran to east or west. To east and west the area
was impassable in summer, and had to wait for winter.

In winter the Tchersky Transport Company took over.

On the steep hill above the dock. Porter watched them doing it. From
here he could see the spread of warehouses on top as well as the
frenetic activity below. Below, some dozens of teams were at work
freeing the crates jamming the dock. The crates towered crazily,  dumped
one on top of the other as the ships had hurried to leave. Snow  had
fallen and an icecap had formed, freezing the stacks together. The bulky
figures, earflaps down in the bitter wind, were chipping them  apart,
while cranes and forklifts shifted them onto trucks. A steady  stream of
trucks was grinding uphill and churning into the storage area.

Here the loads were being stowed under the last of the cover--a roofed
and pillared overhang extending the length of the warehouses.

He watched for some time, and then turned and trudged through the
rutted snow to the administrative block. He had identified it
immediately, a squat two-story building on short piles at the beginning
of the warehouse row. In the dismal morning all the lights were on
inside, and the drafty  foyer bustled with activity. Clusters of men
were going from one wall  roster to another; others gathered round the
samovars, talking and  smoking. He stood for a while, jostled on all
sides, and presently  made his way to a double set of glass doors at the
end. He peered  through to a large room filled with desks. Men and women
were writing,  phoning, passing papers to each other over glasses of
tea.

He couldn't make out anyone noticeably managerial, and turned away to
get himself some tea at a samovar. There were no glasses here, just
paper cups and a drum of somewhat grubby lumps of sugar. He reached  for
a couple of lumps, and as he turned jostled another man, spilling  his
tea.

He apologized.

"It's nothing." The man wiped his leather jacket.

"Some crush here!"

"Start of the season. Nothing's rolling. You new here?"

"Just got in. Is Bukarovsky still here?"

"The road manager? Sure. Upstairs."

"I suppose he's the one to see."

The man was looking at him curiously.

"For driving, or?"

Porter noted again the "or," evidently local style. It hadn't appeared
on the tapes.

"For driving, sure."

"Then it's him. End of the corridor up there. You'll tell by the
noise."

Porter sipped his tea, looked around, and shouldered his way to the
rosters.

There were several of them, listing the teams and what they would be
driving.

The lists showed three drivers to a truck, two on, one off. He saw  that
Ponomarenko's name wasn't there. There was a large variety of  trucks,
different models of Tatra, Kama, Ural. He knew about this.  They had
some hundreds of heavy trucks, almost fifteen hundred drivers  and
mechanics, close on a million tons of freight to be hauled.

He finished his tea, threw the cup in the bin, and walked upstairs.
Even at the st airhead he heard the uproar, and as he neared it, a
nameplate on the end door confirmed the source: p. g. bukarovsky, road
manager. He paused there, uncertain whether to knock or enter, until a
girl emerged in a hurry and left the door for him, and he went in.

A sunken-chested man with a haggard face was shouting into a phone, his
feet on a desk. He was doing several things at once: drinking tea,
furiously smoking, coughing, pointing out something to a girl hanging
over him with a clipboard, and offering advice to an older woman who sat
talking on another phone at the other side of the desk.

"Tell them to rot at Bilibino!" he told her. "With my compliments. Not
you," he said into the phone.

"I promised you! Two-three days. When I see fifteen centimeters. Not  a
minute before! What do you want?"

The last was to Porter, who was standing before him, flashing a smile.
He'd hesitated whether or not to take his fur cap off and had decided
against; the men below had kept their caps on.

He carried on smiling, waving the manager on with his conversation, and
looked around the room as it proceeded. The walls here were also covered
with rosters, and with large maps. A phalanx of colored flag  pins was
stuck neatly at the bottom of each map. No flags were yet  distributed
on the maps. He turned as the phone smashed down.

"What's your problem?" the man said.

"You want a driver?"

"Where are you from?"

"Chukotka."

"What are you doing here?"

"A favor to Ponomarenko. We met at Batumi. He can't come for a few
weeks."

"That bastard will stretch his holiday once too often! What can you
drive?"

Porter offered his papers.

"Whatever you've got."

The phone rang again, and the man picked it up and laid it on the desk,
where it angrily chattered. He glanced through the papers.

"You're square with the union?"

"All square."

"What trouble are you in at Chukotka?"

"No trouble.... Look," Porter said amiably. He hadn't stopped  smiling.

"I'm doing Ponomarenko a favor. You also. You want me, it's okay. You
don't also okay. I'll go."

"Bukarovsky!" Bukarovsky said into the phone. He continued glaring at
Porter.

"Leave your song sheet here," he told him.

"And go around to the sheds. Not you," he said into the phone, between
spasms of coughing.

"Tell Yura to try you on a Kama 50, and to call me back. The 50,  right?
Hello Pevek, what the hell is it now? .. . Here, you take a  bohik," he
said to Porter.

"A hohik?" Porter said. A bobik was a terrier.

"So now I'm telling you! I'm sick of your problems. I've got my own
problems," the man told the phone.

"And I'm sick of talking about them!" He was groping in a tray of  keys.
He tossed one to Porter.

"Give him the book," he said to the woman across the desk.

Porter looked at the key on its leather tab, and at the book the woman
shoved across to him. She pointed where he had to sign. It was  against
one of a row of numbers. He signed "N. D. Khodyan" and left  as the
roaring continued behind him. Below he threaded his way through the
foyer, and at the door asked a  man, "Where do I get a bobik?"

"Back of the building, right behind here."

The number he'd signed was the number on the key, a car key. He went
around the building and found the cars, in an open shed. There were four
or five pickups and a number of jeeps. There was nobody there. He walked
around examining the registration numbers and found his bobik.  It was
one of the jeeps, a solid enclosed job, very square and ugly  like a
little tank. The tires looked half flat. He walked around,  kicking
them, and saw that all the tires in the shed were half flat;  evidently
it was intended.

He got in the car, found the ignition, and turned the key. It sparked
immediately, a rough throaty snarl. It was dark in the shed and he
couldn't see the display on the dash. He fumbled the gears and got the
thing moving, out of cover and into the light. In the light he saw there
was no display on the dash, and hardly any dash: a speedo, a  switch for
the wipers, and that was all. There had to be a switch for  the lights
but he couldn't find it. But the thing was powerfully  heated, and had a
motor that surged at a touch with a satisfying grating bark evidently
accounting for the name. He took to the terrier  at once, and got it
moving again, to the front of the building. Someone  was coming out, and
he hailed him out of the window.

"Hey! Where do I find Yura?"

"Which Yura?"

"For a Kama. A Kama 50."

"Straight on, half a kilometer, turn up the ramp, you'll find him."

He kept on along the line of warehouses, dodging in and out of the path
of spinning forklifts, and found the ramp. The whole massive hangar  was
up on short piles, evidently as air insulation from the permafrost
below. Inside, as far as he could see, was an amazing army of trucks,
row upon row of them, all lined up, waiting, and bearing the logo of the
Kamaz Auto Works: Kama 30s, 40s, 50s. The front line, he saw, had  laden
trailers already attached, but farther back were just the tall  cabs.

He parked the bobik and emerged into a rush of warm air from big
blowers spread out over the area. Around the walls work was going on  at
long benches, and nearby the spit and flash of welding gear. He  walked
over to the man there.

"Where's Yura?" he yelled in his ear.

The man put his visor up. Who?"

"Yura."

"The boss? In the office the glass booth at the end." He found the
booth, and a white-overalled Yura, on the phone, busily  scribbling on
an inventory pad. He was a little brawny pug of a man  with a shock of
gray hair. Porter waited till he'd finished, and  flashed his smile.

"I'm Khodyan Kolya. Bukarovsky wants me to try a 50."

The man looked him up and down.

"Ever driven one before?"

"Sure."

At the camp all they'd had was a 40, but he'd been assured it was the
same.

Sixteen gears, almost identical to a Mack.

"Where have you driven?"

"Chukotka, Magadan that circuit."

"Roads." The man grunted.

"None of that here. Here we run soft, low pressure.

Better traction, but a heavy wheel. All right, then." He opened a  tall
cupboard.

It was neatly laid out with several lines of hooks, keys hanging from
them. His scarred hand flitted about the keys and selected one.

"Let's see what you're made of," he said. He put a fur cap and leather
jacket on and led the way.

An experienced ex-driver, evidently, and an injured one, Porter saw:

one leg was shorter than the other. The man limped down a row of cabs,
their umbilicals hooked up at the rear, and stopped at one. He went
rapidly up an iron ladder, and Porter took the other side. He climbed
the six or seven feet and swung himself behind the wheel.

Yura, settling himself, slammed the door and handed over the keys.

"You're sure you can handle her?"

"No problem," Porter said. His smile was dazzling. Right away he saw
the bastard didn't have sixteen gears. It had twenty. Reverse in the
normal position, though.

"She's warmed up, take her right out. Hard on the wheel, remember,
she's heavy."

Porter started up, slotted into first, and pulled slowly out of line
and along the aisle.

"Down the ramp and to the right."

The cow was heavy. And the brake was heavy, and snatched when he stood
on it.

"Easy, easy, you're pulling nothing," Yura said.

"Keep rolling now. To the trial ground, at the end."

The trial ground was beyond the warehouses, and lay under unmarked
snow, already iced. He took her around the perimeter at varying  speeds,
slow, fast, slow, working up and down through the gears. He'd  done all
this at the camp, as also the emergency stops and the figure  eights
that Yura now put him through. But the extra gears flustered  him and he
fumbled the positions, though he was certain it didn't  show. "All
right, now back and park where you found her," Yura said.

This one had him sweating as he maneuvered and reversed in the hangar
to get tight back in line.

Yura switched off for him and took the key.

"You're sure you drove a 50 before?" he said.

Porter decided his smile had better go.

"What are you calling me?" he said.

"You drove a 40 before," Yura told him, "with sixteen gears."

"I drive anything! I drive sixteen gears, twenty. Any boat you got I
drive!

You're saying I'm a liar?"

"Easy now," Yura said. His little pug's face had suddenly opened up in
a great smile of its own.

"Easy, Kolya. You a Chukchi?"

"Never mind what I am! No business of yours what I am. I drive. You
don't want me, I go home."

"Easy, Kolya," Yura said, still smiling.

"You're okay. You're fine. I'm passing you, Kolya. Give me your song
sheet

"Bukarovsky's got my song sheet Porter said sulkily.

"So I'll call him. Don't get so hot, Kolya. I like you. I never had  a
Chukchi before. You just need a little more time on the 50, you'll  take
the right hand seat a few trips, it's nothing. Come on, smile  now."

Porter sheepishly gave him a smile.

"That's better. You're on, Kolya. You're with friends here, we want
you. Go back there and sign now." The little man was chuckling as he
scrambled down the ladder.

"Hey, you got transport?"

"Sure. A bobik," Porter said.

"Good. I don't like my drivers walking. Never had one of you before,"
Yura said.

He was still chuckling as he limped away.

Porter got in the bobik and drove back. He felt dizzy. A lot had
happened in just over twelve hours. He had arrived in Green Cape and
installed himself in an apartment. He had taken on a housekeeper. He'd
got himself on the strength of the Tchersky Transport Company. And he
had taken in some new lore. Songsheets, bobiks, soft tires,  twenty-gear
trucks, "or".. .

He'd also learned a few things about Ponomarenko they hadn't told him.
Before leaving that morning he had removed a plinth under the kitchen
unit and found a hidey-hole there. Under two floor tiles, grouted in
with a slightly newer-looking mastic (and finding a tube of the stuff in
a cupboard had set him off on the hunt), was a taped up plastic bag.
Other bags were inside it. He had found a few grams of what looked to be
cocaine, together with a sniffing reed.

An ounce, maybe an ounce and a half, of gold dust: and, oddly, twelve
South African Krugerrands. There was also a photo of Ponomarenko,
slightly younger than in the ones he'd seen but not much. He and a woman
were sitting smiling stiffly at the camera, each holding a young  child,
each child the image of Ponomarenko. The raised lettering on  the bottom
of the photo gave a studio address in Kiev. Porter parked  the bobik
back in the shed and thought about this. He was a funny  fellow,
Ponomarenko. He had a wife and kids somewhere. Was he the one  who'd
drawn the lipstick on the panda? Or?

As the last man to sign on, Kolya Khodyan joined the reserve list. He
had seen the short block of names at the bottom of the wall rosters-men
who were sick or for some other reason not assigned to a team. Now he
saw his own name added there, as available for general duties. At the
beginning of a season, with nothing yet rolling, this was not important,
but from the other drivers he heard that to stay with  general duties
was bad news.

Under union agreements the men were paid whether the "boats" ran or
not. But once they were running, the teams were eligible for bonuses.
With the distances involved here, the bonuses were huge, easily
outstripping the already high basic pay. The trucks ran through  storms,
through blizzards, through every kind of hazard the country  could
offer, and they ran twenty-four hours a day. Any hour over the  week's
norm was an overtime hour and paid double. Long hauls were obviously
much in demand, and general-duty men rarely got them. They  got short
hops and road maintenance jobs, seldom running into  overtime.

The new Chukchi driver accepted his listing with good grace, and this
together with his cheerfulness soon made him popular. He was very
cheerful; he smiled all the time. He took on any job without
argument--and in fact volunteered for one the same day, when a call was
put out. He could stand on his dignity (and it was understood he  wasn't
to be addressed as a Chukchi), but in general he was a good  comrade
and, as a Chukchi, almost a mascot.

The job he volunteered for was to haul freight up from the dock. This
was, strictly speaking, the work of the Green Cape port authority, and
the men doing it were dockers. But when further snow made the task
urgent, he took a Tatra flatbed down and joined the shuttle. He had seen
right away that many of the workers below were Siberian natives  and he
wanted a closer look at them. He saw that several were Evenks or
Yukagirs; this was the end of their seasonal work and soon none  would
remain in town. Ponomarenko had given some information on  this.

He jockeyed his truck into line and saw he'd won a team of Yukagirs. He
climbed out in the swirling snow and stood by, beating his gloved hands
as they loaded the truck in front. It didn't take long to identify the
likeliest man; a cackling bundled-up little fellow, robustly swearing,
the wit of the gang.

"Warm work, brother!" he called to him.

The man glanced around in surprise. He had called in Yukagir.

"You got the tongue?" the man said, looking him over.

"A few words. Glad to see the end here, eh?"

"You're right. Except for the money. And the booze. Here the  bastards
keep it to themselves. We don't smell it where we go to."

"Where do you go--trap lines or the herds?"

"Traps. But first the collective. The maniacs here work you till you
drop. We need a rest."

"There's a collective here?"

"Sure. Ours. Novokolymsk. You don't know the area?"

"Not so well. A few friends who work up at the station, in the hills.
You know that place?"

"With the scientists?"

"That one."

"See, it isn't any use now," the Yukagir told him.

"They don't allow traps there anymore, not for years. It's useless."

"You could make it up there on foot?"

"Sure--a few kilometers, no distance. But it's useless now. Your
friends are Evenks?"

"Evenks."

"Yes. It suits them. They do a few weeks with the herds and a few  weeks
there, turn and turn about. They fly them in, they don't want  whites,
and not bad money. But it isn't for us. This is good fox  country, and
ermine--the best ermine. Not prime for a couple of months  yet, but the
best when they come on.

You speak the tongue nice," the Yukagir told him.

The line moved then, so he got back in the Tatra, and no further
opportunity offered. But he'd heard enough.. ..

In summer, in the camp, he had watched week by week as the research
station had been repaired. He had watched it from satellite photographs,
a world away. Now he was there--a few kilometers, no  distance .. . and
now the planning was his;

and now he was on his own. He learned something about the bobik that
week.

He had been sent out with spares and some instruments to a road gang
fifty kilometers out. The road stretched seven hundred kilometers to
Bilibino and it had been out of use all summer, a bog. Now it was
hardening, and this was the first section to come into condition. When
fifteen centimeters of new frost showed, treatment could begin. The
heavy equipment for it was kept at road stations a hundred kilometers
apart; the stations served also as rest centers for the drivers and as
bases for the rescue and recovery service, tracked vehicles that
patrolled the route all winter.

Porter ran out to the gang, dropped his supplies and headed back, and
was halfway into the journey when the bobik stopped.

He got out and had a look at the engine. Nothing wrong with the supply
or the plugs. Or the points. No shortage of fuel. He turned the  engine
by hand the little brute also packed a handle. Nothing. The  weather was
not yet tremendously cold, maybe fifteen degrees below, but  his fingers
were freezing up without gloves. He swore. He tried  everything again.
Fuel okay and getting through.

Distributor okay. Spark. What the hell!

On all sides the dreary taiga stretched for miles, snow-covered, iced.
He must be twenty, thirty kilometers along the way, and nothing whatever
would be coming past. Not for several hours at least, until  it occurred
to somebody at Green Cape to come and look for him. He had  no
communications set. He couldn't walk to Green Cape. He couldn't  walk
back to the road gang. The road was like a rink.

He'd had to use a gentle hand just to keep the thing moving.

You bastard, he told the bobik, and took a swig at his hip flask;

and while doing it thought of something. In midwinter, he'd heard,  they
often had to start the engines with White Dynamite, high-proof  vodka.
He had no White Dynamite in his flask but plain vodka might  help. Maybe
the fuel was contaminated or the carburetor faulty; a drop  of the
volatile spirit might fire and clear it. He warmed his hands in  his
gloves first and beat them together before fumbling with the carb.  Then
he gave himself a small swig and the carb one, and got a kick and  a
cough, and the thing rumbled hesitantly into life. He kept it  running,
revving cautiously by hand till he was sure of it, and then closed the
hood and got back in and started off again.

It happened twice more on the way, and he knew it was the carburetor.
The trick worked with petrol, too. He'd sucked a bit out of the tank
with a plastic tube, and he dripped it in and got the kick and the
cough. The fuel was okay. The carb was dodgy.

He drove back to the Light Vehicles Depot where he had picked up the
loaded bobik in the morning, and looked around for Liova. Faults had to
be reported to the chief mechanic. But Liova and all  the mechanics were
at lunch and only Vassili, the old Yakut store man  was there, eating
out of a pot on a kerosene stove. He told Vassili  the problem.

"This isn't a problem," the Yakut said.

"I'll give you another carburetor and you'll fit it. It takes two
minutes."

"I'm reporting a fault. I don't need a carburetor," Porter told him.

"You do. You have another load, a rush job. There's no spare bobik,  and
they have no time to repair it. Here, I'll give you it now."

And the old man left his meal, wiping his mouth, and took the Chukchi
into the storeroom and gave him a carburetor; and Porter's eyes popped.
A whole bay, neatly arranged, was stuffed with bobik spares. Gearboxes,
shafts, clutches, doors--engines, even. The old man looked at him and
shrugged.

"It's a toy," he said. He hunted around and found a greasy manual.

"A child can do it."

And Porter did do it while the old Yakut, picking his teeth, pointed
out the details on the exploded diagram. It took a single wrench. The
carb worked right away.

"I told you, it's nothing," Vassili said.

"Did you eat yet?" They had been talking Yakut, which had intrigued  and
pleased the old man.

"Not yet. What have you got there?"

"Proper food. My old woman's. Not that garbage in the canteen. Join
me."

Porter joined him, grunted favorably over the food, and presently
signed for the carburetor; the Yakut helped him load up. He was gone
before Liova and the mechanics returned. He drove down into Tchersky,
listening to the engine. Not a thing wrong with it. A workhorse, robust,
primitive, and all of it put together the same way, with a  wrench. He
thought about this. A number of plans had been prepared  for getting him
out. They were neat enough plans, but obviously someone else must know
of them. It might be an idea to have other  plans. He thought about this
all the way there and all the way back.

That same night the doorbell rang and a young woman stood there;

of considerable development, he saw, and had already gathered so from
her underwear.

"Nikolai Dmitrievich," she said, "you don't know me. But I have a
request to make."

"Is it Lydia Yakovlevna?"

"Ah, you know!" Both hands had gone up to her mouth, but whether with
embarrassment or amazement at his shaven head he could not as yet  tell.

"You have a small parcel of mine, I think." "The linen you lent
Alexei--yes, indeed. Anna Antonovna said you  might call.

Please come in."

The old lady had cooked up the story herself. She had laundered the
goods and asked if she should return them; the girl only worked in the
supermarket below.

No, he had said, if she wanted her pants and bra she could come and get
them.

But Kolya, Kolya, Anna Antonovna had said, cackling and nudging him,
only think of her feelings! I'll put them in a parcel as if it's
handkerchieves or something she lent Alyosha--it will spare her blushes.

And indeed the girl did seem to be blushing a bit. A big girl, big all
over, somewhat puffy, and pale--anemically pale, as all the white women
of Siberia seemed to be, winter for nine months of the year and the
summer tan soon gone.

But an easy mover, and with a coquettish look. He knew Anna Antonovna
had told her he didn't know the contents of the parcel, but he saw from
the girl's knowledgeable eyes that she knew that he did know. It
intrigued him. Was she so short of knickers and a bra? Surely she  could
have waited for Ponomarenko's return. Why the hurry for  collection?

"Coffee? A drink?" he said.

"Oh no, Nikolai Dmitrievich. I didn't mean to--" "Kolya. Please," he
said.

"Kolya. I didn't mean to disturb you. Just in passing I thought I'd  see
if maybe you were in. You men spend so much time in the clubs--"  "I
know few people yet, Lydia Yakovlevna."

"Lydia--please."

"A lovely name. Have a drink, Lydia!"

"Well, a small one, perhaps."

Just in passing she had jumped into her party boots: stiletto heels.
Her outdoor ones must be in the large shopper she was carrying,
hurriedly changed in the hall outside. A huge plunging neckline appeared
once she was out of her fur coat. And hair piled ornately  high as her
head scarf came off, together with a seductive odor not  long applied.
Her eyelashes nickered about the room.

"Ah, that kotek! Still here."

Kotek: pussycat. She had picked up the panda.

"Yes. And still wearing his lipstick. Now, I wonder," he said  gravely,
"who gave him that?"

She laughed.

"A crazy night. Friends ..."

"Ah." From Anna Antonovna he had already learned that the only friends
in the apartment that night had been Ponomarenko and this girl; it had
been the first of their friendly nights.

"I think," he said, "we are both good friends of Alexei." "Ah, Alyosha,
that crazy boy .. . Thank you." He had given her a  cherry brandy, and
noted her approval of his good manners. A lady's  drink; although he had
also heard from Anna Antonovna that this girl  had no trouble with a
vodka.

In no time they were chatting easily, and he saw that his startling
head in no way fazed her. Quite the reverse; she seemed fascinated by it
and was coming on fast.

"Your Russian so beautiful," she softly told him.

"Thank you." Her own was far from high-class, and he was fracturing  his
in the manner he had adopted here from the start. But he saw the  remark
as less a tribute to beautiful Russian than as a hint that  ethnicity
was no problem here.

At the drop of a hat this girl could be tumbling in the Finnish bed.
But the blatancy of it puzzled him. It also alerted him. Did she know
that Ponomarenko would be absent a long time? And if so, how?

"So what do you hear," he asked, handing her a third shot of cherry
brandy, "from our friend?"

"Alyosha? ... What, another drink? I shouldn't. But I also get  lonely
sometimes. . Oh, Alyosha doesn't write. Too busy with those  Georgian
girls, I expect."

"After you? Water after wine? Of course not."

"Liar," she said delightedly, and showed him more leg.

"I'm sure you're just as bad. Didn't you go for those gorgeous Batumi
girls?"

"In Batumi I just relax."

"And have parties? He loved parties. I'll bet you had parties."

"Parties, yes. There were parties."

"Loved them. And now he'll miss one here. He'd be back if he knew  that!
Oh yes, like a shot. Pavel Grigorovich's."

"Pavel Grigorovich?"

"Bukarovsky. His sixtieth. Everybody's going. You didn't know?"

"Oh. Yes," he said. And now he saw. Everybody wasn't going. The  mayor
was going, and the top brass of Tchersky and Green Cape were  going.
Many of Bukarovsky's drivers were also going. But supermarket assistants
weren't going.

"He'd be showing me off there, all right. He loved to see me dressed
up. I mean, what I've got on now isn't anything. I've got some lovely
clothes and nowhere to go in them."

"I'm sure you look lovely in anything. Isn't that cherry brandy a
little sweet for you?"

"It is a little sweet, yes."

"Try a sip of vodka."

"Oh, no. I must be going." "From mine," he said, and displaced the panda
to sit beside her and  give her a sip; which the girl refused so
playfully that she managed to  spill it down her dress front. He helped
her mop up with a  handkerchief.

"Quite dry now?"

"I think so."

"It didn't go down further?"

"I don't know," she said.

He tried further, without the handkerchief, and left his hand there.

"Naughty Kolya," she said, looking at him.

"Naughty Lydia."

He kissed her and received a mouthful of cherry tongue.

"We're only human, aren't we?" she said in his ear.

She said it again, next door, some time later, when he had begun to
doubt it.

The girl was a tiger. Presently she propped herself on an elbow and
gazed down at him.

"You know I haven't been with a man since Alyosha. You know that,  don't
you?"

"I'm sure," he said honestly. A minimum of four months' energy had  gone
into her activities, and he didn't think much could have gone  spare.

Later, lying more comfortably, she said reflectively, "Yes .. . that
will certainly be a party, all right."

"Would you like to go to it?"

"Who could I go with?"

"Why not me?"

"I don't know. I don't know if Alyosha would like that." Her  eyelashes
nickered at the ceiling.

"I haven't thought of it really," she said.

Pavel Grigorovich Bukarovsky, the road manager of the Tchersky
Transport Company, had been given his job by Leonid Shevelyev, the
founding father of the company and the man credited with opening up
northeast Siberia. Shevelyev, arrested in 1947 for "unsound political
beliefs," had served his time in a local labor camp, and Bukarovsky had
served time in the same camp. Most of the senior staff of the company
had done time in the camps.

The camps of the Kolyma, strung out all along the river, had been the
most infamous in the Soviet Union, and yet when they were closed in the
1950s many of the inmates had chosen to remain in the area. Their
reasons were simple. The land of restraint had suddenly become the  land
of the free--freer, at least, than anywhere else in the Soviet  Union.

It had fewer police, fewer party officials, fewer bureaucrats. It  also,
of course, had fewer amenities.

But even that changed; for after the great gold and diamond finds of
the 1960s, it suddenly had more amenities than elsewhere. It had more
food, more housing, more pay. And by another reversal, what had once
been the worst had become the best. By common consent Tchersky had  been
the worst. Under its former name of Nizhmye Kresty it had been a  byword
for horror even in the days of the czars;

the remotest outpost of the Russian empire, the least accessible, a
final hell for the most desperate prisoners. Now, as capital of the
Kolymsky region, it had become the center of all good things.

Pavel Grigorovich Bukarovsky in his own life had witnessed these
changes, and on his sixtieth birthday, forty years after arriving in the
Arctic, he planned to celebrate them. Although he lived and worked  at
Green Cape, he had to celebrate at Tchersky, which had the largest
premises: Barbara's.

Barbara's was a labyrinth of rooms running one into another; it had
been converted from a double row of log houses. Deloused, debugged,
completely sanitized, it all the same still retained the atmosphere of
another Siberia and was the most popular venue in all the Kolymsky
region. With the assistance of the mayor, who served as head of the
planning committee, walls had been removed and temporary plinths
inserted to open up the area for the largest party Tchersky had ever
seen.

Several hundred people were already there when Porter arrived with the
girl, and Lydia Yakovlevna was both excited and nervous.

"Oh God, it's huge. Oh God, everybody's here! How do I look?"

She looked like an overdressed tart, but was not out of the ordinary.
And not everybody was here. The winter roads were now laid and  hundreds
of the drivers were away. But the upper echelons of the two  towns were
here, and their women were here, and all of them were in  their best and
overdressed. Stiletto boots were everywhere, and ornate  hairdos and
plunging necklines and eye shadow and makeup.

There were thirty tables for ten clustered around a space left open for
dancing, and guests were now packed tight in this space, greeting each
other and taking early refreshment from laden trays pushed through the
throng. Music was playing--accordions, balalaikas, brass--and people had
to shout to be heard. The girl was soon flushed and de wed her  mascara
smudging.

"Oh God, it's wonderful, it's marvelous. Everybody's here! Just look  at
the tables!"

The tables were indeed a sight: a mass of crisp napery and sparkling
silverware, of glass, flowers, fruit piled high. And bottles,
battalions of bottles. "Kolya!" The limping Kama chief, Yura, was
shouting in his ear.

"You're at my table! And your lovely lady, eh? You're with me!
Wonderful, very good! Never had one of you before."

"Was that Uri Sergeivich?" the girl asked, her eyes brightened still
more at being named a lovely lady.

"Yura, yes." He hadn't heard Yura's patronymic.

"Oh, God, he's important! He's really important an old comrade of  Pavel
Grigorovich! We must be at a good table. You don't think we can  be at
Pavel Grigorovich's table?"

"I don't know."

They were not at Bukarovsky's table, but at one close by. Liova, the
Light Vehicles head, was also at this table, and some other departmental
chiefs and their ladies. And a great hubbub rose from all  the tables as
the guests settled and saw what was before them, and what  was still to
come. Before each one of them was a bottle of champagne  and of red
wine, and for each couple a bottle of vodka and of cognac.  And what was
to come on the elaborate commemorative menus was the most  extravagant
meal Porter had ever seen. It was served on the trot by a  small army of
waitresses, Russian and Yakut, course after course of  it.

Three kinds of soup and sour cream; caviar, smoked salmon, Kamchatka
crab; roast chicken and beef with venison and tongue; salamis, sausages,
stuffed piroshkis;

salads, vegetables, pickled everything in profusion; with sugared
cranberries and macaroons and ice cream. And a box of chocolates with
the coffee for every lady.

Bukarovsky, his haggard face relaxed and grinning, had appointed
himself master of ceremonies and gave the first toast. And the toasts
went on throughout the meal: toasts to the guests, and the ladies, to
Shevelyev and the company he had founded, to comrades now absent with
the boats and those left forever absent in the camps, to Tchersky and
Green Cape, to the Kolymsky region and Yakutia, to peace and prosperity.

They had grown somewhat slurred before a crash of cymbals announced a
surprise event: a huge cake wheeled in as a present from Tchersky. The
cake, iced to represent the original log premises of the Tchersky
Transport Company, was set all around with models of the company's first
primitive trucks.

Bukarovsky, highly emotional, had to reply to this, and he said that
proud as he was of the company's development it could never have
happened without the willing help of the Tchersky municipality; this
suggested further toasts from those who had not yet given any.

Liova was on his feet, to toast the Tchersky Road Services Committee and
its ambulance section whose vehicles he had the honor to service.  Then
Yura was on his, to praise not only the ambulance section but all  the
health services, and in particular Tchersky's magnificent hospital!  And
gazing around to where all the grinning faces had turned. Porter  saw
Medical Officer Komarova staring at him.

His heart gave a single great thump.

She was at a table beyond Bukarovsky's, and now, through the cigarette
smoke, he saw all the senior staff of the hospital. The director of  the
hospital was there, and Dr. Gavrilov, and the isolation wing  sister he
had abused so loudly in Korean and Japanese. They were all  looking and
smiling quite amiably. But Medical Officer Komarova was  not smiling.
She was simply staring.

But was she staring at him? Perhaps she was staring at Yura. He  looked
quickly away, and was grateful that Yura then sat down and the impatient
band struck up and people began taking the floor. Lydia  Yakovlevna
wanted to take the floor.

The girl was now quite drunk and nibbling his ear.

"I want to dance. I want to make love. First I want to dance," she
said.

"Yes, we'll dance."

"Lovely lady, why hurry from me?" Yura was now quite drunk himself and
dribbling at her.

"Oh, Uri Sergeivich, I don't hurry from you " "Ah, you know my name!"

"Uri Sergeivich! Who doesn't know your name?"

"Uri Sergeivich," said a voice from the rear, "I would like, on behalf
of the Medical Services Committee, to thank you for your kind words."
Komarova was in the rear. She was bending over to shake hands. She  was
bending over Porter to do so.

He dropped his napkin at once and got his head under the table to pick
it up.

"My privilege and my honor," Yura told her, drunkenly kissing the hand
he was shaking.

"But what's this not in your dancing clothes, not dancing with us
tonight?"

"Tonight it's not possible. I am on call. But I felt I had to "  Porter
ducked out, dragged by Lydia Yakovlevna, and glimpsed the arm of  a
severely tailored suit before he was on the floor and lurching with  the
mob.

"Oh God! Oh, pussycat! Isn't it wonderful? I feel wonderful," Lydia
Yakovlevna said. She was nibbling his ear again.

"I love you. I want to do things. We'll do things, won't we?"

"Yes, we'll do things," Porter said.

Komarova had certainly seen him. She had come over to see him better.
Why else would she have come over to give thanks for kind words? The
hospital director could have come and given them. But the  hospital
director didn't seem to have recognized him, and nor had any  of the
others. All of them had examined him in the hospital; conscious  and
unconscious, clothed and naked:

a sullen Korean seaman, bruised, with a pigtail and a mustache. Now he
was a smiling Chukchi with a shaven head and a smooth face, a guest of
Pavel Grigorovich's. What connection could there be between the chance
foreign seaman and this driver from Green Cape? But she had seen a
connection.

Or had she?

He went frantically over every encounter he had had with her. She had
seen him on the ship. She had brought him to the hospital. She had
examined him every day. The others had examined him more-this was
true--yet he was her patient, and her responsibility. She had had to
make the arrangements to-get him to Murmansk. Perhaps she had now  heard
from Murmansk.. ..

Or there could be another reason entirely.

She was the district medical officer; perhaps in her district she had
not before seen any Chukchis. He hadn't seen any himself. He had
certainly been a novelty to Yura, to Liova, even to the old Yakut
Vassili. Bukarovsky had been puzzled as to what he was doing here from
Chukotka. She could be asking just such questions about him now.

Yes, it was that. It had to be that.

"Pussycat, one more dance and then let's go," Lydia Yakovlevna said.
She was rubbing herself against him.

"Oh, God, I want to do things. I want to do everything. We'll do
everything, won't we?"

"Yes, we'll do everything," Porter said.

He had signed for a bobik to get down to Tchersky, and now they went
back to Green Cape in it, and up to the second floor and did everything.
But his mind was not on his partner, now strenuously  enjoying herself
in the Finnish bed, but on the stern figure in the  tailored suit.

This was at the end of October.

At the end of October, General Liu Shih-Yu, commander of the military
region of Sinkiang in west China, flew from his headquarters at Urumchi
to the desert station of Lop Nor. At Urumchi, a town of half a million
people, he maintained an infantry division. At Lop Nor, with almost no
people, he had two armored  divisions.

Lop Nor was a nuclear test base, his country's oldest.

General Liu was not today on nuclear business, however. He was here to
observe the impact of a test missile. It was coming from Manchuria in
east China and it would cross the intervening 3,200 kilometers in nine
minutes. A new guidance system had been designed to land it within a
target area (CEP: circular error probable) of 250 meters.

At Lop Nor he inspected the target area. Instruments had been set to
record the impact from the air, from the ground, and from below the
ground. Then he went to his observation bunker. Here contact was already
established with Manchuria, and he greeted his opposite number,  the
commander of the Shen-yang military region.

Was all in position at Lop Nor? he was asked.

Yes, all was in position at Lop Nor.

Then launch procedures could commence immediately.

Liu and his staff listened to the launch procedures on the
loudspeakers, and then to the blastoff, and themselves joined Shen-yang
in a small cheer as the missile departed Manchuria on its nine-minute
journey.

After ten minutes and then twelve, fifteen confusion developed between
Shen-yang and Lop Nor. No missile had appeared.

The first explanation was that its final stage had failed to ignite.

A few minutes later, a correction. It had ignited, but after  transiting
Inner Mongolia the small flight-correcting rockets had  evidently
misfired, for the missile had swung south. Its descent had  been
observed, however, and a true burnout velocity logged at 24,000  kph.

The vehicle carried no payload, but this velocity had produced a large
crater.

It had produced it in the region of Lan-chou, which was outside General
Liu's area.

Cursing, he led the way to his aircraft. He knew nothing of the
research station at Tcherny Vodi a frozen world away, far, far to the
north. But at Tcherny Vodi much was known of General Liu.

At Urumchi he learned that soon he would be back at Lop Nor. A retest
had been ordered extremes! urgency. It had been ordered for  November.
28

By November, with the weather hard and the roads good, Kolya Khodyan
had won golden opinions from his comrades at the Tchersky Transport
Company. This was due to his cheerfulness, his modesty, and his
generosity. His generosity was exceptional.

Already sickness and injury among the crews had moved his name high up
the reserve list, and already he had twice declined lucrative
long-distance hauls.

Family men needed the money more, he said; he was a bachelor, just
filling in for a friend. He didn't mind pottering about the area.

By now he had pottered widely and knew every route in and out, short
hops that had him frequently back in the dispatch depot. At the depot,
too, he was very popular--no moans, no arguments from Kolya. Anything to
go, he took it, wherever, whatever. And always smiling, a lovely fellow.
He'd even help with the loading--no way his job!--to give the  fellows a
break.

He was familiar now with every aspect of the depot, knew the stacks,
the destinations, was never in the way. A really bright Chukchi, true
gold.

He'd seen the four one-ton crates stenciled tch. vod." in Local
Delivery: radius fifty kilometers. Tcherny Vodi! He hungrily haunted
this bay, fearful somebody else would get it; and as the bay emptied,
tried to precipitate the action.

"No, Kolya, no. That's not to go yet."

"What is it?"

"Turbines. For a place up in the hills. They had some kind of blowout  a
few months ago. There you don't just deliver. They have to call  through
and say when. They have the stinking heads there."

"Ah, stinking heads." Stinking heads were high-ups, usually security
services, usually Moscow, but here sometimes Irkutsk or Novosibirsk.

"What do they want with stinking heads there?" he asked in surprise.

"God knows. We don't ship them much. They fly in what they need, they
have a strip. It's just sometimes heavy gear--this has been here  weeks,
from Archangel, maybe they don't need it yet."

"Is funny that. Stinking heads! I have friends in that place, I
think--Evenks."

"Right. They have Evenks there, you're right, Kolya." "I like to see my
friends there. I take this stuff, eh?"

"Sure you will. Sure, Kolya. You'll take the job--just, when we get  the
call."

And they got the call, and he took the job. He took the four crates on
a Ural and helped load and strap them right way up. The Ural had a hoist
and a hydraulic tailgate. He headed out of town and followed his  map
and picked up the creek, going east. The creek was flagged at  entry to
show the weight it could take, and he drove fifteen kilometers  along it
to be sure he had it to himself, though there wasn't much  doubt. Apart
from the road gang who had checked it, nobody had used  the creek this
season. Then he got out and climbed in the back.

He undid the straps on the tarpaulin, picked out a crate, and got to
work with a screwdriver and a pot of paint. He scored out parts of the
stenciling and over painted fresh marks. Then he smudged the result with
a grease rag until it was hard to tell which was the correct  marking.
It was now very cold. The exterior thermometer of the Ural  showed forty
below, but the air was dead still, no wind. The oily mess  hardened
immediately and he refastened the tarpaulin.

Twenty kilometers farther along the creek he saw the red flag and the
turnoff he had to take out of it. The riverbank was steep, but a ramp
had been lowered and strewn with grit. He saw the bundled-up figures
waiting on top, and they waved him on as he crunched slowly up. There
were two men, their breath standing in the air, quite jovial, ear flaps
down, automatic weapons slung, beating themselves in the cold. They  had
come out of a wooden guard hut in a small leveled area. A military  jeep
stood next to the hut.

"Found it okay?"

"No problem."

They were gazing at him curiously, not expecting a native; quite
friendly, though.

"You unload all this on your own?"

"Sure. Only there's a problem with the manifest."

"Bring it inside."

It was snug inside, two oil stoves going; and it became snugger still
when he produced his flask. He heard, what he knew already, that they
had run down here an hour ago, to open up the post, flag his turnoff ,
and lay the ramp. They would wait until the tracked vehicle came down to
pick up the load, and then take up the ramp and return;

the post wasn't manned normally.

"What's the problem with the manifest?"

"See, is some kind of cock up he said.

"The marks don't tally-we couldn't understand it there." He took them
out and showed them the marks and they puzzled over  them.

"Well, the crates are all the same."

"Sure, we got a hundred crates like that. Is Archangel crates."

"Just dump them anyway, and they'll sort it out."

"Is fine with me. You sign for it, you got it. But you don't sign, I
can't leave it. Maybe you sign and it's wrong."

The two men looked at each other.

"Well, what's to be done about it?"

"I don't know. Either I run it up there and they check it or someone
comes down and checks it here."

They went back in the hut and made a call on a communications set. The
call established that someone would come down and check it.

They finished off the flask while waiting for the tracked vehicle to
come down.

Two Evenks and an officer came down with it. The officer was irritable
and he paced impatiently while the Evenks prized open the suspect crate.
Then he mounted the Ural and perched on the cab top while  consulting a
piece of paper and peering down into the crate.

"It's all right. Of course it's all right. Bloody nonsense! Seal  it."

Then he paced again while the crate was sealed and Kolya and the Evenks
transferred the load. They chatted merrily while they did this the
Evenks, like the other Siberian natives, intrigued that he "had the
tongue."

"How is it up there, brothers?"

"Fine. Good conditions, good pay. A job."

"It's as well you came down. I thought I was going to have to run up
there with this."

The Evenks laughed.

"Not in a million years. They'd never let you."

"Oh, the stinking heads I forgot. What goes on up there? What kind of
problem with stinking heads?"

"They're no problem. Not if you have a pass. We don't mix with  anybody.
It's just scientists there who knows what they do?"

But he learned more. The Evenks' reindeer herds were far away, at the
other side of a mountain. From there they helicoptered you in. You
rotated the jobs at the hill station, a month at a time. They didn't let
you stay any longer. But anybody could do it. A stinking head  came down
and made out the passes; he dealt with Innokenty, the  headman.

Then they finished the loading and took off, and his manifests were
signed and he took off too, and drove back along the creek, thinking.

The Evenks were the way in, obviously. They were the only way in.
Herdsmen, nomads. With a headman, Innokenty. He would have to meet  this
Innokenty. He would have to get out to the herds. But there were  no
deliveries to the herds.. ..

He turned the matter over in his mind. Somehow there would have to be  a
way of getting there.

And in the days that followed he found it; and before it, something
else.

The load was for a big Kama to Provodnoye, 260 kilometers each way and
nobody wanted it, not while the huge backlog for Bilibino and Pevek
still remained, real mileage and proper money. Good Kolya took it, in  a
Ural, two journeys. They broke up the load, window frames and  central
heating for a new apartment block, and he took off,  single-handed. A
jewel, a piece of gold dust!

The Provodnoye route was a new one to him, and it looked interesting:
You could lose yourself here if you needed to. He ran south on the
river, and turned off for the section of made track to Anyuysk. This
part he knew. Then he left the made track and picked up the winding
tributary to Provodnoye. The tributary ran between steep banks, and in
season it evidently ran fast: In the narrow bends coves were gouged out
of the banks.

He kept a steady sixty kilometers an hour, slowing to thirty and twenty
on the bends, and was changing up as he pulled out of one when a flock
of ptarmigan exploded out of a piece of bush. A beautiful sight! White
rockets in a lead sky.

He watched them in his rearview mirror as they returned to the bush but
they did not return to the bush. He could not make out where they
returned.

He stopped the truck and got out and walked back on the river. The
cluster of bush grew out of the bank; stunted willow, white with ice but
mottled where the birds had nibbled the twigs. He padded softly  but
still they knew and rocketed up again; fox also padded softly.

They had rocketed not from the bush but from behind the bush. The
clumps overhung a hole in the bank. Quite a large hole, torn out by fast
spring floods.

He pulled the frozen vegetation aside. All dark inside, but high,
broad, deep.

He felt cautiously with his hands. Ice on the walls, a crackling
underfoot;

twigs the birds had brought in. He could see nothing, but it was deep,
deeper than the span of both arms. A cave. He had left his flashlight in
the truck, and did not venture any farther. He had started a little
late. Provodnoye was still a couple of hours away.

He slept the night at Provodnoye. was held up in the morning by faulty
goods for return, and made Green Cape in the afternoon, too late for
another journey. He did it the day after. The bend, the ptarmigan
rocketing up again. He stopped the truck  alongside, unshipped the
ladder and went in.

It was even deeper than he thought. Some obstruction, centuries past,
had sent the river thundering in and out of here. He shone his
flashlight around. Only a skin of ice on the walls, and under it rock.
The same with the roof. Rock, not permafrost. He tried it, all the same;

set the ladder, climbed it, bored with the battery drill into the roof.
Granite.

After an inch he didn't bother anymore. He could go as deep as he
needed. It could hold what it had to hold.

Soon after this he had his chat with Vassili, the old Yakut who
presided over the parts depot. In between he had made a trip to
Ambarchik on the coast and from there had brought back a fish, an Arctic
char. Vassili's old woman had been bemoaning the lack of char,  and this
was a present for her. Very often now he had been sharing the  old
Yakut's food.

He produced the fish in a sack; quite fresh but stiff as a board, and
Vassili's eyes popped.

"This is a fish," he said. He examined it all over.

"This fish goes a meter."

"Yes, it's a good fish."

"She'll go mad with it." He stood the fish on its nose and with his
knife pared off a sliver and ate.

"By God, an excellent fish. Full of oil." He pared a sliver for the
Chukchi and gave it to him. Kolya ate the sliver and nodded. A nutty
flavor; not fishy, not bad, slight oily aftertaste.

"Good," he said.

"The best. With a half of this fish she'll make a fantastic  stroganina.
You'll come and eat it."

"With pleasure."

"Did you eat lunch yet?"

"Not yet."

They shared the Yakut's pot.

"Vassili," he said, chewing, "I need a bobik."

"Take one."

"To keep. For myself."

"What for?"

"I want one."

The Yakut nodded, cutting a piece of meat between his teeth. They were
eating boiled foal and blood sausage stewed in mare's milk.

"Do you know any Evenks?" Kolya asked him.

"There are no Evenks here now."

"Where would you find them?" "You said you knew some at the station in
the hills."

"They're not there. I ran a load for that station."

"Then either they're with the herds or at the collective."

"Which collective?"

"Novokolymsk. What other?"

Kolya pondered this. Evidently the collective was not only for the
Yukagir. For Evenks also. And they rotated not just from the herds to
the station. They rotated from the collective as well.

"I don't know," he said.

Vassili cut off more meat in his mouth.

"I hear the Evenk women are good," he said.

"I hear that."

"I never tried one myself. Where is she?"

"Who?"

The Yakut's face split, but whether with a smile or from tugging at the
meat he couldn't tell.

"I think you are a young bastard," he said.

"You have an Evenk girl and don't know where she is the collective or
with the herds. Right?"

Kolya grunted and got on with his meat.

Vassili wiped his mouth.

"All right," he said, sucking his teeth, "you need a bobik. I'll think
about it."

Next day he told Kolya, "She wants you to come and eat stroganina. You
can come tonight."

"Good. Thank you."

He went and ate stroganina. The two elderly Yakuts lived in a tiny
apartment in one of the earliest blocks; the Europeans had moved out to
better blocks. A table came with the apartment but they ate on the
floor, on cushions. Vassili's wife gave him a bowl of his own but the
two old people ate out of the pot. The stroganina was a rich oily fish
stew, highly seasoned, and on a wooden board alongside it was a mound of
the raw fish flaked like coconut.

The old woman had put on a Yakut party dress, brightly embroidered; her
center parting and brilliant dark eyes were directed intently on him as
he ate. She was silent as a mouse but very busy, refilling his bowl
until the pot was finished, and piling on the flaked fish.

"A man needs oil," she said to him significantly.

"A young man has to have it."

It was all she said to him, but in the morning Vassili told him, "She
says you have a nice face."

"Well, it's younger than yours," Kolya said.

"She also says you are a young bastard. She says you should stop
fucking Lydia Yakovlevna." "Who says I am fucking Lydia Yakovlevna?"

"Our granddaughter cleans in the supermarket. Lydia Yakovlevna says  you
fuck her every night and give her presents, also take her to the  best
parties. Is that the way a young man like you should get it?"

"Or?"

"It's better to fuck this Evenk. She says they don't want presents and
it's healthier for you."

"Well, it's true."

"Of course it's true. Where would you keep the bobik?"

"I know a place."

"You can't just steal one they're all registered. You know that, don't
you?"

"Of course I know it."

"So how would you get one?"

"I could put it together, if I had a friend with the parts."

The Yakut smiled.

"You think you could do it on your own?"

"With a manual, why not? It's a toy, you said."

"One man can't fit an engine on his own. It's too heavy."

"With a block and tackle?"

Vassili mused.

"The block and tackle would be for borrowing only? I can't make a
deficit out of a block and tackle. I only have two."

"Of course for borrowing only. What do I want with a block and  tackle?"

"It's a strong heavy engine. The block would need a strong roof to
support it."

"I have a strong roof."

"Well, I'll see. Don't bother me with it now."

Kolya began taking parts for the bobik the same week. Vassili gave him
a printed specification of the car and they ticked off the parts as he
took them. The first parts he took were the wheels. He had been  angling
now for regular deliveries to the area.

To Anyuysk was no problem. Scattered developments there meant frequent
trips by light truck. The problem was the further leg to Provodnoye.
Factories and apartment blocks were going up there top class ones, an
inducement for European Russians to stay in the wilderness: good
heating, big boilers, triple glazing.

Heavy loads, and for a big Kama. As the season went on, and the  drivers
could pick and choose less, big Kamas would regularly do this  journey.
Twoman crews.

No good. He had to be on his own.

He saw he was going to have to do it at night. He could always get a
bobik for the night. But there were difficulties here, too. He could get
a bobik, but how about the parts? The Light Vehicles Depot wasn't open
at night. He would have to take the parts during the day and  keep them
somewhere. Where? Not in the apartment. How could he run  an engine up
there, gearbox, transmission?

He thought about it while taking the wheels, and a load, down to
Anyuysk. He dumped the load quickly, and took off with the wheels toward
Provodnoye.

Off the made road and onto the tributary; around and around the tight
bends. It took him sixty-five minutes from Anyuysk to the cave. With  a
bobik he could cut that to maybe forty-five. And from Green Cape to
Anyuysk itself--another hour and a quarter. Total, two hours. Four hours
there and back. If he started at nine at night when nobody was  about,
he could be back soon after one in the morning. Nothing.

It would take time to build up the parts before anything could usefully
be put together. The heavy engine would be a problem. He would need help
getting it in the bobik. Vassili would help him get it in. Then  he
would have to take off immediately with it, in the lunch  hour--whatever
other jobs were scheduled for him. He couldn't leave an  engine dumped
in a bobik. He would have to take it right to the cave.  And then? How
to get it out of the bobik and into the cave? A block  and tackle could
raise and lower it. It couldn't get it in.

The ptarmigan had shot up again as he approached.

He left the engine running and walked over to the cave and parted the
frozen branches. The entrance was wide, far wider than it looked. He
tried to find a way of keeping the shrubbery held back but couldn't. He
got back in the truck and, with his headlights on, drove slowly through
the screen of branches, careful not to break any off; the screen
effectively hid the cave.

He got the nose of the truck in and climbed out and looked about him.
The headlights brilliantly lit up the place, a hoary icebox: roof,
walls, floor, all glittering like diamonds. A spacious icebox, too.
Plenty of room to build a bobik, and also to drive one right in. He
looked up at the roof, and the hole he had drilled. In the wrong  place,
but yes! Of course. A piece of cake! He could fit the block  to the roof
at the rear of the cave. Then hack the bobik in and hoist  the engine
out. No problem.

He wasted no more time, got the wheels out and stacked against the end
wall, reversed the truck onto the river, and drove back to Green  Cape.

He'd build up the supplies fast, on as many days as he could. And  night
after night if possible. Yes, he'd start seriously now.

And this he did, by day and also by night.

/55 29

The dispatch depot: "Kolya--Yura wants you. Run down and see him  now."

"But I've got a load here, ready to go."

"Leave it. He's in a temper, very excited. Take the bobik there-the
key's in."

He drove down to the Kama hangar, puzzled and cautious.

The place had greatly changed, he saw. No longer the vast array of
vehicles lined up row on row. Only a dozen or so of the giant trucks
were scattered about now, most being worked on by mechanics.

Yura was in his glass booth and on the phone again. He frowned at the
Chukchi and motioned him in.

"Kolya, what's this?" he said, putting the phone down.

"Piddling about all the time to Anyuysk--and with little Tatras and
Urals. What is it?"

"It's trips. It's okay. They give me the jobs."

"They're taking advantage of you. This is no good, Kolya."

"I don't complain, it's fine."

"You don't complain, but it bloody isn't fine! You're picking up no
money! And getting no time on a 50! What experience are you  getting?"

"I didn't come for experience. I'm filling in."

"You're mine! My driver! I told you so. There's a good distance man  in
you--young, stamina, plenty of go. You need time on a 50. Piddling
about locally is no good. It's no good, Kolya!"

"They want me, what can I do?"

"You can go to Bilibino. Tomorrow. I've cleared it with Bukarovsky.
You're down on the sheet. No arguments. It's done!"

Well, if it was done, on the sheet. He couldn't make a fuss about
getting off it. To Bilibino and back was fourteen hundred kilometers-- a
plum three-day job for the drivers, and soon to be scarce as the backlog
cleared.. ..

He cursed as he drove back. Three days away, and what shape would he  be
in for his night work afterward? To hell with Bilibino!

But to Bilibino he went, southeast. * * * They left at eight in a
snowstorm, and day didn't dawn till  almost eleven. They drew a
twenty-ton trailer, with another one  hitched on behind, and were in a
convoy of four, all big Kamas. The  two in front could not be seen
through the wall of snow in the  headlights, but as the day slowly came
and the dim shapes emerged  lumbering ahead, Vanya relaxed. He was a
grizzled elderly fellow,  specially selected as a mentor for the
Chukchi.

"You'll take over after the first stop," he said.

"There's a straight stretch coming, but plenty of uphill shifts.
Mustn't lose your footing-it's a long slide down for these bastards."
His yellow teeth showed in a grin.

The first stop came soon after eleven, number one of the road stations.
The two trucks in front had pulled in, together with another couple
going the other way;

and behind them, as they parked in a clutter of bobiks, came the fourth
of their convoy.

A radio was going and it was very warm and smoky in the log hut.
Cooking smells drifted from the kitchen, and cigarette smoke hung over
the tables where the drivers sat, so that in the fog it was some minutes
before he saw that one of them was a woman. She was also  smoking, and
in conversation, and his eyes were drawn in that direction  because he
heard his name mentioned. The drivers were grinning as he  looked over.

"Sure, that's him, our Chukchi.. .. Kolya, come over here. She wants  to
meet you. Medical Officer Komarova."

Her eyes gazed at him coolly as they shook hands. She wore an open
parka and a cap like the others, and was sitting with a cigarette over a
cup of coffee.

"You're new here, I understand."

"Yes, not long. A few weeks." They had made room for him on the bench
opposite, and his smile flashed brilliantly at her. He decided to take
his fur cap off.

"Tea or coffee?" the old waitress said. She had slapped his plate of
kasha and gravy down, and was also staring at his shaven head.

"Coffee."

"From Chukotka?" Medical Officer Komarova said.

"Chukotka. I'm filling in for a friend."

"They haven't sent your papers in yet. Have you had all your shots?"

"Sure."

"Tetanus, polio, yellow fever?"

"Sure, sure." He forked in the kasha, smile still flashing.

"Don't worry about his shots. He's getting all his shots in," one of
the drivers said.

/<?7 "The condoms come from her place. She calls the shots," another
said,  as the laughter continued.

Medical Officer Komarova smiled thinly herself. Under the cap her face
looked paler, longer, slight anemic; but the eyes were as uncompromising
as he remembered.

"Check into the office, anyway," she said.

"I'll see they have your papers. Are you outward bound now or coming
back?"

"Outward. Bilibino."

"That's three days." She held the cigarette in her mouth and with her
eyes screwed up opened a zipper bag and took out a notebook and a  pen.

"Today's Tuesday? .. . Make it Friday. That afternoon, four p.m.  You'll
need a lie-in in the morning." She wrote in the book and on a  card and
gave him it.

"It's the administrative building in Tchersky. Anyone will tell  you."

"You want to check me over or what?"

"I won't be there. They need to update your papers and get you on our
records."

She went soon afterward and he finished his breakfast, still in doubt.
Had she recognized him? Would she so specifically have mentioned the
yellow fever if so?

Surely not. It was the Chukchi interest: He looked different from the
others.

And totally different from the Korean seaman. No. He was a new face  in
town, a new driver. A matter of papers.

He finished his coffee and in twenty minutes was out with the convoy
again. The snow had stopped. He took the wheel and steered the big  rig
into place in line.

"We keep two hundred meters," Vanya told him.

"Give him plenty of room to get off in front. And practice the gears.
You'll be running up and down them soon."

"Okay. She seems a decent sort, that medical officer."

"You think so? Don't bet on it. The slightest thing wrong with you,  she
has you off the long runs."

"Does she check all the drivers?"

"See, the company sick bay is hers--the nurses, the supplies, all from
Tchersky.

They keep the medical histories there. She's a strict manager,
Komarova."

"To me, she was like one of the boys."

"Try getting a dose of clap, and you'll find out. All this is her
district and she knows what goes on in it. Change down now. Watch him in
front--he's climbing."

They were climbing, and they continued climbing, the ice road running
through a series of passes, first between hills and then mountain peaks.
From Green Cape they had ascended 2,800 feet, and now went much higher,
on all sides the icy crests smoking in clouds. More snow  was waiting in
the clouds, and Vanya silently observed it through his  window. But the
road was straight and continued straight, even in the  switchbacks that
now came. After the climb, a sharp drop, and then up  again, and down
again, and up and down, a glassy and treacherous ribbon  of ice.

"Not your brakes! Only the gears!" Vanya yelled.

"And leave him room--two hundred meters."

The convoy pulled on, stopping every hundred kilometers at the road
stations. At each one they replenished the flasks of tea and coffee, and
the day slowly went.

The straight also went, and with night came the snow, and Vanya took
over; and sharp bends now began to zigzag through the mountains.

Between stations the men were supposed to alternate in sleep. But with
the bends and the snow, Vanya now drove from every station. And there
was no sleeping through the constant roar of oaths that came from him as
they swung and lurched behind their headlights in the white dazzle  of
snow; only a few meters of track visible ahead. He drove through  the
night, and he drove the first turn of the day as well, until the  road
straightened out. At one o'clock Kolya took over, sleepless  himself,
and he drove into Bilibino, Vanya snoring beside him.

Bilibino, named for Bilibin the geologist who first assayed the reefs,
was the center for the most northerly gold fields of Siberia, and the
big trucks and the ice road were the only means of getting heavy
equipment there; this was what they carried. Scores of thousands of tons
of it had built up, shipped from St.

Petersburg and Archangel in the summer. Only in summer could it be
shipped, and only in winter could it be hauled. And now it was here,
Bilibino.

They reached it at four in the afternoon, left the trucks for unloading
and reloading, and went to bed at a hostel. Eight hours later, after a
meal, they left again on the return journey; midnight; the night black,
road white in their headlights.

A hard country, an exhausting routine, and he took the first leg. Over
thirty hours of driving still ahead--thirty-two, in fact, the time
keeping good through all difficulties--and nonstop except for brief
rests at the road stations. Which would get them in--what?--late
tomorrow. No, not tomorrow; the time confusing.

All tomorrow they would be driving. The next day. Friday, early.

Well, after a good rest he'd organize a bobik for that night, see
Vassili in the afternoon. But in the afternoon, Jesus, the medical
center at Tchersky! Well, he'd do it, wouldn't make waves, an
administrative matter. Nothing wrong with Khodyan's papers; they just
hadn't

7<?0 received them. He'd handed them in himself when Bukarovsky had
signed  him on. In the early confusion, the start of the season, they
hadn't  been sent on. An administrative matter.

He would sleep all morning. Get up and see Vassili. Arrange a bobik.
With the bobik run into Tchersky and get his papers settled at the
medical center. Then the time was his. Yes.

He finished his stint at the first road station and Vanya took over.
And now he tried to sleep, and managed it, no curses coming, just slow
steady driving through the zigzags.

The next turn, still in the mountain labyrinth, still not snowing,
Vanya put him on the wheel again but remained awake himself to watch.
And the night went, and the day went, and the following night;

and at eight on Friday morning, seventy-two-hours after leaving it,
they pulled back into Green Cape.

At half-past two, as arranged, Anna Antonovna woke him and gave him his
dinner.

He was stiff, creaky, aching all over. But after a shower he felt he
could make it. He went to see Vassili.

"What do you want to take?" Vassili said.

"The frame members."

"All/oMr? The sides won't go in a bobik. You'd need a roof rack. Take
something else."

"The axle assemblies?"

"Yes, they'd go."

They ticked off the pair of axle assemblies on the specification, and
Vassili made a careful note in his deficit book. These goods had never
arrived at the depot--either hadn't been sent or had gone missing on the
way.

"What time are you coming for them?" he said.

"I don't know. Say five."

"Remember, we shut at six."

"It will be before."

"And the back door here."1'1 They were in the storeroom.

"Don't go through the garage. People will be working there. Bring the
bobik around to the back."

"Okay. First I have to get it."

By a quarter to four he had the bobik and was running down to Tchersky
in it. He knew the administrative building and parked out160 side. He
found the medical center and presented himself at the  enquiry window.

"Khodyan," he said to the woman clerk who answered the buzzer.

"I was told to be here at four."

"For what?"

"I'm a new driver with the transport company." He handed in the card  he
had been given.

"You were getting my papers."

She had a look at the card.

"Oh yes. Khodyan. We have to update you. Just a minute, I'll get  them."

He looked at the two other clerks at work in the room while she went
out, and presently she was back and letting him in.

"Yes. Come through," she said, and he followed her through the room  and
into a corridor, and into another room.

"Khodyan," she said, and left him.

Medical Officer Komarova was in the room, writing at a desk. She was  in
her white hospital coat. She glanced up briefly.

"Please sit down," she said.

He did so, after a small jolt.

"I thought you wouldn't be here," he said.

"I thought so, too. Work." She continued writing for a few moments  and
then screwed the top back on an old-fashioned fountain pen. She  drew a
dossier toward her.

"You had rheumatic fever at age twelve," she said.

"Very slight. If I even had it at all." He flashed his smile.

"Diagnosed at Anadyr. Streptococcal infection."

"But at Novosibirsk, not. There everything fine. All checked out.
Nothing wrong with me."

She read further.

"Yes. What were you doing at Novosibirsk?"

"My father was a teacher, without a degree. Nothing doing for our
people then at Anadyr. We went to Novosibirsk and he got one."

"I see. And then the family went back?"

"No. They like Novosibirsk."

"And you?"

"I don't. I just knock about--no student. For me is better up  here."

"Where did you learn your--Russian?"

"Everywhere. Is not very good, I know."

"Better than my Chukchi," she said. She said it in Chukchi and his
smile flashed wider.

This tough and knowing babe knew something. What? The faint smile was
there again, elusive, slightly mocking. If she had Chukchi, she had
mixed with Chukchis. Did she know he wasn't one? He couldn't make her
out. She looked different every time he saw her. In the hospital, the
cool doctor; at Bukarovsky's banquet the stern, suited specter; at the
road station the ga mine in the cap; here, calmly managerial. Yet the
same face pale, thin-nosed, vaguely anemic. No lipstick or makeup.  The
hair blondish, severely drawn back, not remarkable. Nothing about  her
was remarkable, except the air of pale competence. Was she forty,
thirty? Impossible to say. The gray eyes were looking him over.

"Are you pure Chukchi?"

"I don't know how pure I am. I'm Chukchi." He allowed a spurt of  temper
to show as he said this, and she looked down at his dossier  again.

"There's nothing further we should know about, here?"

"Nothing."

"All right. Let's have a look at you. Strip off over there. There's  a
bench."

His mouth opened, but she had risen immediately and was washing her
hands at a basin. The bench was behind a plastic curtain. He took his
boots off, then closed the curtain and took everything off down to his
socks and shorts.

"I'll need to see your feet," she said, briskly parting the curtain.

"My feet? My feet are fine."

"Have you had frostbite ever?"

"No, never."

"Show me."

He took his socks off, and she closely inspected the feet.

"Yes. Good. A fine instep all you northern people have it. Now the
shorts."

"My shorts? What " "I will examine your testicles."

He silently removed the shorts and she examined the testicles.

"Cough." He coughed.

"Again." Again.

"Yes." She examined further in the area, and then his abdomen, ribs,
arms, armpits, mouth, ears, eyes, head.

"The head. Have you had alopecia?"

"I had delayed shock, after an accident. All the hair fell out."

"This has been shaved recently."

"I shave it. You don't like it this way?"

She made no comment, adjusting her stethoscope. She listened to his
chest. She listened to his back. She listened to his chest again.

"Well, I think Anadyr was right," she said, "and Novosibirsk wrong. You
have a murmur."

"A murmur?" He had no murmur. Khodyan might have one, but he  didn't.

"What murmur?"

"The streptococcal infection had an effect on the heart. Very slight,
but it's there. You can get dressed now."

He got dressed, thinking this over. What was going on here? He
absolutely had no murmur. He had been checked out thoroughly at the
camp. He went out of the cubicle, very wary.

"I can't recommend that you drive long distances," she said. She was
writing again, and nodded to him to sit.

"It's dangerous, for you and for others."

"But I'm a driver!"

"You are entitled to a cardiological examination. I will arrange it  for
you at the hospital if you wish. But for the present, no long journeys."

"Then what will I do?"

"Are they so important to you, long journeys?" She had glanced up
quickly as she said this.

"Well." He had seen the advantages at once: a word from her and no  more
of Yura's Kamas. But what was her game?

"It's my work," he said.

"You can do other work, short journeys. That I will allow. After a
rest. You are quite tired. I am authorizing a week off work for you.
Hand this in to the office there."

He stared blankly at the form she gave him.

"A few days' rest isn't a punishment," she said, the faint smile
appearing again.

"You have friends here, I believe."

"Yes, friends."

"But not Chukchi is that it?"

"No. No Chukchis here," he said with more confidence.

"Oh, but there are. At Novokolymsk, the collective. You haven't been
there yet?"

"No." Chukchis there, too? It must be a collective for all the native
peoples.

"And even nearer at hand at Panarovka, this side of the river. I go
there tomorrow. It should have been today. If you want I'll take you.
Then you can talk Chukchi." There was now was he wrong? something
taunting in her expression.

His smile easily outshone hers.

"I would like that! Thank you."

"All right. I have a few things to do at Green Cape. Be outside your
building at eleven and I can pick you up. I have to stay overnight,  but
there's accommodation for you, too. Bring what you need pajamas.
toothbrush. A razor," she said, looking at his head.

He went out in a daze.

In the bobik, he saw it was a quarter past six. He'd missed Vassili;

the Light Vehicles Depot would be shut. But there was more urgent and
serious business here. She knew something. The inch-by-inch  examination
of him. She had examined him before... . She knew.

But had she told anyone else? So far as he could tell, he hadn't been
watched. Perhaps she hadn't been sure until now, perhaps was still  not
sure. But tomorrow she would be sure. The Yukagir had not thought  him a
Yukagir, or the Evenks an Evenk. Was he any more likely to fool  the
Chukchis? .. . Perhaps with Khodyan's screwed-up  background--Anadyr,
Novosibirsk, here, there--he might just swing it.

But she had swung it, against him. A clever as well as a tough
operator. With Khodyan's suspected murmur she had effectively stopped
him from leaving her district. She wanted to keep an eye on him. And
tomorrow she would have ample opportunity. With Chukchis to confirm  her
suspicions.

What, then? Should he get out of it? And afterward be stuck here, a
week off work, not knowing what she was doing? No, not that. But was  it
any better staying close to her?

He couldn't think "Pussycat, where have you been?" Lydia Yakovlevna  was
huddled in the doorway.

"I

haven't seen you for days!"

In the same confusion of mind, he had driven back, parked the car,
walked into the building, quite unaware of any of it. He looked at  her.

"I've been to Bilibino," he said.

"To Bilibino! Oh, what a lot of money. But poor lamb, you'll be  tired.
Come in, have a drink and we'll do things. Tonight I'll really  relax
you."

And that night she almost wore him out. But relax him she did, and as
the big girl worked away he knew what he would do. He would go with  the
medical officer the next day, but if anything untoward happened, it
would have to be her last day on earth.

The broad Kolyma, shining white, a blinding white. At eleven-thirty  the
day had not long dawned, but already they needed their snow  glasses.
She was in her cap and parka, and she handled the bobik  efficiently--a
white one striped with red which he recalled having seen  at the road
station.

"You drive everywhere yourself?" he said. This he said for something  to
say; she had said almost nothing, buzzing quite fast on the river.

"I fly if I have to. It means arrangements. Driving is easier."

"Yes. On a fine day."

Today was very fine, the sky clear, faintly blue. Smoke stood straight
in the air from occasional houses on the bank; from the  opposite bank
also, three or four miles away across the white expanse,  the air
crystal clear.

"But not in bad weather," he said, "or for long distances. The road
station we met at a long distance."

"Yes. The limit of my district."

"You treat people there?"

"Settlements. They send a tractor over for me."

"And take them food also?" She had picked up a couple of crates at
Green Cape, evidently from stores: fruit and vegetables, canned  goods.

"No."

She had seen him glance behind at the stuff, but made no other  comment.

All right, tough baby. No questions from her about Chukotka, or even
his driving experiences, which would have been normal. Well, he could
wait too. Until tomorrow, anyway. He needed information from her  first,
to find out how far the thing had gone. He had decided,  whatever
happened, that she must not get back to Green Cape. The  matter of
Murmansk would always remain in the air. All he needed was a  place for
the accident.

"It's up a creek, this settlement?" he said.

"A small river. Panarovka."

"That's the name of the river?"

"Of the village. The river is the Little Ghost."

"A strange name. Why Little Ghost?"

"A camp used to be there an old one, from Czarist times. It was used
since, of course. Many people died there. Their ghosts remain."

"You believe that?" he said incredulously.

She smiled.

"The Chukchis believe it." And now she became suddenly talkative.

"You'll know a good many of the old beliefs, I expect?"

"Well, some. A broken childhood," he said cautiously.

"And my father a teacher he didn't believe."

"These are old-fashioned people here. They believe. They've been here
for generations. And they know many things. Maybe they even know  you."

"I don't think so," he said regretfully.

"I never was here."

"But they go there to Chukotka. They fly out, they keep up their
contacts."

"They do?"

"Oh, yes. Regularly. They know everything that goes on there a wonderful
knowledge of family networks. It's good to keep such things  alive.

Don't you agree?"

"Yes, it's good. It's nice," he said.

"They'll certainly know of your family--parents, aunts, cousins. You
will have a lot in common. It will be interesting even apart from the
language."

"Yes, interesting," he said.

"I thought so. I have a good relationship with them. They tell me
everything.

Now here," she said, "we're just coming to the Little Ghost. Over
there, the opposite bank, is Novokolymsk, a few kilometers farther, you
can't see it from here. It isn't far in a bobik. They are more
up-to-date at the collective. As a modern person perhaps you'll have
more in common. If you want to visit, I can arrange it for you."

"Yes. I'd like it," he said.

"Maybe while I'm off work I can run an errand for you there?"

"Maybe. I'll try and think of something."

"You could write me a letter here. I could take it later."

She smiled behind her snow glasses.

"You prefer more up-to-date people," she said.

"Well. While I have nothing else to do--I could meet them."

"All right, I'll write a few lines. Remind me."

"I will. Good," he said. And everything now was good. The Little  Ghost
River was good. The bank of the Kolyma had fallen away and they  were in
the tributary. A wonderful little tributary, like the one to Provodnoye;
winding, sharp bends.

The banks were not so high, and not so vertical; but high enough and
vertical enough. And quite narrow, no more than four meters, in places
only three. Yes, easily done here.

He sized it up carefully as she wound around the bends, but in twenty
minutes--rather too soon--Panarovka came into view. The river widened
suddenly into a small curving bay, and the bank fell to form a beach.
The village was set back on a snow-covered slope, perhaps three hundred
meters away; at first glance it was a huddle of small blobs with a
taller one behind. A track had been made, climbing from the river, and
she turned up it.

Closer to, the small blobs became recognizable as three rows of houses.
The taller one was no less recognizable.

"A church," she said, as he peered.

"The place is old."

"Do they use it anymore?"

"Yes, they use it."

Both the church and the houses were of wood, the houses detached and
with a fence of palings around each. Smoke came from the houses but no
one was about, and she drove along the upper row and parked outside the
last house on the corner. "Your clinic?" he said.

"Yes. Bring the other crate." She had gotten one out of the back and
was walking up the stamped snow path.

So that was it. The bearer of gifts used one of the Chukchi houses as
her clinic. She could have explained, if she'd wanted. What she  wanted
was evidently to confront him right away with some Chukchis.  Okay; he
braced himself.

A Chukchi woman, elderly and shapeless, opened the door as they reached
it.

"I

heard the car," she said in Russian.

"Yes. I'm sorry I'm late. There's fruit here, Viktoria." To his
surprise she kissed the Chukchi.

"And some tinned stuff. Bring it in," she said to Kolya.

The woman barely glanced at him as she took the crate of fruit and
looked into it, and he followed with the other crate through a little
hall, curtained to keep out the drafts, into a large room. It was very
warm, a big porcelain stove set against the far wall. The walls were  of
wood and the room dark, the windows small. Another woman was  sitting in
a big armchair, knitting, and Komarova bent and kissed her  too.

"Tanya!" the woman said. She was a little bag of bones with a shawl;  a
walking stick leaned against the chair.

"We expected you yesterday."

"I know, I'm sorry. Wait she'll come and take it from you," she said  to
him.

"Mother, I've brought a visitor Nikolai Dmitrievich Khodyan. He's from
Chukotka.

Alexandra Ivanovna," she introduced her mother.

"He can't shake hands with you now, he's holding a crate." But the
Chukchi woman returned just then and took the crate, glancing at him as
she did so.

"Nikolai Dmitrievich?" the old lady said, holding out her hand.

"Kolya," he said, shaking the hand.

"You are visiting us from Chukotka?"

"Bend down, she can't see you," Komarova ordered.

He bent and the old lady felt his face, and his head.

"Ah, an old person?"

"Not as young as I should be, but not that old."

"His hair fell out. He's my age," Komarova said.

Was he now? Khodyan was thirty-six.

"Khodyan?" the Chukchi woman said, returning to the room.

"One of the Khodyans from Anadyr?"

"Yes, I am. You are Viktoria " "Eremevina." The Chukchi woman shook  his
hand.

"And if I am not mistaken did you say Nikolai Dmitrievich?"

"Yes, I did." "The son of the schoolteacher?"

"That's me." They were talking now in Chukchi.

"Then I was present at your birth! Heaven save us all!" She gave him  a
resounding kiss on the lips.

"But your family moved to Novosibirsk! And your elder sister, the one
who was so ill what was her name?"

"She died," Kolya said promptly.

"It hurts me to talk of it."

"Oh, I'm sorry!"

"What are they babbling at? Why babble?" the old lady said.

"I am also here."

"Viktoria is telling him she was present at his birth. His father was  a
schoolteacher in Anadyr. He had a sister who died."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear it. But they can speak a Christian language.
While I am still here! Nobody has come to talk to me for half a  year!"

"I was here six weeks ago," Komarova said resignedly.

"And this is a busy time.

Is my consulting room ready?" she asked the Chukchi.

"Of course. And ten people were sitting here waiting yesterday!"

"Well, tell them I'm here now. And prepare a room for Nikolai
Dmitrievich, he will be staying the night. I expect you'll find
something to talk about," she told him.

She was looking at him curiously, and he returned the look.

She had understood every word of the Chukchi. Well, what of it? His
story had held up indeed had been miraculously confirmed. If Khodyan did
not have too many other siblings to dispose of, he could hold his  own.
She would question this Viktoria, he had no doubt of it, and the  other
Chukchis; ten patients.... A very comprehensive checking out of  him. A
thorough bitch, and cold; brusque with her mother, and this old
retainer. All of a piece, at any rate. He could handle her as long as he
had to. Not so long now.

He brought in their two bags, and was shown to his room; all wood,
dark, smelling of camphor.

She had gone to her consulting room when he returned, and he sat and
took a glass of tea with the old lady. But presently, as patients
arrived and, after introductions, began talking loudly to him in
Chukchi, the old woman struggled wrathfully to her feet, and was helped
by Viktoria to her room.

But so far, so good. His story was sound, reasonable. A schoolmaster  a
little above himself had taken his family to a big town, and  preferred
it there. The daughter had died and the boy, detached from  his
background even speaking his own tongue with an accent! had gone  on the
loose. But he had hankered for the far north, had healthy  instincts
himself, a good young fellow. He heard Khodyan's antecedents discussed,
flashed his smile of rueful ignorance, listened to their own stories,
told of his driving  experiences, of the money to be made. A levelheaded
young fellow, as  well as charming.

So many invitations came his way that he was able to skip the late
lunch at the house and take it elsewhere: a snack here, a drink there,
mainly among women and old men; and he learned the reason for this.

In summer the villagers fished and farmed. Because the river had no
bank here, when the ice broke the first flood came up and washed the top
meter of ground almost all the way to the village. In the good  soil
they grew everything:

potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, beans flowers, even. Yes, in  the
gardens, sunflowers, this high!

But in winter the men went to the trap lines came home maybe only once
in ten days. They sold the pelts through the collective at  Novokolymsk.
All sorts were there, Yakuts, Evenks, Yukagir, Chukchi  yes, Chukchi,
too. Not quite our sort, but decent people. If he was  interested
someone would always take him there, easily arranged.

He began to see he wouldn't need Komarova for this. But he needed her
for something else, of course, and he took dinner at the house. An
endless meal, in which the daughter's impatience with her mother  grew.

The old lady talked. And talked. The villagers had told him, no  doubt,
of her late husband, Dr. Komarov? An angel to them. When he  had come
out of the camp he had been eagerly awaited in Leningrad,  where his
reputation stood so high. But no, he had set up his surgery  here. An
angel. They kissed his feet. Wouldn't leave them, had  selflessly
ministered to all here. And now lay in his final place  here. Which she
would never leave, no never. Had he seen the graveyard?

No, he had not yet had that opportunity; he would like the  opportunity.

Just beyond the church, on the high ground. Was he a churchgoer?

Sometimes he was a churchgoer; in his job it was not always easy. And
there were not that many churches!

Well, tomorrow he could go to church, Sunday. They would all go to
church. This one had a beautiful, a holy history "We will go out now,"
Komarova said.

"Out? Out where?" her mother said.

"To the graveyard. He wants to see it."

"Tatiana, are you mad? It will be pitch dark."

"There's a moon."

"If you can see it, it will be freezing hard. He'll see it in the
morning, of course. We'll all go." "There might be no time in the
morning."

"No time--what are you thinking of? I've arranged flowers for you to
lay there!"

"And tell Viktoria we'll need fresh tea. We'll have it when we return.
It won't be long."

"But you'll freeze! It's iron hard out there. Put everything on that
you have!"

They put everything on, but he still gasped as they stepped outside.
The cold was so intense it seemed to burn the backs of his eyeballs. The
night was dead still, glaring white. Below her cap Komarova had  wrapped
her head and mouth in a woolen scarf; he held gloved hands to  his mouth
and smelled the leather.

They mounted the path to the church. It stood squat in the moonlight,
its wooden steeple sheathed in ice. Beyond, the graveyard was set out
like a camp on the white slope, neat rows of small knobs, the tops of
iced crosses. They crunched between the rows. On the mounds wisps of
dried flowers poked through the snow like bits of tinsel. She paused
between a couple of mounds and bent to brush the snow off one,  peering.

"Your father?"

"Piotr Petrovich .. . yes. More flowers here. Five bunches. Remember
that, she'll ask."

Her mouth was muffled through the scarf, but her eyes when she
straightened up were looking at him very levelly.

"But we didn't come out here to look at graveyards, Nikolai
Dmitrievich," she said.

"There is something I have to say to you."

The church was not locked and he followed her inside. In the blackness
a tiny point of red wavered above the altar. She led the way there,
groping along the aisle.

"There are candles somewhere."

He heard a rattling.

"Here. And they make a charge. Put a few coins in the box.

I have no money."

He lit the candle with his lighter and searched his pockets.

"All I have"--he peered--"is a bill."

"They won't complain," she said dryly, and took the note off him.

"Incense," she said, sniffing.

"That's what they spend money on? Well now, Nikolai Dmitrievich, I  have
an apology to make to you." "An apology? For what?"

"An attitude you might have found incorrect. Perhaps unfriendly, even
racist. Do not mistake my mother's attitude for my own. There is no
trace of racism in me.

Quite the contrary. I have profound respect for all the peoples of the
north.

The fact is, I was not sure who you were even if you were a Chukchi at
all."

He stared at her.

"What else could I be?"

"Well, you could have been something else. You know we have few
strangers here, a security area. But a few weeks ago we did have one, in
Green Cape. A Korean seaman, very ill; I took him off his ship to
Tchersky hospital. I thought you resembled him."

He shook his head.

"I don't understand," he said.

"You have a seaman in hospital, and think I " "He isn't. He recovered
and went away, to Murmansk, to rejoin his ship. But there were certain
things about you your accent, for instance. It didn't sound to me
Chukchi.... In short, it's why I brought you here. These people would
know, of course, and I trust them."

He flashed his smile.

"Well, I hope Viktoria Eremevina's guarantee is good enough. I don't
remember my birth personally, but she was there!"

"Yes, I know. But understand my grounds. Even now the people here say
you have some other accent maybe a little like Evenk. It's what I
thought myself, and it puzzled me."

"Well, my friends are Evenk, it's true. And my own language I mainly
lost it in Novosibirsk. Without even speaking Russian properly. I'm a
mess, I know."

"Don't worry," she said, a little more warmly.

"But I wanted this opportunity to apologize, and to tell you not to be
alarmed if the police question you."

"The police?"

"As the medical officer for the district I must report any stranger I
cannot vouch for absolutely. But there's nothing to worry about. They
will simply check over your background " She frowned at his  expression.

"Is there something you have not told me?"

He was silent, staring into the candle.

"Nikolai Dmitrievich," she said, "speak in confidence. I know there  are
people here who don't want their affairs looked at too closely.
Particularly drivers.

Matters to do with women, things of that nature .. . It's why they're
here. I don't report such things. Is there something?"

"Well, in confidence .. . There is. A woman, yes." "Then have no fear.
The police won't tell her they don't bother with  that."

He was silent some moments longer.

"Can I trust you further?" he said softly.

"If it's not of a criminal nature, of course."

"It's not criminal," he said.

"But I'm not Khodyan. All that I've said of my life the broken
background, Novosibirsk all that is true. Yet I'm not Khodyan.

In Novosibirsk I knew Khodyan. His father was the schoolteacher. We
were friends, and we became drivers together. But he was unsettled and
went back north, to Magadan. Then this year this summer, just a few
months ago we met again, at Batumi on the Black Sea. He wanted to stay
there and lose his identity. An affair of the heart, a girl he wished to
marry. And he already had a wife and children! So we exchanged  papers.
It was crazy, I know although at the time it seemed a joke!  But that's
it, and I can't have the police searching through papers."

She stared at him.

"But this is a lunatic thing," she said.

"If they had to investigate you for any reason a driving accident,
anything they would soon discover the truth."

"How?"

"I'm not a policeman. But fingerprints?"

"What fingerprints? I have done nothing wrong, ever."

"And Khodyan?"

"The same. I would swear to it."

"Then what have you to fear from an investigation, either as Khodyan or
whoever you are?"

He lowered his eyes.

"Well. There is still something else, something very upsetting.  Khodyan
drowned.

He drowned there at Batumi, a tragic accident. And he is buried there.
Under my name! It upset me deeply. The authorities informed my  parents
that I was dead.

And also also this other woman I mentioned to you. What was I to do? I
couldn't go back to Novosibirsk. I was dead! Or to Magadan where Khodyan
was known. Also I couldn't stay at Batumi. He was known there  too,
Khodyan. And I had his papers. So in the end .. . Ponomarenko,  who knew
all this the three of us had teamed up together Ponomarenko  said I
should come up here for a bit. take his apartment, his job,  until I'd
sorted myself out. And that is the whole truth, I swear to  you!"

She looked at him a long time in the candlelight.

"Well, you made a good impression on your comrades, at any rate. As
well as here. But this is an insane thing you did!"

"Yes. I'm a fool. I think I have always been a fool," he said  sadly.

"But not bad! If I could convince you of that, Tatiana Petrovna!" She
pursed her lips and moved down the aisle with the candle.

"You will not submit me for police investigation?"

She blew the candle out and set it on a bench and opened the door.

"I must think about this."

"You know I am not a bad man!"

"Look, Nikolai Dmit What do I call you now, anyway?"

"Kolya?" he said, smiling anxiously.

"All right. Kolya. I have a responsible function here, a trusted one.
People trust me."

"Then trust me. You know me now. You have examined me every part of
me," he said, smiling more widely.

"Tell me ... do I have a murmur?"

"No." Her own faint smile came on. They crunched down the path
together.

"I had to restrict your movements, in order to Well, never mind. But
it's true you are very tired and need a few days off. Hand that form  in
on Monday. And we'll leave early tomorrow. No church!"

"Thank you. I know I can do with a rest."

"And while having it your eagerness for the collective. It was the
Evenks you wanted there, wasn't it?"

"They have always been my friends."

"A secretive man." Her smile remained.

"And I can understand why now. But I was right to have my  suspicions."

"I hope you didn't mention them to anyone else?"

"Of course not. I rely on my own judgment."

"Yes. I see why it is so respected. May I mention how much I admire
you, Tatiana Petrovna your thoroughness, your observation .. . among
other things?"

She glanced at him swiftly.

"Just remember the five bunches of flowers. But thank you, anyway .. .
Kolya."

They went into the house, and he was asked, and mentioned the flowers,
and they took tea with the old lady and went to bed.

And then all that was over, and only the events of tomorrow remained.

It had to be done. There was no escaping it. In the past hour she had
become, suddenly, warmer, more human even, in her perplexity, likable.
Yet it had to be done. She couldn't remain. But he had gentled her,  he
had disarmed her; she would give no trouble. And she had told  nobody.

He undressed and got into bed. There was still the question of
Murmansk, whether inquiries had come from there. He would ask her.  Also
whether she had written into his record the ban on long-distance
driving. She had been writing something, not only the sick note. He
would ask that, too.

And the letter to the collective. Had she written it? Not that he any
longer needed a letter. They knew him now in this place, Panarovka. He
would come up for her funeral, perhaps.... They would take him to the
collective; he would meet the Evenks, go out with them to the herds, see
this headman, Innokenty.

Yes, it was shaping up.

He blew the light out and lay back. He had better do the driving
himself tomorrow. He could stop where he wanted then, and do what he had
to do.... He had a sudden image of the Little Ghost River winding  in
the moonlight. He would need a spot to overturn the car afterward;  a
broken neck had to be explained'. He thought it over for some  minutes
and then stopped and eased himself down in the featherbed.  There were
plenty of spots, and there would be no problems. Yet he  slept badly.

They were out at nine, still in the dark, despite ructions from the
mother.

"I

am too busy this time," Komarova said, patting her hand and bestowing
perfunctory kisses. He received one himself from Viktoria, and shook
hands with the old lady.

"Let me drive," he said, at the car.

"I am quite relaxed today."

"No, I don't like to be driven. And get in quickly. She will send
Viktoria out on some nonsense. Anything to delay me!"

He got in, and the reliable little bastard started immediately. Well,
some other way.

She took off down to the river, and drove carefully onto it.

"It's even more slippery this morning--last night's low temperature."

This was true. In the headlights the river ice had a greasy sheen. He
knew he had only about twenty minutes on it, twenty-five at the most, if
she drove slowly.

"Drive slowly," he said.

"There were many sharp bends I noticed on the way in."

"I know them. And I trust myself more at the wheel than you. Your  hands
are shaking."

"Perhaps I am tireder than I thought."

"You are. You need your rest."

"Well, sometimes the patient isn't the best judge."

"He never is. The drivers try to fool me--particularly after sick bay,
when they want the long-distance jobs." "Yes. Did you write it in my
record that I can't drive long distances  anymore?"

"I did. But I can change my mind," she said, the slight smile
appearing.

Yes, but you won't, he said silently. They had gone a kilometer. He
decided to give it another eight, perhaps nine; halfway between the
village and the Kolyma.

He kept his eye on the clock.

"Are you watching my speed?"

"No. I didn't know I was doing it. A habit of the job."

"Of the 'boats'?" She smiled again.

"Yes. The boats .. . This seaman you mentioned, the Korean. You  thought
I looked like a Korean?"

"Just a look. He had more hair than you." She glanced at him, still
smiling.

"A

head of hair. With a pigtail, and a mustache. A very angry man."

"What was the matter with him?"

"We thought yellow fever. But it wasn't."

"Why was he angry?"

"Frustration, mainly. He had almost no Russian. He kept shouting in
Korean, bits of Japanese. We thought he wanted to go to Japan he'd  come
from there. But it was Murmansk he wanted, and his ship."

"So he went there and sailed away?"

"Yes, I suppose so. He went, anyway."

"And you heard nothing more?"

"No." She steered carefully around a bend.

"Not yet. They'll acknowledge receipt in time. I discharge a patient
from my district, they accept him in theirs. You can't board a ship
after a fever without a proper discharge, which they have first to
accept. We get it with Russian sailors sometimes. They're always slow
with the paperwork, Murmansk."

So something would come. Well, somebody else would deal with it. Two
kilometers to go, he saw.

"Can I smoke?" he said.

"You know I don't permit smoking while I drive."

"Then stop for a minute. We'll both have one."

"Don't be silly, Kolya. You can wait."

"It's true my hands are shaking. Look. A cigarette will pull me
together. It confused me, that village. I was quite confused."

"So many Chukchis?"

"Yes. And perhaps your attitude." She had a scarf around her neck. It
wouldn't be in the way. An elbow crooked around the head, a hand at  the
base of the neck.

"Stop awhile and we'll talk about it." "I'll drive, you talk," she said
dryly.

He took his cigarettes out and opened the packet.

She glanced at him swiftly.

"Put them away, Kolya. I told you!"

"Stop the car," he said.

"Don't talk to me in that way!" she said angrily.

"Stop the car."

"What do you " He got a foot up and kicked both hers off the pedals, at
the same time wrenching the wheel. The car slewed and hit the bank and
he pulled on the hand brake, still fighting her for the wheel, and
managed to steer it around, and again, two complete circles, before it
bounced again off the bank, and slowed to a long slithering halt, aslant
the track.

Her mouth was open, her face chalky in the reflected light of the
headlamps.

"What are you " "I'm sorry," he said.

"No don't! Don't!"

He had an arm around her neck, could feel her breath.

"It's me! Understand! Kolya it's me you want! You've come here for  me.
For Rogachev don't you understand? Rogachev!"

Her head was crooked in his elbow, and he relaxed it slightly, staring
at her.

"What are you saying?"

"I know who you are! I landed you from the ship. I waited for you!
Idiot fool!

Let me go!"

He let her go and they stared at each other. Her mouth, her whole jaw
was shaking, eyes still glassy with fright.

"Were you going to kill me?"

"Yes."

They still stared at each other.

"Where are the cigarettes?" she said.

He found them under his feet, the packet crumpled. He found two whole
ones, and lit them, one for him and one for her. Five

The House of Dr. Komarov Her ankle was bruised and swollen where he had
kicked it--kicked much  harder than he'd realized. They sat in the dark
room and he watched as  she bound a compress on the swelling. They had
barely spoken since  reaching the house.

He poured himself another vodka.

"For you?" he said.

"No. It's too early. One is enough."

It still was early. It wasn't yet eleven.

The house was a wooden one, like her mother's, on the outskirts of
Tchersky. It was crazily lopsided, a veteran of many thaws; but it stood
alone, no neighbors within eyeshot. There was a large shed  alongside.
The bobik was now in the shed.

He had noted all this and was now turning it over in his mind, together
with all the other matters revolving there.

She finished binding the ankle and sat back with her own drink. The
eyes were still somewhat glassy, but now from the vodka, perhaps. She
was palely controlled, watching him.

"Why did you wait so long?" he asked at last.

"To see how you managed here. If you were capable."

"Did I manage?"

"Yes. I had to be very sure."

"Then why Panarovka, the inquisition?"

She took a sip of vodka.

"To see what story you'd produce if it came to a police investigation.
Also how you'd be with genuine Chukchis .. . You were very lucky."

"You also."

She nodded, looking into her glass.

"You planned to kill me before we left here, didn't you?"

"Yes." "Your story in the church, about Khodyan, Ponomarenko--were you
given  all that or did you make it up?"

"I made it up."

"Glib. As well as lucky. All right, put a drop more in here.... So
where is Khodyan?"

"I don't know." He poured into her glass and into his own.

"I don't know where his papers came from, either. But the background
came from Ponomarenko."

"Ponomarenko is in Batumi?"

"Maybe. He's somewhere. They have evidence against him of drug
dealing--a capital offense. a long term at the least. He's under
control."

"Why Ponomarenko?"

"It happened to be Ponomarenko. Many drivers go to the Black Sea for
the summer.

Ponomarenko was not lucky."

"What did he have to do--provide his apartment, all the details of his
life here?"

"That, yes."

"Including his relations with Lydia Yakovlevna?"

"No. Those I found out for myself."

"Did you also find out she had gonorrhea?"

He drank, pokerfaced.

"Eighteen months ago," she said, "I had to send that girl to Tchersky
hospital.

She had concealed her condition, and it had become serious. I couldn't
have you going into hospital again. Every mark on your body is  detailed
there. Which is why I examined you. Stay away from the girl.  She's
promiscuous."

The vodka had brought faint color to her cheeks, and the eyes gleamed
more brightly now.

Again he made no comment.

"So what plans have you for getting to Tcherny Vodi?"

"Obviously, the Evenks--first a visit to the collective, and then the
herds.

They have a headman there, Innokenty. He chooses the people to go to
Tchemy Vodi. A stinking head comes down and makes out the passes for
them."

She stared at him.

"Passes, stinking heads, Innokenty .. . Did you know all this before
you came?"

"No. I discovered it here."

"And this is why you wanted a letter to the collective?"

He smiled faintly.

"I also discovered," he said, "that I didn't need it. They take their
pelts there from Panarovka. I would have gone with them."

"You were going again to Panarovka?" "For your funeral."

Her mouth dropped open, and something flickered momentarily behind her
eyes.

She drank some vodka.

"Well," she said presently.

"You don't need that plan. / go out to the herds, every six or eight
weeks. In a helicopter. You'll come with me."

"Is this Rogachev's idea?"

"No. Mine. It's true you'll need the cooperation of the Evenks. Which  I
see from your performance you have a good chance of getting." She
finished her drink quickly.

"He hasn't told me any detailed plan yet."

"Does he know I'm here now?"

"Yes. He knows."

"When did you see him?"

Her thin smile showed for a moment.

"The last time? I should think--thirty years ago."

Thirty years ago, she said, Rogachev had stayed in this house. He had
been a fellow prisoner with her father years before in the camp at
Panarovka. When it had closed down he had gone back to Moscow, while her
father had remained here.

Panarovka couldn't be lived in at that time--the Chukchis were still
dismantling the camp and turning it into houses--and her father had
made this place his surgery. Her mother had come up from Leningrad,  and
here she herself had been born .

At the time Nizhmye Kresty (Tchersky's old name) had been very rough,
very primitive; detested, abominated, by her mother. Many released
prisoners were still roaming; a proper medical service was not yet
established; there was nowhere for visitors to stay. And Rogachev had
traveled up on a visit, in connection with some scientific mission, and
had stayed with his old friend Dr.

Komarov.

"And soon became my adored friend! There I was, a little girl of six,
without any friends, and this delightful man--I remember he insisted
they take me along when they paid a visit once to Panarovka, to have a
look at it again, see how it was getting on. It was very old, much older
than the bigger camps along the Kolyma. Old from Czarist  days--old,
old, with its church. Is this too complicated for you?" she  said, at
his thoughtful expression.

He was pouring himself more vodka, and the thoughtfulness arose from
his growing awareness that Medical Officer Komarova was getting  drunk.

iSi "No. I'm following," he said.

"Then pour me one, too."

"Tatiana Petrovna, there are important--" "Tanya will do."

"--important matters here. Is it wise for you to drink so early?"

"It isn't wise. But is it every day one faces one's murderer? And
discusses the subsequent funeral. My God--in cold blood!"

"You aren't facing your murderer. There was no murder."

"Through my presence of mind! And your Russian has improved. Who are
you?"

"Tatiana--Tanya. Questions will be asked about me later. Isn't it
better that you don't have the answers?"

"All right." She drank a little, watching him. Her eyes were now very
bright, the flush in her cheeks accentuating the pallor. She lit herself
a cigarette and sat back with it in her mouth. She looked  different
again--longer, lankier, the injured foot stretched out on a  stool, the
drawn-back hair no longer unremarkable but now severely  elegant.

He looked away from her, around the dark room.

"You think this a strange place for me to live?"

"Perhaps I would have expected a modern apartment."

"I married into a modern apartment."

"It didn't suit you?" he said, after a pause.

"Neither the apartment nor the little brute I married. A cardiologist,
from the hospital. Now making his fortune in Moscow. Private clinics,
rich crooks. His specialty was the heart, but he had no heart. Far  less
a soul," she added, nodding.

"No children, thank God. Do you have children?"

"No ... You were speaking of your own childhood."

"Correct. Well then, Rogachev stayed here three months, to my great
delight--a playful man, good with children--and I was desolate when he
left."

"Did he come in connection with the research station?"

She shook her head.

"He couldn't have known anything about it then. Nobody did.

It was thought to be some kind of weather place. No, he had some
low-temperature experiments going on, he went out with the trappers.
Then he'd come back and we would play. He was full of little games. I
was Tanya-Panya, and he MishaBisha--our secret names."

"Misha-Bisha?" Rogachev's name was Efraim--Efraim Moisevich.

"Misha the hear. He was a burly man. Just funny names. He gave  people
names."

is "Yes." He remembered them.

"Then what?" he said.

"Then he went away. And later so did we, to Panarovka. My father
retained this house; he was helping them set up the medical service
here.. .. Anyway, there I was at Panarovka, apart from school and
medical studies. And later I became a paramedic--all leading us to the
point." She took a sip of vodka.

"Which was when I became medical officer of this district a couple of
years ago, and he asked me to help him--Rogachev did."

"You said you'd never seen him again."

"I haven't. A note, unsigned. Just greetings from Misha-Bisha to
TanyaPanya."

"He sent it to you?"

"Through an Evenk. In an envelope."

"Where?"

"There. At Tchemy Vodi. They have a surgery. I provide the medical
supplies.

It's in my district."

"You go into the place?"

"To deliver the supplies. And to treat patients--the Evenks and the
security staff. The scientists have their own doctor, also on the staff.
I've never seen him. I receive a list of what he wants and I  supply
it."

"Wait a minute," Porter said, slowly working this out.

"If an Evenk gave you the message--they see Rogachev?"

"An Evenk does. Rogachev's body servant. The job's hereditary. That  is,
his father had it before him, and so on with all the previous  heads."

"The manservant gave you the message?"

"No, I've never seen him, either. But he's allowed to meet the other
Evenks, to discuss family affairs. He's totally trusted. He wouldn't
discuss anything else--even if he knew anything. He just does what  he's
told."

"And he was told to get this message to you."

"Yes. It seems Rogachev had heard there was a new medical officer--the
daughter of Dr. Komarov. That first note was just to check it was  truly
me. Later he told me what he wanted."

He got up and walked about the room. In a recess beside the stove, an
icon was on the wall. The stove was cold, the house now electrically
heated, very stuffy, very warm. Books were everywhere, on shelves,
tables. He couldn't make out the titles in the dark.

"What did he want?" he said.

"He said he had discovered something of great value, which they were
preventing him from publishing."

"Did he say what it was?" "No."

"Or what they're doing up there?"

"Not that either. Except I know now that it involves dangerous
substances. They had an accident a few months ago, and the results of it
contaminated the lake.

Their filtration plant was out of action for some days and we had to
send them drinking water. A few scientists flew in and made a great fuss
checking out the area. But the wind was the other way and there  were no
effects here."

"Were the Evenks affected?"

She shook her head.

"It was at night and they were in their dormitory. They were locked in
all next day, too. There'd been a fire, and fumes were still in the  air
outside. It was some kind of explosion.. .. You know about it, of
course," she said.

He made no comment on this, "How did he think you could help him?"

"Stepan Maximovich--that's the servant--had to get some cigarettes to
me. You know all this, too."

"And what did you have to do with them?"

"A Japanese ship had been coming here for the past couple of years.
Some of the Evenks work as dockers during the summer, and they'd told
Stepan Maximovich that one of the sailors had been asking for drugs. It
was a joke--the Evenks had no access to drugs. But he passed it on to
Rogachev, a piece of gossip. This was the first MishaBisha heard of  the
ship, and it gave him his idea."

"Which was what?"

She sighed.

"For me to board the ship, of course, when it came. And contact the
drug taker."

"The Evenks pointed him out to you?"

"Of course not. They know nothing of this. I saw it in the man's  eyes.
I was taking the crew one at a time in a cabin set aside for me.  The
man was on heroin. I offered him a derivative, rather less  dangerous,
if he would do something for me. I explained what it was  and told him I
would give him more when he came around again. The ship  was coming
twice in a season--in early June and in September."

"In Japanese you were explaining all this?"

"In my bit of English. Enough for a hungry addict... Is this some kind
of interrogation?"

He shrugged.

"What reason did you give for examining the crew?"

"That I was tightening up health requirements. The ship had come from
tropical parts; it was due to take on fish after unloading. And you are
now making me very tired. And also hungry. In the kitchen  you will find
salt fish, and some bread and sour cream. Also a  tray."

She hobbled on a stick when she had to and for the rest of the day sat
with her leg up. The day was very overcast, and the windows of the old
house small, but by three o'clock it was night anyway, and he had gone
around switching on lamps and drawing curtains. She watched him doing
it.

"You're a long fellow," she said, "for a Chukchi. But you're not a
Chukchi. Or an Evenk. Or anything I know. You're o/the north, of
course?"

"You identified my instep," he said.

She smiled coldly.

"Also very careful. Well, how far have your automotive works gone?"

He had told her some details of the bobik--having decided he needed her
shed--and now he told her a few more.

"You plan to leave here in this machine?"

"If necessary. An alternative exit," he said.

"Some more formal exit is planned for you, of course."

"Yes, it is."

"Do you want to tell me it?"

"No."

"All right." But she remained staring at him.

"So where are you building this vehicle?"

"You don't need to know that either."

She lit herself a cigarette. "Too much smoking. But this is hardly
normal.

I'll have another drink, too."

She had it on the sofa, her leg more comfortable there, and she gave
him more information on the herds. They discussed the matter until
supper, which he also assembled and brought from the kitchen;

together with a coffee jug and two mugs.

"Well, quite the housekeeper," she said.

"Practice. Do you have help here?"

"Yes. A Yakut woman comes in twice a week."

"Does she go into the shed?"

"No." She stared at him.

"You're the most cunning man, I think, that I've ever met. That's  where
you'll keep the motor parts, is it?"

"A few things, yes." He got on with his meal, and she got on with  hers,
glancing curiously at him.

She told him the layout of the research station and he listened
closely.

"So where's your consulting room?" "In the guards' quarters. The Evenks
come there."

"Is that the only place you have contact with them?"

"Well, they have to unload the car and load it again."

"What with?"

"Various supplies. Big distilled-water jars. They use a lot of it
there, laboratory work. It's not worth flying in, and we produce it in
Tchersky anyway.

Various other drums and containers. I take the empties back."

"Where do they keep this stuff?"

"In a storage shed, near the airstrip."

"Is that where you park?"

"No, I'm not allowed there. I go to the commandant's office. And they
bring along a sled, or a tractor. It depends how much there is."

"Do you supervise this operation?"

"The security people do. They have to check everything that goes in or
out. Were you thinking I might smuggle you out?"

"Well... What if somebody's ill?"

"They'd be flown out. And not to Tchersky. No contact is allowed with
Tchersky.

And nobody goes in or out without an escort anyway."

He drank his coffee, musing.

"So how do / get out?" he said.

"The same way you get in?"

"And stay there a month?"

"That would complicate matters in Green Cape, wouldn't it?" She  nodded.

"Well, you're not thinking so badly. Go and bring the cognac. Maybe
you'll do better."

He went and got the cognac, puzzled. She had drunk a lot today, but it
had not noticeably affected her judgment or the authority of her manner.
Evidently he was being subjected to some other test, a probe  of his
reactions. She had done it before, in the church. She was  taking risks,
of course, for herself, for Rogachev.

He turned with the cognac, and saw she had shifted position on the
sofa.

"Come and sit here," she said.

"I'm tired of shouting."

He sat slowly, and carefully poured.

"Your hands are long," she said.

"Also your femur." She examined the femur. She examined it all the  way
up, and unzipped him and slipped a hand in.

He gazed at her.

"What's this?" he said.

"Are you surprised?"

"You have examined me once already."

"Now you can examine me." With her other arm she pulled his head down
and kissed him. It was  quite an affectionate kiss, and she was smiling
as she drew back and  looked into his face.

"Long fellow," she said, "today you tried to kill me, and I could be
dead.

But I am not dead, and nor are you, and this is my house. You attract
me. I am accustomed to getting what I want. And it's something to
celebrate, after all--being alive."

She was not as buxom as Lydia Yakovlevna; lankier, less cushioned. But
she was lithe, controlled, and very much more genuine, arching without
histrionics when her moment came. He arched at the same time, and
afterward she kissed his face and stroked it. They lay comfortably
together, at peace with one another.

"Yes, worth celebrating," she said at last.

"And altogether satisfactory. But now there's work to do."

They got up and did it for some hours, planning how he could get into
and also out of the place he had come around the world to reach. Before
midnight they had agreed the first steps, and these were detailed steps.

On Monday he took his sick note to the administration block, and
immediately afterward went to see Vassili in his storeroom.

"You didn't come Friday," Vassili said.

"They gave me a medical. I'll take the stuff at lunchtime, Vassili.
And, listen, I need a bobik for a week."

"A week?"

"They laid me off, at the medical. They say I'm tired and need a  week's
rest."

Vassili looked him over.

"Well, you're looking shagged," he said.

"That's your Evenk girl, is it? What use are you going to be to her if
you're worn out?"

"Never mind--I need a bobik."

"So go and ask Liova."

"If I'm off work I'm not entitled.. .. Vassili, put in a word for  me."

The old Yakut chuckled silently.

"All right. But let him take a look at you himself. He'll see what a
wreck you are. You don't need to mention anything." He grunted and went
to find the Light Vehicles chief.

"Well," Liova said, staring at him, "you need a rest, it's obvious.
You've been working hard."

"I don't. But it's what they said. I'm sorry."

"Kolya, take it easy, now. You're a good lad."

At lunchtime he went back to the depot and found Vassili alone, eating
from his pot.

"You got your bobik," the Yakut told him, chewing.

"And Liova said shove one into her for him, too. I never saw him laugh
so much. You want to take the axles now?"

He took the axles and he also took the manual, to see how to put the
thing together. And in an hour and a quarter was at Anyuysk.

He took the made track fast and was soon off it and onto the tributary.
The days were now shorter, barely two hours; this one gray, clear, very
cold: a still life, set in ice. It was a week now since he'd been  here.
He found the overhanging bushes and got out and inspected the  cave with
a flashlight. All as he had left it. He drove the bobik in  with the
lights on, kept the engine running, and unloaded the axle  assemblies.
Then he stood back and looked around.

Spacious enough, but no room for two bobiks. When he started assembly,
the other one would have to stand outside.

He became aware of another problem. For the assembly he was going to
need light.

Not light from the delivery bobik that was out of the question; even
from the air it might be seen. And not just torchlight. Proper lighting.
He needed a generator, and some wiring rigged, and a  tarpaulin or sheet
for the entrance.

Well, it could be done.

The icebox was chilling him to the bone and he got back in the bobik
and sat with the heat on, leafing through the greasy manual. The first
job: Bolt the chassis together. And get it on wheels. Then what? He
studied the drawings and the exploded diagrams. Steering assembly,
brakes, transmission, clutch. Hours of fiddling in the deep freeze. He
would need a heater, too.

It was dark outside now, and he reversed out and drove back along the
tributary.

He drove slowly with only sidelights until he came to the made track
and Anyuysk, and then put on speed. The plan called for him to go home
now.

Anna Antonovna heard him enter the apartment, and shortly afterward was
tapping on the door herself. He had given the old lady her own key but
she was discreet in using it.

"Well, I tidied you in here," she said.

"But what happened this weekend? You said you wouldn't be working."

"No, I was with friends." "Here, or in Tchersky?"

"Neither. At Novokolymsk." This was the story they had agreed.

"I've got a week off so I thought I'd pay them a visit--with a bobik I
borrowed. I'll be running out there again," he told her, grinning.

"Ah, you found the natives at the collective, did you?"

"Sure. And they can sleep me. I only looked in to pick up a few
clothes."

"What, you're going back now?"

"For a few days."

"Well, I know who won't be pleased at that," Anna Antonovna said; but
the old cat face was smiling as she left.

She would be passing on this interesting item to the young lady in the
supermarket. All as planned. Everybody had to know. He took a shower
and sat in one of Ponomarenko's bathrobes, with a vodka.

There was no phone in the apartment, and he didn't want to use the
public one below. He waited until he could hear no traffic and then
dressed and packed a bag and left. At Tchersky the lights were on behind
her curtains, and he turned into the driveway. She had given  him a set
of keys and he parked the bobik with hers in the shed and  locked again.
Then he let himself into the house.

The house of Dr. Komarov had stood a hundred years--a long time for a
simple one of wood, but the wood was good. It had seen out Czar
Alexander III and Czar Nicholas II, and also the entire Communist
regime. Though tilted sharply in two directions, it still looked good
for many years to come, for now it was rooted firmly in the  permafrost.

Now but not always. In 1893, when the cellar had held prisoners of
Alexander III, they had lit a fire in it to try to stay alive. This  had
thawed the permafrost and occasioned the first tilt. The second  was Dr.
Komarov's. In an onslaught on the bugs and lice that infested  the place
he had treated every centimeter of it with a chemical  solution, and to
make sure of remaining larvae had boiled them with a  steam hose. He had
steamed out the cellar too, and in the summer of  1959 the house had
lurched slowly forward.

The timbers had stood up well to this, and the house would not now
lurch anymore. His daughter, Tatiana, had seen to that. Her first act
had been to drive piles into the permafrost, pinning the structure in
its present position, and then to isolate the cellar with half a meter
of insulating material--floor, walls, and roof. A trapdoor enabled it
still to be used as a storeroom, and it provided quite a capacious one.
Here Porter found the kerosene stove and the generator--the latter a
neat job from Japan, not much needed in the past few years as Tchersky's
power supply had improved.

He tried them both. The stove needed a new wick but was otherwise  quite
serviceable, and the generator started at once.

For the time being he left them there.

In the next three days he ran parts down to the cave. With Vassili's
agreement he picked them up at eight in the morning, using the back door
of the storeroom to avoid going through the garage, and returned  at
lunchtime for the second load. He went back to the house right away
then, for Komarova had told him not to absent himself for long. The plan
for getting him to the herds depended on the weather, and for this  he
had to be ready at short notice.

Now he knew far more about her.

She had been divorced six years and had not looked for other
relationships. Had there been any? Of course--brief ones, she was human,
what did he think? But just hospital people: doctors who came  on two-
or three-year contracts and then left, for Moscow, Petersburg,  God knew
where. She couldn't leave, at least not yet. Her mother was  a trial,
but still her mother. Later maybe. But where else would she  find such
wide responsibilities and such work?

She loved the work, and she loved the country--the native people better
than the Europeans. So she kept her distance, and was considered  aloof;
yes, she knew it.

But better that than join a white elite and patronize the natives. Her
father had never patronized them, and neither had Rogachev, and she had
loved them for it. They were not treated equally--he must have seen it
for himself. Plenty of extras for Europeans in these northern parts, but
natives excluded, even in such matters as drink. She got them  drink,
and why not? It was a hard country. Yes, she was in some ways  detached
here, in some ways out of place. But she would be out of  place in a
town.

So what would do for her?

She didn't know what would do. Her work would do!

She had scrupulously avoided asking him anything further about himself;
so on the second night, trusting her suddenly, he told her.

She sat up in bed and looked at him.

"An American Indian!"

"Canadian."

"Not [he Porter--Dr. Johnny Porter?" "Well, that's my name."

She stared at him. Then she got out of bed and ran into the next room
and returned with a book. It was his Comparisons, the study of tribal
legends, in a Russian translation a standard reader in universities of
the north, he knew, but a surprise to see here.

"This is yours?" she said.

"Yes."

"You mean, you're not a not just an agent? So what are you doing  here?"

"Well." He hesitated. But then he told her the background at least.  The
meeting with Rogachev in Oxford. The strangeness of his own life  at the
time a widower, at twenty-three.

She'd only been nineteen herself a little thing, very pretty: long
black hair, ponytail down to here.

"An Indian girl?"

"Oh, sure. Minnehaha, Laughing Water doe-eyed Bride of Hiawatha. Name
was Trisha, actually. She didn't have doe eyes."

"What happened to her?"

"She skipped out to catch a bus at lunchtime. The bus caught her.
Somebody said she probably hadn't heard it."

"She hadn't seen it?"

"Being blind, no."

"Oh."

"She could hear a pin drop in the next room!"

"You mean " "Ah, hell, who knows what I meant? I was seeing plots
everywhere. Politics. All a long time ago ... I guess she missed the
curb and slipped. Anyway, Rogachev told me to quit brooding. An  amazing
man I'd never met anyone like him. A polymath, interested in everything.
In blindness too especially in blindness, actually .. . We  were
discussing congenital things turned out his wife was going blind,
degeneration of both eyes. He was depressed as hell, under all the
cheerfulness. But he said brooding was no good for me. There was
something for me to do in this world, and he'd help me any way he
could. Which he did, actually."

He was silent a moment.

"See, earlier on I'd been trying to get to Chukotka, a security part
you couldn't get to. It was to research the Inuit there, Eskimos. And he
got me permission, and I went. I didn't use the stuff at the time,  and
I heard nothing from him directly. And later on I discovered why.  His
wife had been killed in an accident, he was in all sorts of trouble
himself. Yet he'd done that for me he'd meant what he said. So when they
showed up with these messages ..." "But to take on such dangers! To
disrupt your whole life in this  way--" "I've disrupted it before. And
lived rough before--he knew  that. He knew I could do it, that I was the
only one with a chance.  And that I'd take it if only I saw what he'd--"
He decided to skip what  Rogachev had written.

No more sit in darkness nor like the blind stumble at .. .

"Anyway," he said, "I did."

"Good God!" She was still clutching the book.

"Well, you'd do," she said. She lay on top of him.

"My God, you'd do!"

On the Thursday he took the engine.

There were now only three days left of his week off. It meant taking
the block and tackle, too, and also the lighting.

"Lighting wire? What do you want with lighting wire?" Vassili  asked.

"I might need some. Give me twenty meters. Also eight sockets and  light
bulbs."

"This is a lot of favors," Vassili said. He measured off the flex.

"When are you going to do some for me?"

"What do you want?"

"She is talking stroganina again."

"Okay. I'll get a run to Ambarchik next week."

Vassili took a careful look out of the back door of the storeroom, and
together they manhandled the engine in its harness out to the bobik.

"You're coming back lunchtime?"

"No. This is a lot of engine," he said, rubbing his back; he had
carried the greater part of it.

"I told you. See the block is secure before you lift it. Don't skip  any
screws.

There'll be no other engine."

"I'll be careful."

He went back to the house and picked up the generator and set off on
the river to Anyuysk. By half past ten he was at the cave and he drove
straight in, with his headlights on. He had already had a trial on the
roof of the bobik and the position gave him enough room. Now he knelt on
it and got to work.

There were eight holes in the securing bracket. He held it against the
roof and lightly bored the eight placer marks with the battery drill.
Then he laid the bracket aside and drilled the full depth. He went seven
centimeters into the granite, and got through three drills and  two sets
of batteries. Then he plugged the holes and screwed the  bracket home
and swung hard on the tackle. All secure. He took a rest then, and had
some coffee, while figuring out the  lighting. This was a finicky job,
but child's play after the heavy  overhead boring. Only shallow holes
needed, and short plugs for the  hooks. He spaced out two on the roof
and two along each of the three  walls. Then he paid out the wire and
draped it loosely from the hooks.  The twenty meters didn't give
anything to spare, and he still had to  cut it to connect the light
sockets.

His fingers were numb and he fiddled with this job in the bobik with
the heater on. He spliced in the sockets, attached the terminal plugs
for the generator, and got out and hung the circuit. Then he went around
screwing in the bulbs, got back in the bobik, and gave himself a  vodka.
It was after two o'clock and he was very tired. He was tiring  too
easily, too much running about. He lit a cigarette and read  through the
scrappy leaflet that came with the generator. It had  worked in the
house but here, only twelve volts needed, he could blow  the whole damn
array.

He got out and checked the controls again. Then he made sure the  output
switch was off, and started up. The thing coughed into life and  chugged
solidly away.

He let it run for a minute, then switched the output on. The bulbs lit
up like a Christmas tree, and stayed lit. Okay. The engine now.

He switched the bobik's lights off, reversed out, turned on the frozen
river, and backed in again. The light was well spread. He opened the
rear of the car and hooked up the engine. They had bedded it on a felt
pad in its lifting harness, and he hauled on the tackle chains and saw
the pad begin to shift as the engine moved. The pad slid out and fell to
the ground and the engine swung loose. He kept it hanging and  guided it
clear of the car and lowered it slowly to the ground.

Done.

He took the bobik outside and went back in for a final look. There was
a lot of stuff now; almost everything. Tomorrow he'd pick up the
remainder, take it to the house, sleep all day. At night back to the
cave and start the assembly. He would work the whole night through.

He switched the generator off and drove back. He felt unsure of  himself
suddenly.

Something had changed. He didn't know what. But all his life he had
respected these feelings. He went over in his mind what it might be.
Nothing. Yet something had changed.

He drove slowly, and it was six o'clock before he reached the house.
There he learned that something had changed. Tomorrow there would be  no
cave, but the herds. For now the time had come. Tomorrow night, if
everything worked, he would be with Innokenty, the man who sent people
to the research station. He was unsure about this, too. The story they
had concocted seemed  now utterly childish. Earlier it had not seemed
childish. Now it  seemed childish. It was too late to think of another,
though, so they  worked over it, far into the night;

all the time his lowering feeling persisting.

He had no idea, still, why he was here; what was expected of him at
Tcherny Vodi; what activities went on there.

In China at this time they had no idea even of Tcherny Vodi's
existence. But they were aware of some activities. A very strange one
had come to light.

The military commission met in Beijing, before them the reports on the
test missiles--the missiles of October and of November.

The October missile had gone off course six minutes into its flight, so
that the new guidance system had not operated. This system switched on
only in the last kilometers of flight. A visual device then compared
what it read below with a pre stored computer image, correcting course
and trajectory until the two images matched exactly. But so far off
course, nothing had matched. A fault of the missile, not its terminal
vision.

The second vehicle was of an older type, but with a totally reliable
flight record. And it had been reliable. It had flown to Lop Nor,
anyway, and hit it, but so wide of the mark that, again, the visual
system had obviously not switched on.

However, it had switched on. It had reported itself switched on. And
then it had switched off.

Between these two missiles, there was an important difference. The one
arriving at Lop Nor had been conventionally wired, all its networks
connected by electrical cable. The other was optically wired, with
fiber. The commission knew the reason for this, so their experts  wasted
no time, going immediately to the main problem.

Both missiles had been interfered with in flight.

The first had suffered interference after six minutes, when its signals
had ceased. It had then been executing a fractional turn to the  west;

and it had stuck in this turn, which by burnout had taken it due south
to Lan-chou.

The second missile had reported an unidentifiable buzz, but it had
reached Lop Nor. It had reached it with its video switched off.  Shortly
before, it had reported the video switched on.

The missile diverted from its course was optically wired.

The missile not diverted was not optically wired, but its optical
system had switched off.

The experts pointed to an obvious conclusion: The interference was
optical.

On this they offered two further comments.

The first was that they knew of no scientific explanation for such
interference;

and the second that it could only have come from an altitude much
higher than the missiles.

At an altitude a quarter of the way to the moon, two satellites were at
present in stationary orbit over China. They were electronic
intelligence (ELINT) stations, one of them American and the other
Russian. The American had been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base
in California, and the Russian from Tyuratam in central Asia.

The experts' recommendation was that Vandenberg and Tyuratam be
targeted, urgently, for anything that could shed light on this
development. This was possible, for agents were available at both
centers, and already much was known of events in these important
vicinities.

Of events in the unimportant vicinity of Tchersky nothing was known.

Tchersky airport, so late in the season, had extended itself on to the
river ice. A dozen or so fixed-wing planes of Polar Aviation were parked
there, and also a huddle of helicopters, large and small.

Medical Officer Komarova and her Chukchi assistant boarded a small one,
already warming up for them, and took off at once, heading southeast.
The day was dark and gray, ominous with gusts and waiting snow. A
blizzard was expected within hours.

The pilot chided Komarova on the fact as they rose above the town.

"Couldn't you have made it earlier? I still have to get you back."

"A rush of work all morning. I won't stay long."

"You say that, but always you stay hours. What is it with those  natives
there? . Who's this one?"

"An employee of the transport company." They had taken care to let the
pilot see the Chukchi driving the bobik and carrying the two heavy  bags
from it to the helicopter; Komarova herself was hobbling on a  stick.

"Pay attention to your own duties," she added coldly.

"Just fly."

The pilot grunted and flew, and Porter marveled at the sternness of
this creature who had last night so riotously straddled and caressed
him.

They didn't have to fly long, barely fifty minutes. But darkness was
gathering fast as they spotted the weird cloud on the ground. The
spectral shape rolled and tumbled there, shot through with silver the
breath of reindeer, an immense herd, crystallized in the air. They  came
down low over it, the pilot peering in all directions before he  found
the group of tents that housed the Evenk herders.

He had to hover almost on top of them before deerskin-clad figures came
peering out, running and waving. Then he put the helicopter down, and
kept the rotors turning.

"Aren't you coming out?" Komarova called, at the door.

"No, I'll keep her running. It's cold out there and the wind is high
they couldn't hear me." He was having to shout, listening to a weather
report on his radio.

"Remember I don't spend nights with a tribe of Evenks!"

"I'll be as quick as I can."

Outside several women were among the huddle of Evenks, and they
bear-hugged the medical officer, gazing curiously at her Chukchi
assistant. The wind was indeed high and howling, all the ground below
knee level shifting with flying snow and ice. They were hustled into a
tent a leather one, Porter saw, and double-skinned. Its entrance flaps
opened into a heat-lock vestibule, and beyond it more flaps led to the
circular living space, a big room, six or seven meters across, entirely
carpeted with bushy reindeer robes. A sheet-metal stove roared in the
middle of it, standing in a large tray piled with logs and cooking pots.

The heavy canvas bags were speedily taken off him and their contents
greeted with approval. The bottles had been wrapped in cloth to  prevent
clinking, and one of vodka was opened immediately.

"No no time for that!" Komarova said.

"The pilot has to get off. What complaints are here? How's  everybody?"

The complaints were the normal ones: sprains, sores, inflamed eyes. But
one of the women was pregnant, and Komarova took time examining her
behind a screen.

She examined others there too, and he kept careful check of the time,
calling it out to her. It was after three o'clock, now totally dark  and
less than two hours before the predicted blizzard. The plan needed  the
pilot to be able to take off, and his radio could still ground  him.
"All right, I'm coming," she called back, and presently was hurrying
out.

"But Evdokia, you're coming with me. I want you checked in hospital.
And Igor, too.

That back looks a disc problem. And more vitamins are needed here--too
many sores. I'll send supplies tomorrow. And the instructions with them.
There's no time now, no time!" And out they went, struggling  against
the wind to the helicopter: the pregnant woman, the man with  the back.
Medical Officer Komarova, and her assistant from the  transport company.

"What's this?" the pilot shouted, as they clambered aboard.

"How many of you?"

"Just two patients and us."

"What, two patients and you? Two patients and you two make four. With
me, five.

The machine carries four!"

"You've carried five before."

"In high winds, with a blizzard coming? No way. One of them stays."

"These patients have to be in hospital!"

"Then let him stay!"

Which he did, after some angry words.

So far, so good. The childish story, still to come, was another  matter.

Innokenty he had spotted immediately. The headman had sat smoking his
pipe on the carpet while the medical examinations were carried out.

"I never heard anyone speak the Evenk tongue so," the old man said,
"not any stranger. How does it come about?"

Porter told him, and he told them all, over a venison dinner and ample
drink, how it came about. He told of his childhood in Chukotka, of the
schoolteacher father, of Novosibirsk and the Evenk friends he had met.
How in the big town he had almost forgotten his own tongue, but his
Evenk friends, true souls, had not forgotten theirs, and of how it had
almost become his. Of his hankering for the north, and his driving
experiences ever since. They were charmed by him, and charmed also at
his interest in their own lives. Every aspect interested him, and they
gladly answered all questions.

No, they didn't remain in the one place; that was plainly impossible
with such a large herd, over two thousand beasts. The reindeer grazed
the moss under the ice. They grazed it and were moved on every few days.
No problems. A small party dismantled the tents and carried  them ahead
and re-erected them. The same with firewood: every week or so a party
would go south to a great wood stack nearer the timberline  and collect
it. Sure, on sleds, you harnessed up a couple of reindeer;  wonderful
beasts. They carried you, clothed you, fed you. Better than  beef. And
cheaper to produce than beef, and fetching better prices!  Yes,
everywhere, all over Russia, and Japan too, and God knew where  else.
The collective did all that.

He didn't know the collective? Novokolymsk. All that work was done
there, the carcass-handling, packing, dispatch, accounts. They went back
there themselves regularly. A big helicopter came and transferred  them.
One party went back, another party came out. The schoolchildren  stayed
at the collective, of course;

only came out to the herds for holidays. No, not everybody returned
regularly;

Innokenty didn't, and many of the older folk also. They preferred the
wandering life, didn't feel the need for television, videos, parties.
All that was for the younger ones. But- a good life for everybody, a
natural one, full of variety.

Indeed, he said, indeed it was. And he'd heard they also found time to
fit in work at the docks in the summer. How did they fit all that  in?

How did they fit it in? They could fit anything in. They were free.
They did what they wanted. And it wasn't the only thing they fitted  in.
They also worked regularly at a science station up in the hills.

Ah yes! He knew about that. Had actually met a couple of them when  he'd
freighted a load to the guard post there a few weeks ago. He  explained
the situation, to their very great interest. Which Evenks  were they?
Well, he hadn't caught their names, but from his  description it was
generally agreed who they must be--and what a pity  they weren't here to
greet him. They wouldn't be down for a week yet.  Yes, the same system,
one party came back and another went up to  replace them.

Truly an interesting life, he said admiringly. And he regretted not
having picked up any science himself. They'd had a scientific  training,
had they, the people who went up there?

This occasioned a great deal of laughter, and also another round of
drinks.

You wouldn't call it science, old Innokenty said, smiling. Just honest
work--cleaning, laundry, cooking, maintenance. And the heating, and
such things.

Scores of people had to be looked after up there, a big government
station, scientists, guards--yes, stinking heads. You didn't have much
to do with them.

And they had nothing to do with Tchersky or Green Cape. All their
supplies came from far away, thousands of kilometers. Which the Evenks
offloaded and shifted, too. But not to the people below, of course.  All
the science happened below, and nobody was ever allowed there. "Only my
Stepanka!" exclaimed a very old lady, smoking her pipe and  nodding.

"Of course Stepanka. But nobody else."

"Who's Stepanka?" asked the Chukchi.

"Her son. Stepan Maximovich. He looks after the boss of the  place--took
over his father's job when he died. It's in their family.  He lives
there. And he has a wife--not old, but beyond childbearing  age, so they
let him take her. For his natural needs," Innokenty said,  winking.

"Ah. Aren't there any other women there?"

"No, none."

"So what do the rest of them do for--you know?"

More laughter. Well, with the guards there was no problem. They were
shifted regularly--in fact, a new crew would be on next week. As for the
scientists, a party of them went out, every couple of months, to  opera
houses, concert halls, things of that kind. They got private  boxes, and
various stinking heads had to go with them. But Stepanka  thought they
were given a ration of the other as well, it was only  right.

Oh, they got to see Stepanka, did they?

Of course they got to see him. Stepanka had to know how his family was
getting on--and all his people! And they were trusted. They were the
only outsiders trusted. They wouldn't trust any white workers in  there.
Or Yukagirs or Chukchis, for that matter. No offence to  Chukchis, it
was just a different way of life in these parts. And the  Yukagirs could
never keep to timetables. They were out scouting their  trap lines all
winter. Go and find them! No, the Evenks with their  regular herds were
the only ones the authorities took. And they took them row the herds,
not the collective. Took them and brought them  back to the herds, so
they shouldn't contact anybody in between. That  was the way of it with
stinking heads.

Well, a fascinating life, he said. But where was the opera house in
Tchersky they'd mentioned, or the concert hall? He hadn't found these
places yet.

More laughter--hilarious laughter, everyone rolling on the carpet-and
also more drinks.

Tchersky! An opera house in Tchersky! Oh no! Not that, Kolya! No  opera
houses in Tchersky! At Novosibirsk! A cargo plane came with  scientific
supplies from there, and it took the scientists back. They  stayed a few
days--some place run by the stinking heads--and then they  flew back. In
Novosibirsk they had opera houses now, and theaters,  everything. Well,
they must have had them when he was there last. Ah, when he was there
last, he said, and grew solemn. (The moment had  come now and he braced
himself.) The vodka had flowed very freely all  evening and a tear now
stood in his eye. When he was in Novosibirsk  last!

What, Kolya? What? Unhappy memories? Yes, unhappy. A person had to  keep
them to himself. Why to himself? It helped a person to speak.  No. He
wouldn't burden them with unhappy stories. What burden? With  friends?
Take a drink, Kolya.

Speak. He took a drink. Well then, he said, and wiped his eyes.  Well..
. In Novosibirsk he had left a most tragic case. A white girl.  Dying.
He had met the family in his early tear about days there. The  father
had worked at an institute outside the town; Akademgorodok  Science
City. He had done odd jobs for the family, a fine family, just  the
three of them, father, mother, daughter.

And then evil things had happened. The mother, still a young woman,  had
taken ill and died. And a grandmother had come to look after the  girl
just eight or nine years old at the time. This was twenty years  ago.
Until one day, out of nowhere, another disaster. The father too  had
gone not dead, just gone, disappeared. A letter saying urgent government
business and he would be in touch. But he had not been in  touch. Not
from that day to this, not a single word nothing. What  nothing?
Innokenty said. How could they live on nothing?

Money wasn't a problem, Kolya said. Money came, regularly, from the
ministry that had employed him. It was just no word from him, no idea
what had happened.

The ministry couldn't tell them what had happened? The grandmother
tried. She tried everybody: the ministry, the place where he'd worked,
his colleagues.

Nothing. So then what?

So then time passed, he went back to Chukotka, got a driving job. And
the girl wrote from time to time. Told him the grandmother had died.
Until suddenly, this year, a few months ago, she wrote again, very
urgently. Could he come and see her at once? Which as it happened he
could. The driving season had just ended, it was June, he was going to
the Black Sea. So he went to Novosibirsk first, and saw her. And was
shocked by what he saw. The girl was desperately ill, wasting away the
same disease as her mother, and the same age, twenty-nine. And the
doctors said nothing could be done for her.

Well he couldn't accept that, wouldn't believe it. On the Black Sea
they had other doctors, different cures. So he had taken her there, gone
to top specialists, paid them privately. But the same story:  nothing to
be done. And the Black Sea was too hot for her, so he had taken her back
to Novosibirsk. And there they had stayed, and had  wept together

Until, he said, wiping his eyes again, one day she had asked him to do
something for her, one last thing.

When she first knew of her illness, she had gone herself to
Akademgorodok the place her father had worked. Had pleaded with them,
pestered them, gone from office to office. And in a certain room,  where
records were kept, had overheard officials whispering together  about a
place in the Kolymsky region. And dimly from her childhood she
remembered her father had also spoken of this place. A mysterious kind
of place, a weather station, from which he had received reports, also
spoken of in whispers. And from this she had got it into her head that
it was the explanation of his disappearance. He was in this mysterious
place. He was not allowed to write!

And this was what she wanted of him to take a letter to her father,
begging one last word and his blessing before she died. She knew Kolya
drove about in the north. To her, Chukotka, the Kolymsky region, were
all the same. They knew nothing of the north down there, none of them.
So, for a dying girl, what else could he do? He had come up to  Tchersky
and taken a job with transport company and looked for this  weather
station. Of course he knew now there wasn't such a place.. ..  But yes,
that was the reason Novosibirsk had sad memories for him.

Wait a minute! Innokenty said. He had been staring hard at him.  Twenty
years ago you say this man disappeared?

Twenty years ago.

But twenty years ago there was a weather station here our science place
up in the hills!

You don't say so! Kolya said.

I do say so, Innokenty said. That's what they said then. And there  has
never been any other weather station in the region.

God above you mean I've actually found it? Kolya said.

God has found it! Stepanka's old mother said. She had thrown her pipe
down and was weeping. He has led you to it! My Stepanka will take  this
letter for you.

He'll see her father gets it.

It's a miracle! Kolya said. I can't believe it! Only tell me when it
can be done!

In just a week, Innokenty told him. When the helicopter brings the
others down, the new party will take the letter up.

And the reply when would I get it?

Four weeks later, when they come down again.

Ah God! Too late! Kolya said, bitterly. She'll never last that time.  In
t\'o weeks I have to leave. To be at her deathbed. Then what's to be
done?

They had another drink while thinking what was to be done.

Nobody could think what was to be done.

Was it possible, Kolya said at last, his face creased up as he puzzled
the matter out, was it possible for them to get him up there somehow?

Well, Innokenty said. Possible, yes. He could go up as a member of a
party. The stinking heads didn't know one from another. But what was  to
be gained? He would still have to stay there four weeks. They  didn't
bring them down again for four weeks.

And if he was switched?

Switched?

Kolya tried working this one out, too, his face again very creased. He
worked it out once, and he worked it out twice, and by the second time
tears had turned to laughter and even the old lady was rolling on the
floor with her pipe.

Oh God, yes! Oh God, why not--if it could be done? Comfort for a  dying
girl--and in such a way, from people who were free and did what  they
wanted!

All night the blizzard raged and he drowsed by the stove, disturbed
occasionally as men stumbled out to re-tether the leaders keeping the
herd together. But in the morning the weather was clear and the
helicopter came with the vitamins, and he went back with it, the Evenks
waving boisterously up at him as he rose in the sky.

"We'll meet again," they had told him, winking. Oh yes! Yes, indeed
they would!

So that part too was over.

Now there remained only the last.

After his week's rest Kolya Khodyan signed on for work again at the
Tchersky Transport Company. And he returned the bobik.

The story of his supposed Evenk girl had passed around, he saw, for he
was greeted everywhere with hilarity.

"Had your rest cure, Kolya? Found something nice and comfortable to
rest on?"

He smiled sheepishly, and took all this.

From Yura, the Kama truck chief, there was no hilarity. The plan  called
for him to go and see the little man anyway, but that same  morning he
was sent for.

He decided to walk the half kilometer to the hangar. "What's this,
Kolya?" Yura furiously demanded.

"What? I put you down for a long haul. And this note comes back: "No
long distances struck off." What the hell!

What's happening here? What?"

He assumed his sullen expression.

"My skin is what! They no like it. Say bad heart."

"Who says bad heart?"

"At the medical. They make me do medical. Look at my papers, say no
good bad heart. Is all lies, those papers! Nothing wrong with my  heart.
Is my skin!"

"Wait a minute. What trouble with your heart?"

"I have a fever as a kid is nothing! Some doctor in Anadyr says later
maybe I get bad heart. I don't get a bad heart. Nobody says so,  nobody
in Chukotka! Here they say it! Not my heart. My skin, eh  Chukchi skin.
No good!"

The heavy-truck chief breathed loudly through his nostrils.

"We'll soon see about that!" he said.

He picked up the phone and called Bukarovsky.

Kolya lit himself a cigarette and waited. Nothing would be coming out
of Bukarovsky. All the road manager could ask for was an urgent hospital
check.

Which Komarova would hold up for two weeks. In two weeks he would no
longer be here.

He listened to the shouting match, and the phone slammed down.

"Okay, all fixed!

He's getting you a hospital check urgent. Komarova will arrange it
herself.

You'll have the long hauls, I promise!"

"Did I ask for them? Did I ask anything? Is my skin!"

"Kolya, come on! It's a fuck-up with your papers. Everywhere there  are
fuck-ups!

You're wanted here. Everybody wants you!" He came and put his arm  round
the Chukchi and squeezed him.

"And didn't I hear you've got a little bit somewhere who also wants
you? Somewhere out at a collective? Eh? Eh?"

"Is my business," the Chukchi said, sullenly.

"Sure it is, Kolya. Sure. Shagging your ears off, you dog. What?
Tearing down there every night in a bobik!"

"Yes, one thing more," he said. "/Vo bobik. I come in, give up bobik.
No-good driver, no bobik. I have to walk here now."

"What!" Yura reached for the phone again.

"Liova? Liova, what's this " More minutes of shouting before the phone
slammed down.

"You've got a bobik. He said you never even asked him."

"Why ask? If I'm no good? No favors."

"Kolya, Kolya." The little man squeezed him again.

"Nobody says that. You're the best! Don't get so hot. Okay, for a  few
days you do short runs, until your checkup. After that, I promise you
Bilibino, Baranikha, Pevek, everywhere! Go on, off now. And  someone
will run you back. My drivers don't walk!"

So that was settled: his medical condition established, hospital
checkup in motion, a bobik once more at his disposal, and short runs a
certainty.

He started on them at once.

He managed a trip to Ambarchik in the week and brought back a fish for
Vassili, and also one run each to Provodnoye and Anyuysk. He carried the
rest of the car on them.

The same week he started the night assembly.

"She is making stroganina," Vassili told him on Friday.

"You want to come tomorrow?"

"Vassili, what I am getting is better than stroganina."

"Sure. I told her. Your eyes are hanging out."

"It's not the only thing."

"I believe you. You're overdoing it. She says you need oil and if you
can't come she'll send you stroganina."

"I'll be very glad. Also for the oil."

"So what work did you manage with the bobik?"

"A bit, not much."

"You'll find the underside can be a bastard. Unless you have a pit.
Everything fits from below."

"I expect I'll find it."

He found the underside a tremendous bastard. He took sacking and a bit
of carpet with him, but still his back froze as he lay under the
chassis.

As Vassili had said, the thing was a toy, but an unbelievably heavy
toy, clumsy, rugged, all of it unexpectedly difficult. He had brought
the block and tackle just for the engine. He found he was using it for
everything.

To fit the front suspension, the completed frame, immediately fast
frozen to the ground, had to be lifted. The block and tackle lifted  it.
To fit the other end he had to attach wheels to the front, drag  the
thing out like a wheelbarrow, and turn and back in again, to get  the
rear in position. The block and tackle lifted that, too. He was
improvising all the time, and swearing all the time; yet everything
fitted-laboriously, painfully; but locking together like a mecca no set.
He slept all day Saturday and Sunday and worked through both nights,
muffled to the eyebrows, the kerosene stove pushing out feeble  warmth.

But when he drove back Monday morning the chassis was on wheels, the
steering in, the transmission ready, even the exhaust loosely  attached.

"Look, you can't continue like this," she told him. It was five in the
morning.

She was in a dressing gown, having heard him come in.

"You can't finish it before you go up, anyway. In two or three days  you
will be going up. Even today I could be given a date. And you  need to
be thoroughly rested for it."

"Yes," he said, dully. He was truly desperately tired.

"Today you won't accept all jobs. They'll understand--your medical
coming up ... this Evenk girl. And stay near the depot. My office  could
phone in at any time."

He fell into bed and slept like a log for two hours, until she woke him
with coffee. Then they left together, still in the dark, Komarova
scouting the street before signaling him out in his bobik.

The call did not come that day, but the next. It came when he was out
on a local run, and he returned to find Liova signaling him over.

"Kolya, you want a light number with the medical center?"

"What is it?"

"They need somebody tomorrow morning--a three-day job. Komarova has a
sprained ankle and can't drive out of town. She has a few trips, maybe
including the collective. And since you know the place," he said,
grinning, "it's yours if you want it."

"Okay, I don't mind," he said.

He went to his own apartment after work, to pick up his ID and some
clothing out of the wardrobe. He had worn very little of it, had been in
the apartment very little the past few days.

He was taking a shower when Anna Antonovna looked in, and when he came
out she was still waiting, ready for a chat. And within ten minutes of
her departure Lydia Yakovlevna also looked in, alerted by the old lady,
he had no doubt. The girl was furiously resentful.

He had someone at the collective, didn't he? Everyone was saying he  had
a girl there. It was very insulting for her. People knew she was  his
girl now; she was braving Alexei's future wrath, risking her reputation.
And for what--for him to go with a filthy little Evenk  whore? Come on,
the truth now. He had an Evenk girl, didn't he?

Not an Evenk girl, he said. Just Evenk friends. They were good  people.
He had always had Evenk friends. Oh, yes? And Chukchi ones, too? He had
been seen! Going off with  high and mighty Komarova, to that Chukchi
place. And what had that  haughty bitch said about her? Had she been
spreading any lies?

What lies? Nothing. Why should she? Everyone knew what a lovely  person
Lydia Yakovlevna was. Everyone spoke well of her, her charm,  her warmth
as he did himself.

Oh, did he? Well, let him prove it. He was a different person since
he'd come back from Bilibino with all that money. Go on, let him spend
some of it, a good meal, she'd dress up for the occasion, and they'd
share a full night together.

Ah, that he couldn't; he was tired, had to start early in the morning.
He was driving for Komarova the next three days. His knowledge of native
languages was useful to her. She mustn't see anything wrong in  that.
Green Cape was full of gossip, she knew it. After the three  days, then
they'd get together again.

The girl reluctantly went, and he mused over what she had said. It was
true the place was full of gossip. Anna Antonovna had told him plenty of
it. But nothing about Komarova had come up. Would she have told  him if
it had? Maybe he had been seen near the house.. .. He decided  not to go
back tonight. He went below and made a guarded call from the  public
phone in the hall. Then he fixed himself a couple of drinks and  some
food from the fridge, and watched television.

There was a talk show on television and he saw again the jolly little
man in reindeer boots the deputy mayor of the town, he now knew, a token
Yakut and remembered where he had seen him first. The flickering  tapes,
rainy Prince George .. .

Suddenly he could not eat the food. The events of tomorrow rose up in
his throat.

At Prince George he should have backed out. At any time since he could
have backed out: at the camp, in Japan, on the ship, even here with the
Evenks. But tomorrow he couldn't back out. Once started then, he had  to
continue. And it would end he knew it suddenly, could recollect a
distant voice warning it would end in tears.

One call now, then, and cancel?

He poured himself another drink.

No. To hell! To come so far, and give up? Something for him to do in
the world Rogachev had told him long ago. See it through to the end.  He
tossed back the drink and went to bed. 39

He was up early in the morning, and was early at the medical center, in
one of Ponomarenko's jazzy lumber jackets.

There he helped load up, in the packing bay at the rear.

The distilled-water jars were jammed tightly into heavy crates, and the
packers normally loaded them last to hold the lighter materials in
position: the crates went fifty kilos apiece.

As the driver, he had other views on this. It would make them
tailheavy, he said, and the route was very slippery this season. The
track up to the guard post was bad enough--he had hauled a load there
not long before--and the stinking heads had said the farther slope was
even worse. For that final leg stability up front was needed; the big
crates ought to go in first.

The packers bowed to his superior knowledge, and they were amicably
completing the job when Medical Officer Komarova showed up, leaning on
her stick.

"Ah. A driver for me today. Good."

The bobik's doors were closed and they were off, and soon on the river.
It was still dark.

"What problems last night?" she said.

Her face was very pale, he saw, and stiff.

"Nothing serious." He explained them.

"That little tart. Still, you were right not to come. You've brought
your papers?"

"Everything." His particulars had been telexed to the research station
and would be waiting at the guard post.

They left the river and entered the creek, and he drove a few
kilometers along it and stopped.

She wound a scarf around her head and chin and put her fur cap back on,
while he shrugged into Khodyan's balaclava. It was a Finnish one,
decorated with ski figures; he topped it with the opulent mink hat.

"All right?" he said.

"Yes. Very becoming." But her voice was dry and tight.

He drove on again, and presently the red flag for the turnoff ramp came
into view in the headlights.

"Switch on the circuit radio," he said.

She switched it on and got the familiar crackling voices. "I'm not sure
I can go through with this," she said.

He wasn't sure himself. He didn't answer, turning up the ramp.

The logs had been gritted again, he saw, and on top the two men were
waiting again. Not the same two, for, as the Evenks had said, the
security staff had changed over; but a pair almost identical. Bundled-up
figures, ear flaps down, breath standing in the air,  automatic weapons
slung. A military jeep stood by the guard post.

The men saluted the medical officer, and one of them, a sergeant, bent
into the window.

"A hard morning, Doctor. No trouble getting here?"

"No." She licked her lips.

"Do you want me out?"

"No, stay where you are. You've got a bad leg, I hear. Just your
papers. He can come out. What's the name--Khodyan?" He was checking  his
own sheet, but spared a look at the fancy headgear and the lumber
jacket.

"Khodyan." He managed to crack his face into a smile. He got out;
produced his papers; had them checked; waited while Komarova's papers
were also checked.

"How's the track up there today?" she said, her voice forced.

"Not so bad. There's four-wheel drive on this?" the man asked the
Chukchi.

"Sure, four-wheel."

"Follow me. In first gear. Open the back now, I'll check it out."

The rear doors were opened and the sergeant checked off the goods
crammed inside.

"Okay, close her," he said, and walked off to the military jeep.

"How long you staying there. Doctor?" The remaining man was beating
gloved hands in the frigid air. He had just opened the gates barring the
upward track. A harsh wind was sweeping from the mountain.

"No time. There's been--an emergency call." The radio was still
crackling out.

"I'll be down almost at once."

"Thank God for that!"

"Stay in the hut--this wind isn't good for you."

"I don't need telling!"

"Okay, let's go!" The sergeant had backed the jeep and was signaling
them, and the small convoy set off.

They exchanged a quick glance, but he said nothing. The path up was a
sunken road, plowed into the slope and zigzagged to keep the gradient
manageable. It was still very steep, and they ground slowly up in  first
gear.

In just over a kilometer the top of the dome came suddenly into view,
pinkish floodlight reflecting off it. He recognized it at once from I
the photographs. And after the dome, the whole camp, laid out on the
plateau;

two, three hundred meters of low buildings, spread out, enclosed by
tall chain-link fencing, all floodlit.

Just as they reached the gates he identified the storage sheds too, and
the generator housings, and the landing strip. The jeep halted at the
gates, which opened, admitting them to a pen and another guard post,
where they were stopped again.

Here papers were once more checked; both sets of gates, those behind
them and those in front, kept shut. Then they were motioned on, the jeep
leading the way.

It stopped at a squat concrete building, until a couple of uniformed
men emerged; and then left, the sergeant waving them to remain.

"This is it," she said. Her voice was barely a croak.

"Open the door for me."

"Remember your words. And that you're in a hurry."

He ran around to the door; and she emerged stiffly, poking with her
stick.

"What's this, Medical Officer?" The first uniformed figure was a  major,
very smart in his fur hat and shoulder boards.

"They say you've hurt yourself."

"A sprain, nothing. It doesn't interfere with my work. Apart from  this
wretched driving," she said irritably.

"I can't stay, I'm afraid an urgent case on my radio. A wasted  journey,
except for these stores. Have them unloaded at once, if you  please.
Open the back," she ordered the Chukchi.

He ran around to do so, and the officer looked in.

"Yes. I heard it was a fair load. The tractor's called for here, it's
coming.

You'll step inside for refreshment?"

"Not just for the moment. I'll see them started first. I don't want  any
dawdling here. Be so good as to bring me the requisition order,  Major.
I'll look at it on the way down. And I'll join you inside very  shortly.
Come on, now, hurry it along!" she called to the approaching  tractor.

An Evenk was driving the tractor, and another one was in the small flat
car that it was pulling. Porter recognized them both they had been  with
the herds; the changeover had taken place.

As the major withdrew inside, his subordinate took over and supervised
the unloading.

"Now, men, make fast work!" he urged the Evenks.

"The medical officer has to get off on a case."

"You won't be seeing us today. Doctor?" one of the Evenks asked.
Maddeningly, both Evenks were grinning at her broadly. "Not today. I'll
have to come back. Careful with those cartons," she  said severely.

"There are bottles inside."

"What case you on. Doctor, what's the urgency?"

"Never mind the case! Just look what you're doing. And don't throw,  now
carry them!"

The driver was pulling the light goods out of the back and tossing them
to his mate for stacking on the flatcar.

"Only two pair of hands. Doctor," the man complained.

"And if we're to hurry it up " "Shall I get a few extra hands?" the
guard asked her.

"No, no, they can manage perfectly well. Just see they do it properly.
Look, they're stacking too high, everything will tumble. See it's
redone" she looked at her watch "and the crates have still to go on!"

The guard hurried to supervise the restacking, and the Evenk at the
bobik hurried to haul out the crates. The crates, having been stowed
well up front in the van, required him to jump inside to get them; and
to assist him the Chukchi jumped in with him. Once inside he swiftly
removed his mink hat, balaclava, and lumber jacket; and just as swiftly
the Evenk removed his own upper gear. The Evenks were clad in deerskin
jackets, fur side in, their crude caps worn flaps down. In no time  they
had swapped over.

"Quick, take my papers!" Porter said.

"You'll need them to get out."

"Papers? Where the devil should I put " The man had still found no
place to put the papers when the guard, at the flatcar, noticed the
Chukchi in the bobik.

"Hey! You there come out!"

The two men looked around at him.

"You, in the fur hat, come out at once! You're not allowed!"

The man now in the fur hat came slowly out, shaking his head at the
medical officer, and the guard walked suspiciously over.

"Now, officer," Komarova said, swallowing. She had observed the  shake.

"Those crates are very heavy. One man can't handle them on his own."

"Well, he can't handle them. You know that. Doctor. No outsider  handles
anything here."

"Yes, you're right," she said, but remained staring at him.

"This it's your first trip here? I don't remember examining you
before."

"No, first time. Doctor."

"Put your tongue out."

"My tongue?" The man bemusedly extended it.

"Yes. Slight soreness. And some nausea, too, I expect." All the guards
had slight soreness and some nausea the first few days.

"Let me see your eyes." She helped herself to them, pulling down a
lower lid and getting him to gaze skyward while she did so; at the same
time noting that papers had changed hands behind him and were now
secreted.

"It's the altitude. Not so good for your heart, I'm afraid. I'll take  a
look at you later. For now, carry on. And get the men moving."

This the man did, at speed, but still in a state of abstraction over
his heart.

"You're coming back when. Doctor?" he anxiously asked.

"Not today. And tomorrow's out of the question. It will be the day
after.

Ah--and I have a message for you!" she called to the Evenks.

"Tell Stepan Maximovich his grandchild will be premature, perhaps with
complications. Let him choose names without delay, for a boy or a
girl."

"Wonderful! We'll celebrate. But they keep us dry as a bone here,
Doctor! Can't you bring us up a drop?"

"No, I can't. Tell him to write the names down, and I'll take them  when
I come.

You shouldn't be drinking up here," she told them sternly.

"Doctor," the guard said. He was earnestly staring at her.

"Is there anything / shouldn't be doing here?"

"Yes. Try not to sleep on your back. Or the left side. Use the  right."

"The right," he said.

"And call the jeep for me now. I won't be long with the major." She
glanced at her watch again.

"A sick woman is waiting down there! See the sergeant is here in the
jeep. And I'll be out in two minutes."

And in two minutes she was, with the medical sheets and a flurried
major. The sergeant was there in the jeep. The Chukchi was there in  the
bobik. And the small convoy was off once more, through two sets of
opened gates and down the icy path to the guard post. There the two
certified visitors--checked down below, checked on top, and now checked
out--were saluted off the premises;

security one hundred percent. The guards saw them safely down the ramp
and removed it. And the medical officer was back in the creek again,
with her driver. It was the first time the man had seen it.

Up on top, his replacement was also seeing things for the first time.
He had accompanied the tractor back to the storage sheds, receiving many
winks from the Evenks working there while the guards slowly  patrolled.
Now he was helping transport another load, to the supply  bay. The
supply bay was at the rear of the complex, and as they neared the
boundary fence he suddenly saw what he'd come for. Beyond the perimeter,
a lake. A great basin of it, now iced, but with machinery  of some kind
mounted, evidently at work to keep a section of the  floodlit water
open. The water that it kept open was black, inky  black. Reached at
last. It was here: Dark waters. Tcherny Vodi.

Major Militsky, the camp commandant of Tchemy Vodi, was a rosy young
man, not quite thirty years old, but risen fast in his profession. His
present job he greatly disliked. Twice before he had been rotated to it,
and each time he had disliked it. But this time he disliked it the most.
It was his first time here in winter; and for an ambitious  security man
in winter Tchemy Vodi was an insult. The place was  impregnably secure.

In summer some problems could arise. All supplies had to come by air
then, and strict routines were needed to prevent contacts between the
Evenks and the aircrews--vetted crews, naturally, but given to
stretching their limbs and loitering in the fine mountain air.

In winter there wasn't even that. The crews that arrived went right to
the heated crew room and stayed there. And not so many did arrive.  For
in winter, deliveries could also come by land; and they did, to the
lower guard post, for later collection by the camp's own vehicles. An
excellent system--no contact possible between the truck drivers and the
camp.

With the Facility, of course, no contact was possible at any time. It
was perched twelve hundred meters up a mountain. It was built actually
into the mountain, with the camp securely on top of it.

The camp occupied Levels One and Two of the plateau: Level One for the
guards' barracks, the major's suite, and all other visible structures.
And Level Two for services: the kitchen, bakery, laundry, boilers,
workshop, and Evenk quarters.

Underneath all that, on Levels Three and Four, was the Facility, but
about this the major knew nothing. The Facility ran itself, through a
body called the Buro.

Major Militsky had never visited the Buro, and was not permitted to do
so, but three channels of communication existed with it. These were  the
internal postal system, a telephone, and a teleprinter. The  printer was
the most regularly in use, and messages chattered to and fro on it
several times a day. The post, in the form of a deed box  that went up
and down in a lift, was for papers requiring signature  (the
administrator's or, more rarely, the director's hieroglyph) and  was
also quite regular.

The telephone was not regular at all.

The telephone was a hotline, for emergency use only.

No emergencies had so far arisen in the major's tours of duty and he
had not had to use it. He greatly hoped he wouldn't have to do so now,
though an emergency showed signs of developing. To nip it in the bud,
without any panic on the hotline, would need fast action from him on the
teleprinter. And some of the clearest explanations in the world to  the
swine at the other end.

The swine at the other end was a colonel of security, the administrator
of the Buro, who had proved a great pain to the major. On more than  one
occasion he had reported adversely on the major's competence.  Aspects
of the present situation could easily provoke him again, but  there was
no help for it.

The matter was so ridiculous he didn't even know how to explain it. He
jotted down a few notes for himself. But even with the notes it was
difficult.

It concerned the naming of a baby. The baby, not yet born, was about  to
be born, prematurely. When born it would be the grandchild of  Stepan
Maximovich, the director's manservant. Tribal custom among the  Evenks
required the grandfather to choose a name for the baby.

The visiting schedule for Stepan Maximovich entitled him to one visit
per rotation of Evenks. And he had already had it, two days ago. Because
of the baby the Evenks were now demanding a further visit;

in fact, two. This was because he would need to consult his wife in
between. It might even be necessary for him to have a third visit, in
case he changed his mind. Grandfathers often changed their minds. If
this one changed his it could easily take them into tomorrow. It
couldn't be after tomorrow, because the day after tomorrow Medical
Officer Komarova .. .

The major tugged at his collar. Rough going. . because the day after
tomorrow. Medical Officer Komarova, who had herself informed them of the
imminent baby (brief details of visit), would be coming to the camp
again. The Evenks were insistent that by then the baby's name had to  be
known. Evenk belief was that a dead baby, even more than a live  one,
had to have a name in order that God .. .

Well, skip God. The colonel would have views on God. But how then to ...
What they had to understand down there was that Evenks were free
workers, not conscripts. Could withhold their labor. They were asking
that matters be brought to personal attention of Director. Great
importance of avoiding Situations. Camp commandant was holding a guard
escort available. Speedy approval requested for immediate visit by
Stepan Maximovich.

Well, it was untidy. But it was all there.

The major tapped out the message and waited, in some trepidation, for
the reply.

In twenty minutes the teleprinter started chattering back.

He read it, amazed.

"Best wishes to Evenks and best hopes for the safe arrival of their
newborn.

Camp commandant to be congratulated on his tactful handling. Visit of
Stepan Maximovich approved. Guard escort to be posted immediately at
entrance to Level Three."

"To be congratulated on his tactful ..." He read it again, goggle eyed
very far from expecting that.

The Evenks, in their dormitory, had expected nothing less. They had
stopped work and assembled there, having informed the major that they
would remain until Stepan Maximovich arrived; which he did within
minutes of the major conveying best wishes.

Down the corridor came two guards, Stepan Maximovich between them, and
halted at the dormitory.

"Stepanka!" They jumped about him and wrung his hand and slapped his
back and continued doing so until the two guards, grinning, left the
natives to it and departed outside the door.

The Evenks carefully closed the door.

"By God!" Stepanka said. He was a merry little fellow, one eye half
closed in a permanent wink.

"I've started believing it myself. Is that girl of mine so  premature?"

"A little premature--Komarova confirmed it today. But Kolya here says
there's nothing to worry about."

"Worry? Why would I worry? All six of my grandchildren were  premature.
Forward children!" Stepanka said proudly.

"And not one named by you, you old bastard! Did you bring up something
to drink, at least?"

"Not now .. . But Kolya! I'm glad to know you, Kolya." The old Evenk
shook hands most warmly.

"They told me about you, and this poor girl. And I told the chief the
whole story. He knows the father-has him working down there. I don't
know these people myself, you understand. But the chief's spoken to
him, and he expects the letter. You've got it with you?"

"It's here," Kolya said, and took it reverently out of his waistband.
It was in a lavender envelope, folded in two, and he smelled it first
and put it to his lips before handing it over.

The old Evenk was greatly touched by the gesture.

"Kolya, I see right away," he said, "you're a good fellow. And you'll
certainly get your reward--in this world or the next. I'll bring you the
reply and you'll take it to the girl. But tell me--how did the
switchover go?"

They told him how the switchover had gone, and soon all of them were
slapping backs again in another burst of hilarity.

It went on so long that the guards, thumping on the door, called out
that they were on escort duty only until lunchtime, and to hurry it up.
And Stepanka announced he was ready, and left; this time winking with
both eyes.

He was back before time, at four; for they had expected him at night.
And this time he was not cheerful, but serious, even mystified.

He had brought an envelope with him, concealed in his felt boots, and
when the guards had left he produced it. It was not from the father,  he
said. It was for Kolya's eyes alone. He was to see that only Kolya  read
it.

The Chukchi separated himself and opened the envelope.

A single short note was inside, and he read it twice. Then he looked  at
Stepanka with his mouth open.

"You know what's here?" he said.

"The father wants to see you himself."

"But how is it possible for--" "I don't know how. It tells you how.  The
chief wrote it. You are to read it until you understand it, and  then
tell me either yes or no, and burn it. This is all he told me."

The Chukchi muttered to himself, "What should I do?"

He saw that all the Evenks were staring at him.

"Kolya, is it a dangerous thing?" one of them asked.

"I don't know.. .. Maybe."

"Then listen, you've done enough. You came to bring a letter and to  get
one. Why does the father want to see you?"

Kolya looked at the note again.

"

"He does nothing but weep," " he read out. There was nothing about
weeping in the note.

"I don't know.. .. I've come so far," he said.

"Well, whatever you decide," Stepanka told him, "decide now, and burn
it." He was looking around at the door. Two of the Evenks were  standing
against the spy hole of the door.

"Well." He licked his lips.

"Say yes. Tell him yes," he said, and nicked his lighter and burned  the
note, and then he burned the envelope too.

The main corridor of Level Two was under constant patrol during the
day, and all doors had to be kept open; this was to prevent smoking in
the service rooms, and also drinking, for illicit drink had been known
to turn up in the stores. At night the patrols were reduced to two an
hour, and although all doors were now bolted each one was methodically
checked. An ingenious Evenk had once hidden in a workshop and had
managed to introduce industrial alcohol into the dormitory.

At 10:55 Kolya Khodyan slipped out of his bunk in the locked dormitory.
He was fully dressed, even to his deerskin hat. The room was faintly
aglow with the blue lighting that burned all night--a convenience for
the guards checking the spy hole. He quickly pulled on the felt boots
worn in the dormitory, and padded softly to the washroom; and before
closing the door looked around once to the watching Evenks and raised a
hand.

The washroom had an exterior door to the corridor, for the use of the
Evenks during the day. The guards had already passed--they had heard
them try the door--but he did nothing, waiting as instructed, listening
for the scrape of the bolt. He counted out the full five minutes on  his
watch, but there was no sound from the bolt. Had the job already  been
done? He tried the handle and gently pulled the door. It opened  easily.

He took a look out, up and down the long length of the corridor,
brightly lit, totally empty. The ceiling was studded with smoke  alarms,
and the walls with bulkhead lighting. At the far end he could  see the
barrier with an illuminated sign of some kind over it. Just  around the
corner there, at the locked entrance to Level Three, was a  guard post,
and he could hear a faint rumble of laughter from the  sentry detail.
The shorter length of corridor, to the right, contained only the laundry
and ended in a blank wall with a bulkhead light in  it.

He waited a few seconds more, watching the guards' end. Nothing:

no movement, not even a shadow. He stepped out into the corridor,
closed the door behind him, quietly bolted it top and bottom, and turned
to the right. This was what the note had told him to do. It  was all it
had told him. Obviously it had to be the laundry, there was  nothing
else there.

The laundry had big double doors but no bolts, only a keyhole. Locked.
He ran his hands over both doors, and lightly tapped, not knowing what
else to do, before noticing that the end wall of the corridor had
suddenly opened. The thing had swung inward, about a foot, and he
hurried swiftly to it and slid himself inside.

As soon as he was in, in darkness, the wall closed again and a
flashlight came on. Stepanka was standing there. Stepanka wasn't looking
at him, but at a periscope. The periscope was looking along  the
corridor, evidently through the bulkhead lamp on the other side of  the
wall. Kolya looked himself, and saw the whole well-lighted length  of
it, deserted, everything securely locked. Stepanka was looking
frightened when he turned to him, and he had a hand to his lips. He
fiddled with the knob of a combination lock, checking it with a piece
of paper in his hand, and then beckoned him to follow, waving the torch.

They were in a small room, a cement room walls, floor, ceiling, all of
cement;

bare, windowless.

Stepanka opened a door and they stepped onto a landing also cement,
unfinished, very stark and cold, with a descending flight of stairs
ahead; and he closed the door behind them and let out a breath.

"By God!" he said.

"I never was here before! I never saw this." He was holding his  heart.

"Come, Kolya."

He kept the light pointing downward at the stairs, two steep flights of
them, and they came to the bottom and a short corridor ending in a blank
wall. A rail was set in the wall, and Stepanka pressed it and  pushed
the wall in, and a slant of light came out. He hurried Kolya  inside,
immediately pushing the wall to. The combination knob inside  was hidden
in a decorative grille, and he hastily reset it, studying  the paper.

Kolya was studying the room.

It was a most spectacular room.

It was at least seventy feet long, at least twenty high; chandeliered,
galleried, and with a library set all around the gallery. It was full
of works of art. There were paintings on the walls magnificent
paintings, of all periods:

Gauguin, Picasso, Rembrandt, Mondrian. The room was full of color. And
sculptures. And flowering shrubs and trees trees in great tubs on
casters, evidently for moving in and out. The chandeliers were not  lit,
but they sparkled softly in the light of lamps spaced out on small
tables along the walls. There was a long coffee table a great slab of
black basalt with comfortable couches around it, and club chairs.
Stepanka saw him staring all about and at the ceiling.

"It's two levels high here," he said.

"Level Three and Four, both. This is his library, he sleeps the night
sometimes.... I find him here. Now, Kolya!" He was holding his heart
again.

"You stay here. I have to go and tell him. He will get the father for
you. I can't do it myself."

He went through a door, leaving it very slightly ajar. And presently
there was the sound of tapping on another door and Stepanka's voice
speaking softly in Russian. And then silence; and Kolya waited in it,
looking about the room.

At each end was a spiral staircase to the gallery; and in a shadowy
corner a huge television set and a globe and a drink trolley. Also a
cage. Something moved in the cage, and he walked slowly toward it;

but the cage was only an elevator, and it was his own image moving
there in the mirror that backed it, and he turned sharply around to the
door again, listening.

Another door had closed somewhere and he heard a click as it was
locked. And then an odd whining sound, and the door nudged open and a
wheelchair drove smoothly in.

"Well!" Rogachev said. His hand was outstretched, a great smile on  his
face.

"I

have waited for you, my friend. I have waited so eagerly." Six

The and the Book 41

And now what am I to say to you? It was a lifetime ago we met. And  now
I am an old man, and will not get much older. I will show you what  I
have to show, and you will take back what I have to give. It's all  done
now, everything complete.

That you are here, I know, and you will tell me how it happened. That
you would come 1 never doubted. It was not lighthearted, that discussion
of ours those years ago. My own part I kept immediately and  I know you
took advantage of it--although f saw no result. As you see,  f have
followed your career.. ..

As to my own .. .

My own is so hound up with the events of this land, it cannot he
separated. Over seventy years the Soviet Union lasted--a mighty
structure, solid as rock. Now, like an optical illusion, all gone.  Only
two things of value, I believe, ever came out of it, and of these  one
would have happened elsewhere. The other could only have happened  here.

"I will have two things to show you," Rogachev said. They had spoken
for a few minutes but Porter still stared at him, trying to recollect
the man. The red hair had gone. All the hair had gone. Much skin had
gone, too--great blotches left on scalp, face, hands. And the big  body,
once so robust, was shrunken away, wrapped in a shawl.

"What the hell happened to you--the explosion?" he said.

"The satellite saw the ruins, did it?"

Porter told him what it had seen, what both satellites had seen, and
the scarred forehead wrinkled.

"The roll call, eh? And the bandages. Not bad. Still, it's nothing,
nothing at all, the earliest subjects. But now we have to move.  There's
a lot to do."

He was steering toward the gallery.

"My electric chair," he said, "once my predecessor's, who gave a name
to the device. You won't know of him."

"Zhelikov? Sure, I know of him," Porter said.

"You do?" Rogachev glanced at him.

"Well, you're going to learn more," he said.

He was opening a door under the gallery. A small cloakroom led off it,
all its surfaces insulated with padding. Fur coats hung from the  hooks.
Rogachev carefully bolted the door behind them.

"Help me up," he said.

"We are going somewhere cold, and must clothe ourselves."

Porter helped the old man into a coat, also a fur hat and gloves, and
did the same for himself.

"You'll find goggles in a pocket. Maybe you don't need them--I can't
stand the cold anymore." He strapped a pair around his own head and
opened a door in the far wall. A blast of icy air emerged. Beyond the
door a line of strip lights had come on, revealing a long ramp
descending into a tunnel.

The wheelchair hummed softly down the ramp and Porter held on to the
back. Frost glittered everywhere; abnormal frost, huge multicolored
wafers, delicate and glassy, that clung trembling to the walls and fell
in tinkling showers as they passed.

"I accustom in a minute or two," Rogachev said, his voice muffled. He
was holding a glove over his mouth and nose.

"But I can't stay below more than ten minutes, anyway."

They were going evidently into permafrost, unchanging, un thawing so
that the frost had vitrified. At the bottom, the tunnel leveled out into
a wide chamber.

Here the lighting was not only on the roof but also set into the tube
like walls, the whole place brilliantly illuminated, sparkling with
crystal.

A block of ice stood in the middle, and Rogachev steered toward it.

Except that it wasn't ice. Porter saw. Some kind of plastic, its  upper
section hollow. A coating of frost wafers had fallen on it, and Rogachev
took a little spatula from his coat and carefully removed  them. A
transparent case was beneath, embedded with a network of fine hairlines.

"A temperature control," he said, "to prevent shriveling."

Porter couldn't at first be sure, but it looked to him as if a girl was
in the case. "It opens quite easily--a silicon seal. Just give me a hand
to hold  it," Rogachev said, and raised the lid.

A girl was in the case.

She was on her back, eyes closed, very pale. A white sheet covered her
from abdomen to knees but she was otherwise naked. Blond braids of  hair
were draped at either side of her breasts, and her closed eyes, slightly
slanted, were set above high cheekbones, the lips a little  open as if
breathing. Her wrists were crossed on the sheet, right over  left. She
was tall, shapely, very handsome.

Porter looked from her to Rogachev's goggles.

"What's this?" he said.

"A young woman, perhaps seventeen. We had to carry out some operations
on her, as far as possible from the back. But also a Caesarean  section:
She was eight months pregnant. Hold the lid."

He leaned over and very carefully drew down the sheet, exposing a row
of sutures above fair pubic hair; there was no reddening of the skin,
and the neat stitching looked new.

"The scar couldn't heal, of course. But the baby was there, perfectly
formed. As you see, the girl is fair. Her eyes are gray. In life her
color would be better, but that's how we found her so we kept her the
same shade." He drew the sheet back in position.

"Who is she?" Porter said.

"We call her Sibir, after the country. It's a Tartar word, you know,
not Russian; something like 'sleeping," 'still." This is how I found
her. She had died instantly and was preserved instantly--quick-frozen.
Don't be afraid, you can touch her. She's well embalmed now."

He reached forward himself and raised the upper wrist. The hand came  up
quite flexibly. It was a broad hand, the fingers long but square,  the
nails short and ragged.

"The arm underneath is broken, the left one. She fell on it--she was a
left-hander. The finger pads and the palm are quite deeply scored
there. Leave that alone, but touch her, make contact. You won't get
another chance."

Porter drew off a glove and gingerly felt the girl's face. It was
smooth, full, by no means cold--indeed, to his own chilled hand, it felt
warm. He stroked the skin, the nose, felt the earlobes beneath  the
braids.

"I can't stay much longer--it needs heated suits, from the labs,"
Rogachev told him.

"That door at the back leads up there. This is my own entrance. I  come
often. Take a good look--walk around her. She's tall, isn't she?
Distinctive. A good face--Slav, would you say?" Porter walked around the
case. The slant of the eyes didn't look Slav  to him.

"I don't know," he said. The legs were scratched, but the nails on her
toes better than on her fingers: She had worn footwear.

"What's the story?"

he said.

"A unique one. You'll never see anything like her. She's been in that
state for forty thousand years. Before Slavs, before any of the  present
races of the world. I found her in a block of ice. She's one  of the two
types we all spring from, perhaps the matriarch of  millions--she had
given birth before. I don't know what became of her  earlier offspring,
but the child she was carrying I know a lot about.  Oh yes!"

He closed the lid and turned his chair and set off immediately, and
Porter followed him.

A few steps up the ramp Porter stopped and looked back. He could still
see her in her case, alone -in the brilliant tunnel; could see her lips
a little open, and for a moment had the illusion that they were moving.
But it was only the crystals, again fluttering down.

Rogachev had braked the chair and turned, his goggled eyes also looking
down.

His mouth was twisted slightly in a smile.

"Do you know the story of King Saul?" he said.

"His father sent him out to find lost donkeys, and he found a kingdom.
Zhelikov sent me to find a mammoth and I found a lost world. As a matter
of fact I found something more--something quite . incalculable.  It's
the reason you're here. But where to start?"

Where does it start? At Pitsunda, with the accident that led to my
appointment?

Or a little before, the chance meeting at Oxford? Or long before, the
first meeting with Zhelikov? Well, say that one:

1952.

In 1952, suddenly, inexplicably, I found myself under arrest. I had
done nothing wrong--nothing at all. The director of my institute had
perhaps done something, although I doubted it. But the whole research
team was rounded up, and sentenced, and scattered to the four winds,
myself to the Kolyma and the little camp at Panarovka.

At that camp, met Zhelikov for the first time.

Zhelikov, already most eminent, was also by then a most seasoned
prisoner with many terms and many camps behind him. At Panarovka just
then he was preparing a series of lectures, and on my arrival a young
low-temperature specialist he obtained permission for me to assist  him.

Those lectures were a great success, with camp officials and prisoners
alike, but afterward he told me he had given them only to get off
onerous camp duties.

He also confided how he had come by this useful trick, and of the
events surrounding it.

At another camp, during the war, Zhelikov had found a most interesting
pair among the prisoners, Korolyov and Tupolev. Both were "enemies of
the people," Korolyov's particular crime being sabotage:

the misuse of munitions for making fireworks. This pair had got up a
seminar, on the subject of aerodynamics, which had relieved them of hard
labor for a considerable time the source of Zhelikov's later
inspiration.

Which was only the beginning of the story. For when Tupolev one day  was
unexpectedly released, he immediately pulled strings to get his  friend
Korolyov released also. Tupolev then went on to make the  bombers
bearing his name that helped win the war, and Korolyov returned  to his
fireworks: the model staged rockets that preceded his ballistic missiles
and enabled him, some years later, to put the first man in  space.

Even that isn't the end of it. For Korolyov had planned to put not a
man but a monkey first in space, and for this purpose he later secured
Zhelikov's release. Zhelikov's work on the conditioning of monkeys was
of course well known, and he sped off right away to start conditioning
this monkey.

Of that particular development nothing came. For one reason or  another,
not a monkey but a dog was ultimately chosen (the celebrated  Laika),
and Zhelikov's public protests at the decision won him another sentence.
This time to Panarovka.. . and the course of lectures.

From Panarovka, not long after the lectures, Zhelikov was suddenly
plucked one night, for reasons I did not know, but which I learned years
later, at Tchemy Vodi.

There were three reasons the first a freakish idea of Stalin's.

In his late-night reading, the restless insomniac had come upon a
little book of Zhelikov's on the subject of hibernation. He had become
interested in hibernation. This was partly for the purpose of preserving
the lives of cosmonauts in future space voyages, but mainly  with a view
to preserving his own. The body of his predecessor Lenin  he had had
embalmed as a lasting icon for the people. His own he  thought of having
"hibernated" so that at some future time it would be  of greater benefit
to them. With his security chief, Beria, he had discussed this idea.

A corps of the most faithful guardians would be required to maintain
his body, as he himself had maintained Lenin's. But even more urgently
work had to begin, by the leading experts and in the greatest secrecy,
on how he should be hibernated.

The leading expert on hibernation was Zhelikov, and the most secret
place in the Soviet Union was Tcherny Vodi.

This was the craziest of the reasons.

The other reasons were not crazy, and the second concerned Tchemy Vodi
itself.

In 1952 the research station was engaged solely with work on chemical
and bacteriological warfare, its activities covered by a weather station
that had stood on the site for many years. The work required  large
numbers of test animals, and the severe climate combined with a shortage
of air transport had seriously reduced the stock, hampering  the
military program. A project for breeding hardier test animals had begun,
but the methods were primitive and not successful.

On examination (by Minister Beria and his assistants) it was found that
the prisoner at Panarovka could be the man for this, too. As well as
being a world expert on hibernation he was also one on the conditioning
of animals: As early as the 1920s he had worked in this field with his
great mentor Pavlov.

But the third reason--Zhelikov's own--was one he had already raised in
his lectures. It concerned Siberia.

Some little while before, a large-scale geological survey had shown the
land to be, without question, the richest on earth. It had more oil than
Arabia, more gold and diamonds than Africa, more mineral value  than
anywhere else on the planet; the vast bulk of this treasure being locked
in permafrost, dormant. The attempts to exploit it, always with  forced
labor, had been inefficient and in any case had barely scraped  the
surface. It seemed unlikely that people would ever come in useful
numbers to work in this hostile territory. Zhelikov's idea was to
enhance the intelligence of animals to do it.

His own last work had been with the most intelligent animals. At his
station in the Caucasus he had got chimpanzees solving problems on an
abacus, having first conditioned them to that place from their habitat
in the tropics.

This idea he suddenly found himself discussing in the most bizarre
circumstances, and at the highest level. The night he was plucked from
the camp he was taken by helicopter to an airfield. In an airplane he
was given a decent suit--for he had left camp in his prison foot cloths
and tunic--and presently found himself, dazed, being driven through  the
streets of Moscow to the Kremlin, and the dictator's lair.

Stalin watched him eat a meal, and then talked with him throughout the
night.

The dictator was in his field jacket with pockets and he walked slowly
round the room smoking his pipe.

"Well enough," he said at last, waving his pipe.

"Now give your opinion on the proposal for hibernation."

The proposal or hibernation is horse shit, Zhelikov said, but he did
not say this aloud.

"Yosef Vissarionovich," he said aloud, "I must tell you frankly that
this is a very good proposal. It needs much work. I would first have  to
hibernate many other subjects, and be assured of their complete
resuscitation before beginning to think this goes without saying of
hibernating yo ."

He had worked himself up to such an extent over the other proposals
that it only then dawned on him (so he told me) that this was the one to
buy all the rest.

"First-class laboratories, proper conditioning chambers, the highest
degree of security, and the whole work under my own direction! Enemies
are always about, prying for information which on any subject concerning
you should on no account be given. On that my stand would  have to be
inflexible. Whichever place is chosen, I need to have  charge of it."

Stalin had emitted puffs of smoke and a series of grunts at these
remarks, and he now took a long squint at Zhelikov.

"Well, we'll see," he said.

"But what of this place they talk about, Tchemy Vodi? Is it a suitable
place?"

"I don't know this place," Zhelikov said.

"When the plans and a map become available I could give an opinion."

Stalin picked up the phone and called Beria, in bed.

At a quarter to six in the morning Minister Beria arrived with the
plans and a map, having roused his ministry for them.

Zhelikov scanned the map and whistled.

"So near Panarovka and I knew nothing of it!" he said.

"Well, the place is good.

But the station ..." He was turning over sheets and decided he could
now expand himself.

"The station is horse shit."

"How horse shit?" Beria said.

"All on top. Where would I put my conditioning chambers?"

"Where do you have to put conditioning chambers?"

"Below. It would mean excavating the mountain."

"Excavate the mountain," Stalin said.

"And shifting the present station to do it. Shift a whole station? And
have engineers sink laboratories in a mountain?"

"Shift the station, sink engineers in a mountain," Stalin said, and
laid down his pipe.

"I will take a nap now." He patted Zhelikov on the shoulder.

"You will stay some days, Lev Viktorovich. We will talk more of this,"
he said.

Zhelikov stayed a week in the Kremlin, and during the following one he
took over at Tchemy Vodi.

In the summer and autumn of 1952 engineers leveled and removed the top
of the mountain, and began mining inside it. Zhelikov supervised these
operations.

At this time the research station had been a sharashka--a special camp
for scientists. Some scores of these establishments were scattered about
the Soviet Union, together with fifty reserved cities for less  secret
work. All of them came under the administration of the Ministry  for
State Security. The cities were normal cities, containing shops,
apartment blocks, schools, and they were for free employees, the only
restrictions being that permits were needed to get in or out.

The sharashkas, on the other hand, were for prisoners serving
sentences. Some of the sentences were quite short--eight, ten
years--although in the special case of Tchemy Vodi it was understood
that nobody would ever get out. A man coming to the end of a ten would
merely get another ten for accumulated infringements;

or in exceptional circumstances he might get off and become a free
worker with privileges. But he would never get out. This was because
certain advances in bacteriology could also not be allowed to get  out.

Zhelikov made this the first of his changes. All the workers became
free workers, although still unable to leave; and he had inquiries made
by the security service to attract other specialists, people whose
particular situations made them suitable for a life that, while
cloistered, offered the highest scientific freedom together with
unparalleled living conditions.

The living conditions he set about making. And he had his chimpanzees
flown in from the Caucasus. In this period Stalin died (of a heart
attack, March 1953) and Minister Beria was shot. Their successors had no
interest in hibernation but a large amount in Zhelikov's other
developments for the exploitation of Siberia.

And these by now had cost billions. The original military installation
he had had shifted back into  position, although now underground. This
interested him not at all,  but he had its laboratories attached to his
own on Level Three. On  Level Four he had installed the living
quarters--the studio apartments,  library, gymnasium, tennis courts,
swimming pool, and gardens--with  special solar lamps, to his own
design, roofed in the "outdoor areas"  and controlled to give night and
day inside the mountain.

He also made the first hybrid apes.

"Is this real?" Porter said.

"Of course." Rogachev watched him pouring a drink and nodding up at a
Rembrandt, They were back in the library.

"I choose the pictures from old state catalogues. If they're available
I get them on loan for a few months. We get anything we want-films,
music, books, papers. The staff join me here for social evenings
occasionally. Or I look into their club. They have their own library  of
course; this one is Zhelikov's, built up over his twenty-five years
here."

Porter glanced around the room.

"You didn't bring me here for this," he said.

"You know I didn't. Still, he was a truly great man, as history will
one day acknowledge. His fellow jailbird--Korolyov, you know-they
acknowledged only at his state funeral. Then the world knew who had made
the satellites. The man himself was kept secret before. His  space
station they kept secret even for years after his death. But he  began
the exploration of space. That's one of the things that came out  of the
Soviet Union."

"Zhelikov's ape being the other?"

Rogachev smiled.

"No, no. What / have found is the other. I could certainly not have
found it without his work--which was in every way remarkable. Yes, he
made apes. But he also made problems."

Zhelikov's apes, by the early 1960s, were far ahead of anything in the
world.

This he knew for certain, for he was receiving all research papers, and
he also knew the reason for it.

Although still in its infancy, genetic manipulation was causing concern
abroad.

The scientists engaged in it were finding difficulty in raising funds,
were uncertain where the work would lead, and were worried at possible
damage to their future careers.

Zhelikov was unconcerned about his future career, had no budget worries,
and knew exactly where his work would lead. It would lead to  a hardy
animal that could live in Siberia and perform intelligent  tasks. He had
no ethical doubts at all.

He had a further advantage. The foreign workers, almost to a man, had
no special training in physiology. In his own extraordinary life he  had
trained with the greatest physiologist of his age. Pavlov was  noted not
only for the "Pavlovian reflexes" of dogs but for his  brilliant studies
on all mammalian structure.

At Tcherny Vodi Zhelikov had sent for dozens of the late Pavlov's
unpublished papers, on which they had worked together, with careful
sketches of embryonic development. Pavlov had urged him always to  study
the embryo for an understanding of limbs, organs, and other  structures,
and had passed on his own exceedingly dexterous methods of  doing so.

By the mid-1960s Zhelikov had not only a hardy chimpanzee but one that
walked upright, that could drive home a nail with a hammer, select and
use a nut for a bolt, dress itself in warm clothing, go and find a
chosen package in a cold conditioning chamber, and return to unpack and
then correctly repack the package.

He bred from the animals, and encountered his problem.

Although his apes reproduced they did so divergently. The intelligent
ones proved to be not hardy, the hardy ones not intelligent. This
problem occupied him into the next decade, and his advances--all in
intelligence--became increasingly self-defeating. An intelligent ape was
of use in the Arctic only if it was hardy; there was no present  need
for one elsewhere. The problem was to combine intelligence with
hardiness, and reliably reproduce it, generation after generation.

He began a fundamental review of hardiness, of cell behavior at low
temperature--and also, again, of hibernation, as an aspect of it. He
examined a hibernating bear, and the fetus of a bear. He examined what
was known of mammoths, close relatives of elephants, adapted to ice
ages. A whole mammoth was not obtainable but he obtained the
best-preserved museum specimen, and found it useless. Without the
required soft tissue it was not possible to learn anything from a
skeleton. (Not at that time. Only a few years and it would be possible;

although not for him.) For him some more dramatic events intervened. In
1976 he developed a virulent cancer, and some months later urgently
asked to see his chosen successor, a specialist in low-temperature work.
(He had been following my career, had heard of my misfortune.)  And in
the week that I was due, in February 1977, he heard something else. A
fresh mammoth had been discovered. A very fresh one,  entombed in ice,
quick-frozen.

"He never saw the result, of course--what you have seen. Or could even
have dreamed what I produced from it. But now"--Rogachev was looking  at
his watch--"it's almost three in the morning. Stepanka still has to  get
you back."

"You said you had two things to show me."

"Yes. The other is ... not quite ready. Tonight you had the  prehistory,
in both senses.. .. What the satellite saw was mainly  Zhelikov's work,
a few modifications by me. What / have done, you will  see for yourself.
The subject will demonstrate it to you."

Porter looked at him.

"The subject is an ape?" he said.

"You'll tell me. I'm not sure that I know. You will chat together.  Soon
enough you'll know why you are here." He was smiling.

"Anyway, you'll have to come down again. And I have thought how this  is
to be managed."

He explained how it was to be managed.

"Now I'll get Stepanka. Remember, you have not met me."

His chair whined out of the room, and presently Porter heard the sound
of a key turning. Then silence for several minutes, and a shuffling
sound, and Stepanka came in, very rumpled. He had a big watch in his
hand.

"By God! Almost three o'clock." He was dazed.

"You were with him half the night.

You've got the letter?"

"No." Kolya was very serious.

"He's rewriting the letter. He says I have to come again."

"What!"

"Stepanka--this man isn't normal! He wanted every detail, all the  years
between.

Every kind of thing that happened to the girl. Then he would break  down
and question me again. He doesn't seem able to accept it--which doctors,
which tests, have we done this, that." He shook his head.

"He says he will bring me a ring--the mother's wedding ring. I am to
take it back, it's to go to the grave.

Tell me, is he mad?"

Stepanka's mouth had fallen open.

"I don't know. I've never met him," he said. He licked his lips.

"The chief will have to arrange it again, then. And he isn't well
himself. He said nothing about the chief?"

"Nothing. Only about the girl." "Well. I don't know." He looked at his
watch again.

"But come we'll just catch the guards. Or we can stand and freeze  there
for half an hour."

He produced the flashlight and the piece of paper from his pocket and
attended to the lock in the grille. Then they were out in the cement
passage again and going up the stairs.

"It's a part of the building they never used. I knew nothing of it."

In the tiny room above, Stepanka looked through the periscope, and he
motioned Kolya to look.

Through the periscope the brightly lit corridor was quite empty.

"In one minute they'll come," Stepanka whispered.

"Don't make a sound. You can hear through the wall. The moment  they've
gone is the safest. It's what I did before."

Kolya remained looking through the periscope, and in a minute the two
figures appeared. They materialized suddenly, from the far end of the
corridor, one behind the other, a few paces apart. The leading guard
peered through each spy hole, and then checked each bolt; and the second
made a mark on a clipboard. As they approached he could hear  their
footsteps and their voices repeating the name of each room  checked.

They checked the dormitory, and they checked the washroom. Then they
tried the laundry, and that was the last. Now they were only a few  feet
away, and through the periscope Kolya watched them; and as their  backs
retreated he gave place to Stepanka at the periscope.

Stepanka remained peering intently through it, and then he nodded and
manipulated the lock, and switched the flashlight off and opened the
wall.

Like a mouse he scurried to the washroom and drew the bolts, and Porter
swiftly entered and closed the door, and heard the faintest scrape as
the bolts went home again. He stood for some minutes with his ear to the
door but heard nothing more; neither the shuffle of footsteps nor  any
other sound.

He went quietly into the dormitory.

A little snoring there, the Evenks all asleep. In the blue lighting he
undressed and returned to his bunk, and for some moments, drifting off,
thought of the girl in the tunnel, and of a night with Stalin, and
prison camps and the exploration of space. Then he thought how he  could
chat with an ape and what it was that the ape had to demonstrate  to
him. 43

"Ludmilla--Ludmilla, my dear, how are you?"

"Thank you, I am well."

"I have brought a visitor. You don't mind seeing a visitor,  Ludmilla?"

"No, I don't mind," the ape said, and put her glasses on.

She smiled at them from the bed. She had a sweet face, although her
eyes were bandaged. She was wearing a nightie; and also, Porter saw, a
number of other bandages. She seemed to have lost much hair and skin. It
took him a moment to realize that the glasses had gone on over the
bandaged eyes and that she was now shielding them slightly with her
hand.

"Is the light too strong for you?"

"Only for a moment, when it came on."

"They don't hurt--your eyes?"

"No, they don't hurt. Uncle."

"She has no eyes," Rogachev said, in English.

"A result of the explosion. We could have restored them but I wouldn't
put her through the operation. She hasn't long to live. You are  seeing
well, my dear?" he asked in Russian.

"Yes, I am seeing well. Uncle."

"This visitor is Raven. Are you pleased to meet him?"

"I am pleased to meet you," Ludmilla said, and extended her hand.

"Ludmilla. I am very pleased to meet you," Porter said, and shook the
hand. The palm was brown, the back of it a blotchy pink, tufted with
down. The face was similarly blotched and tufted. It was finely boned
and there was a sweet docility about it, a thoughtful docility as she
gazed through her spectacles.

But she was certainly an ape.

"You were hurt, I hear," he said.

"Yes, I was hurt."

"How did it happen?"

"In the fire. Uncle made me better."

"Was it a long time ago, the fire?"

"She hasn't much idea of time," Rogachev said in English.

"It was a long time, Ludmilla--days and days. But it didn't hurt for
long. Tell Raven how nicely you see now." "I see nicely now," Ludmilla
said, smiling.

"Take your glasses off, my pet."

Ludmilla took them off, and Rogachev shone a flashlight at the
bandages.

"Now we'll play a game again," he said.

"Have I put the light on?"

"No, of course you haven't." Ludmilla was smiling.

"All right. Now," Rogachev said, and switched the flashlight off.

"Now what have I done?"

"Silly! You haven't done anything," Ludmilla said, giggling. She felt
for his hand, and he moved it, and she groped in the air until he gave
her it. She squeezed the hand and kissed it, and he bent and kissed hers
and then her blue lips.

"My little sweetheart you're so clever! Stay in the dark a moment. I
want Raven to examine you. It won't hurt." He parted the sparse hair
behind Ludmilla's ears.

"The glasses are her eyes," he said in English.

"And these are the terminals."

A small metallic strip was set behind each ear.

"It's a very small implant, smaller than a pacemaker. The trick is to
make the right junction. She has practically 20-20 vision now the lenses
self-focus, like the quite cheap video cameras. These are set  in a
plasma. Take a look at them."

Porter picked up the glasses. There was a vague flutter of movement in
the lenses as he raised them, and at the end of each arm he saw the
metal connecting strip.

"Of course with the same principle you can fabricate an eye in its
natural socket much more complex. Put the glasses on again, my dear,"
Rogachev said, and put them in her hand, and Ludmilla slipped the
glasses on, smiling at him.

"Will you show Raven how well you read?"

"Yes, I will show him," Ludmilla said, slowly.

"Ah, my little sweetheart, you're tired. Is it this room? Don't you
like this room?"

"It's... a nice room," Ludmilla said, gently.

"It's only for tonight, so that Raven can see you. We won't read,  then.
She reads," he told Porter.

"Just simple sentences. We won't read. We'll look at pictures. You  like
pictures. Raven hasn't seen this book. Show him the pictures."

He handed Porter a book from the bedside table.

"Well, this looks a nice book," Porter said.

"Oh, it's a nice book," Ludmilla said.

"I wonder what's this?" He had stopped at a page. There was a big
picture on every page. "This is a sledge," Ludmilla told him.

"Oh, of course! Is it--a blue sledge?" he said, peering.

"No! A red sledge," Ludmilla said.

"I was only playing games."

"I know you were," Ludmilla said, and laughed at him.

"Well, this one I know. A water tap! I can wash myself."

"No--silly!" Ludmilla said and giggled again, covering her mouth.

"It's a samovar! With a samovar you make tea."

"She's so clever. You're so clever, my pretty," Rogachev said.

"But now you must sleep. Raven wanted to see you so much, so I brought
him. Do you like Raven?"

"Yes, I like him," Ludmilla said.

"I like you," Porter told her.

"You can kiss her. She likes being kissed," Rogachev said in  English.

"But no pressure on her body, she is very fragile."

Porter kissed Ludmilla's hand and then her face, and Ludmilla smiled
and kissed him back.

"Now it' site for you, my precious. I'm sorry it's so late. Raven
couldn't come any earlier. Tomorrow you can go back to your room. Say
good night to him now."

"Good night. Raven," Ludmilla said.

"Good night, Ludmilla."

"And take your glasses off. It's time for sleep. Good night, my  little
sweetheart."

"Good night, Uncle."

"Well, then," Rogachev said, as they left the room, "so now tell me
what I have made. And this is only the half of it."

But Porter remained silent, watching him relock the door.

He had had a long day. A bitter wind had blown on the mountaintop, the
snow flurries whirling like devils over the compound. But the Evenks had
remained cheerful and understanding of his lost sleep, seeing to it that
he was allotted only indoor tasks in the morning.

He had told his news--of the distraught father, the letter to be
rewritten, the ring that had to go to the grave--and they were certain
that Stepanka would soon be up with new instructions.

But by afternoon Stepanka had still not come, and at two o'clock all of
them had been ordered outside. A freighter plane was coming in, and
immediate unloading had been requested before the weather worsened. For
this the storage sheds had to be reorganized. By three o'clock the plane
had come and gone; and by four, though not  all the cargo was yet
inside, a cheery Major Militsky had called the  men in from the wind and
the snow.

A name had been chosen for the baby! Stepan Maximovich had an
announcement to make.

"Ten o'clock," was Stepanka's whispered announcement to him.

"One hour earlier than before." He didn't know why. But by 9:55 Kolya
was to be in position.

And by 9:55 Kolya was, in the washroom. And by ten was going through
the wall again.

"And this is only the half of it," Rogachev said. They were now in his
study.

The study adjoined the library and was part of a suite that included an
apartment for Stepanka and his wife and also two bedrooms. The second
bedroom was for a security official who visited regularly; Ludmilla was
now in it.

"It's not even a half of it. There's more--far more. And yet we had  set
out to do something totally different...."

We had set out to copy parts of a fetus: Sibir's fetus.

The father of the fetus had been a Neanderthaloid--not Neanderthal of
Europe, which was in many ways a regression, but the earlier type, with
a larger-domed skull. Of this there was no doubt. Sibir was typically
"Cro-Magnon"; her child, broadly Neanderthaloid. And the differences
between them were very remarkable.

Sibir was 1.89 meters in height, and her brain capacity 1,300 cubic
centimeters.

Her child would have grown much shorter, but with a brain much
larger--1,500 cubic centimeters, our calculations showed. Since a modern
brain is roughly 1,350 cubic centimeters, Neanderthaloid had 11  percent
more. This curious fact, already speculated on from skull  finds, was in
itself exciting. But here we had an actual brain--unborn  but whole,
easily projectible from standard scales.

From hundreds of computer studies, we observed many differences in this
brain.

Zhelikov in his work had accumulated a large stock of brains (the heads
of executed criminals), and these we used for comparison.

n >/; An immediate difference was in the visual-receptor areas--here
very  large. This was expected, for the fetus's eye sockets were also
large.  Neanderthaloid was a nocturnal creature: He came out in the dark
and  had to see in the dark. For us this had important implications.
Half  the year we are in the dark here, and Zhelikov had sought with his
"worker" apes to improve their night vision, but without success.

So an extraordinary opportunity had opened up: to copy what we could of
this new old visual system.

Our own system is barely understood to this day. We know that the  brain
receives its signals in symbolic form, the eyes transmitting  thousands
of digits of information that the receptors in the brain can  decode and
assemble. But the method of transmission, the network of  transmission,
even the receptor areas themselves, were by no means  clear.

These receptor areas (set beside our criminals') were altogether
clearer, as was all the visual network, making the functioning as a
whole more comprehensible.

With our fetus we found so well-defined a network (and of a night
sighted primate!) that we were almost beside ourselves. The aim was to
increase, by cloning, the visual networks of our apes and to enlarge the
receptor areas in their brains.

We set about it in this way.

(All our genetic work is this way.) First, trial operations were
conducted on the lower animals: rats, mice, etc.

Portions of the network were excised and later replaced, to establish
the method of surgery. Excising parts of a visual system of course
results in blindness, and many rats were blinded before we learned (with
cloned material) the technique of reinsertion. Then we moved on  to the
brain, to try to do the same with the receptor cells.

It took us seven years, until 1985, to get a result. But in that year,
with extra material we had managed to clone, we got a good one; a 20
percent visual improvement with test rats. Then we moved to the  apes.

This was an altogether more critical undertaking.

The trained animals were valuable, their whole visual apparatus much
more complex. Also they were semi human able to express themselves. Even
for the first stage--the trial removals and reinsertions--two full-scale
operations were necessary, with recuperation after each one,  and eyes
kept bandaged until after the boost to restore vision.

The technique of boosting we had learned with the rats; vision will not
resume without it. The visual network is in fact a complex chemical
chain; the section we excise is therefore a chemical section. This
section (or a cloned version) will not on reinsertion resume function by
itself.

It needs a boost, a "jump start," from an electrical source. (We use a
high-frequency signal, crystal-regulated like quartz in a watch or
silicon in a computer.) Light will not do the job and can produce
permanent blindness, for the network must be intact and operational
before the eyes are allowed to work.

This boost we pass directly via a cable to electrodes in the skull just
a brief burst, the eyes remaining sealed. And by means of a scanner we
observe the effects on a screen.

The frequency we use is a "harmonic" (the so-called doppelganger or
ghost echo of a frequency); and to get this echo two crystals have to be
set vibrating simultaneously.

With rats, the screen view of the boosting procedure had always been
the same.

The newly replaced network between eye and brain was dormant not dead,
but dormant, and we conjectured that the rat was "seeing" a shadowy
gray. With the boost we could see the network activating carrying
current, as it were. Within fifteen minutes, though the animal's eyes
were still covered, we knew the new material had been accepted and the
system was up, and running.

With our first ape, a very different story in fact, a disaster.

After the boost, an instant flash, like lightning through the network.
Followed by blackout, and from the animal a cry of pain. The pain was
momentary, and he told us so. But the network was now blank, the whole
outline gone.

This was catastrophic. We had no idea what to do. The boost was a  safe
one a harmonic specially selected from a range of ten. This range  we
had used on the rats.

We watched the screen for one hour, two. We tested the crystals,
remeasured the harmonic, checked all the instruments. Nothing was wrong.
But something was wrong. We returned to our records, and there  found
what was wrong.

The selected range had been used on the rats, but not this harmonic.
(The harmonics that we generate, I should explain, do not exist in
nature. They are modulations, calculated mathematically.) As a
precaution, with the first ape, our specialist had chosen the weakest
harmonic of the range the lowest, the faintest, the most remote from its
original frequency. With the rats we had used the strongest; it  had
been unnecessary to try so far down the scale.

Needless to say we tried then. We tried ten rats normal rats, with
normal vision not operating, just delivering the boost, with this same
harmonic. Each one was blinded. Then we tried other rats, with other
harmonics in the range. And no ill effects. Just this harmonic, the
weakest, a freak, we had used on the ape, and had blinded it.

Blinded rats are destroyed. But we could not destroy an ape; the
trained animals are still of use. In this case, after a few days we
simply removed the bandages and put the animal (his name was Anton) on
an instructional course. He was in no discomfort but needed eye patches,
for the muscles controlling blinking had also been damaged.

And now a very strange incident occurred.

At that time the animals were engaged in a simulated post nuclear
exercise. They were required to enter a maze, perform a number of
actions, find their way out again, and report what they had done. Anton
was participating in this (for even blinded apes may be useful after
nuclear accidents), and he emerged from the maze and reported. It took
his trainer some moments to observe that he had taken off his eye
patches. He asked why he had done this and Anton said it was because  he
wanted to see.

"But, Anton, you cannot see."

"Yes. Can see. Can see," Anton said.

It seemed that he took off the patches to shower in the morning, and
that morning he had found that he could see. He had put the patches back
on again because he had been instructed to keep them on. But in  the
maze he had taken them off.

I was told at once, and rushed to test him. Through instruments I saw
that every part of his visual system had reactivated. This happened  ten
days after the boost.

To understand what happened now I must explain something of our
organization here. We come under the aegis of a Moscow body called the
Scientific Directorate. This directorate I keep informed of our work,
and I had informed them of the accident with Anton.

Every few weeks a member of the directorate visits me: a security
official, but a well-informed scientist, a friendly fellow. This man now
called up and asked me to repeat the experiment with the freak  harmonic
on another ape. He wished to see for himself how the network
reactivated.

I did as he asked, used the same harmonic, and got the same result.
Complete blanking of the newly installed network. After some days my
friend arrived. In good time I started a machine to record the events;
and presently we watched them. On the screen, a faint graying. An
emerging outline. And within minutes, a full one the same ten day timing
as with Anton.

My friend, greatly interested, took a copy of this recording and left
with me something infinitely more interesting. Papers research papers  I
had urgently requested: the latest studies in another field of optics.
For in the days when Anton was blinded, I had brooded on  other
possibilities.

The network we had blasted out was a chemical network--enormously
complex, but one we had been able to follow (at least to clone in part).
I wondered now if we could back it up in some way, as a  safeguard
against other accidents.

Science had long backed up hearts, kidneys, many other systems, by
copying the action of the systems. With the visual system our only  sure
knowledge was how it started--optically. Could it perhaps be  backed up
optically, with fiber optics?

Our experts studied the papers on fiber optics. Novel types of fiber
would be required, some means of grafting them discovered, all this work
quite new. I drove them on, however, standardized a procedure,  and
presently was able to move from theory to practice on rats.

Here the first job was to get a signal through the fiber. In the
laboratory we had got one--nothing "visual," but a measured change in a
bit of brain material.

With a real rat, a functioning brain, this would be very different. We
removed the rat's visual network, grafted our fiber in its place,
allowed it to bond, and delivered the boost.

What followed was a moment of history.

It was something, I should say, almost beyond belief.

On the screen the newly connected fiber, a shadowy outline. Which
within minutes began to firm up and then embolden. In fifteen
minutes--full strong outline! The brain understood the fiber, had
accepted it.

This stunning success--we had looked only for an instrumental
blip--held us at the screen for hours. A whole day passed before we
dared expose the rat's eyes and allow it to see. But there was no  doubt
it did see. It saw not well, for we had been unable to tune  fiber to a
real eye. But it saw! For the first time a blind creature  saw--through
fiber!

From Moscow, my friend made two watchful visits.

His first was to see us repeat the work--from fiber insertion, through
boost, to final sighting.

And two weeks later--again. The directorate required another trial,
this time with the rogue harmonic. (The bureaucrats still had our old
harmonics program on their agenda, needed further information for their
records!) We did the job, and got the same result. The rogue harmonic
"blinded" optical fiber too--although again, as with Anton, only
temporarily, as a retest some days later showed. But with this
distraction out of the way, our serious work commenced.  I had found an
answer to blindness! A synthetic channel had connected  to a brain. To
complete the circuit we needed only a synthetic eye,  and a framework in
which to use it.

The framework was obvious, for it already existed: the familiar
spectacle frame.

And the eye, too, was no problem now.

At that time rapid advance was going on with super fast self focusing
lenses, both commercially and militarily (they are used in the nose
cones of missiles). We asked for and got whatever we needed. And very
soon had made extraordinary progress. For a start, it proved unnecessary
to remove a whole network. Only a tiny section of fiber  needed splicing
in: The smallest "patch" can serve as a connection for  our lenses.

We moved rapidly to apes. (All this information you will be taking  with
you;

here I give the sequence.) To locate the right junction behind an eye
we make an incision above an ear. The small patches, two of them for
stereo vision, are then inserted and grafted in place--all this by
endoscopy, microsurgery, and no more difficult than fitting a pacemaker!

The patches go in with extension fiber attached; this exits through the
incision, where a terminal is fixed to make contact with a spectacle
arm. Inside the arm, matching filaments lead to the regulator chip for
each lens--and that is it!

We now had something of a problem. A scientific advance of great
magnitude had been made and the question of publication arose. Nobody
doubted that it had to be published, or that a Nobel and other prizes
must follow. Just as obviously, / could not be the one to take them. But
who then could? No respected academic could take credit for work  he had
not done--which his colleagues knew he had not done!

To this, after a time, my friend thought up an answer.

For years we had been receiving help from various research bodies.
(Unknown to them, of course: Their papers came to us through the
directorate.) The suggestion was for these bodies to be fed bits of our
work and steered to the same conclusions. An idea acceptable to me,
although obviously it would take time.

As indeed it did. Two years passed; no papers, and my impatience grew.
I understood the problem. People on major work will not rush to  publish
until sure of their results. And not everything could be fed  to them at
once! All the same my friend agreed to steer more  strongly;

and in another year was able to advise that a promising paper was on
the way from the Voronsky Institute (of Electrochemistry; they had done
the early work on the visual chain I have mentioned).

This paper I saw, and it was a good one, although still a long way from
the necessary breakthrough into optics. Patience! advised my  friend. He
had several lines out. Very soon now we would have news of  optical
developments.

And so we did. But not, I think, in the way intended.

It happened just then that a specialist in optics, whose work I had
been following, became unexpectedly available. I asked for him to be
approached, he accepted, and joined us. This man was greatly surprised
at our advanced work, and especially with the boosting techniques.

In the week of his arrival he asked for a private tete-a-tete and told
me the following story.

Some time before, while touring facilities, his plane had been forced
to land in a remote area where the only accommodation was a certain
rocketry center. He had stayed the night and one of the staff, hearing
of his specialty had asked his opinion on some recent work. This staff
member was a designer of circuits and the question he was interested in
concerned optical fiber.

In the designer's laboratory, miniature rockets, bench-mounted, were
used for the testing of firing programs--rather precise and exacting
work. Missiles must constantly correct themselves in flight, and their
terminal homing devices depend for accuracy on very brief rocket bursts.
This requires exceedingly rapid startup and shutdown  procedures, the
man's particular field.

Some weeks before a party of officials had arrived with a new device to
test.

The device was an electronic circuit, boxed with two quartz crystals.
The device was placed in the laboratory, the man instructed to
demonstrate a program for one of the bench rockets; and they all retired
to an adjacent observation room.

From here the rocket was activated--a normal ten-minute program,
allowing for many timed and recorded bursts--and after some minutes the
electronic device was also remotely activated. The firing program
instantly changed. The device had been activated while a short burst was
actually going on, and the burst continued, not following its program--a
single prolonged flare until burnout.

When it was safe to strip down the rocket, nothing was found wrong with
it. The circuits were intact, contacts and breakers all as they should
be, the heat-protected wiring (of optical fiber) perfectly cool. The
designer was asked to pass a signal through the fiber. He could get no
signal through it. In some way it had been rendered inactive. All the
same he was asked to leave it in position for a certain number of  days,
and then repeat the program. This he did. And everything  worked, the
optical fiber again quite operational.

The designer then asked the optical specialist, with much curiosity,
what theory of optics could explain such a thing.. ..

This was the story the specialist told me, and he said that having now
heard of the incident with Anton he wondered if there could be some
connection.

I asked if he had told anyone else this story, and he said he had not.
Optical fiber was not his field; he had almost at once forgotten it. His
stay at the rocketry center had been a mere overnight accident. A chance
event.

I asked him to let me think over this event.

I thought it over, and I thought most soberly. Three years had now
passed, with publication of our discovery no nearer. And far more, of
course, since the work with the rogue harmonic--all that well behind us.

But evidently not finished with.

The officials' device with quartz crystals, the remote boost, the
"certain number of days" of waiting ... all this had surely to do with
the rogue harmonic. The use of harmonics is not original. But this
harmonic was original;

it was not a thing come by accidentally. Somebody was using it.

I asked the specialist to remain silent a little longer and waited for
my directorate friend to visit.

When he did, I asked if work was going on with harmonics.

Yes it was going on, he said.

When was it intended to publish this work?

In time, Efraim, in time.

Had a use been found, perhaps, for the rogue harmonic?

He gazed at me.

"Why do you ask?"

I told him why, and he sighed.

"I am very sorry, Efraim. You should not have been embarrassed in this
way."

But he explained everything to me--and very frankly.

We had come on a principle of extraordinary military value. And to
explain it he had to outline, first of all, the phenomenon of EMP,
electromagnetic pulse. This pulse, a side effect of nuclear  explosions,
halts all electrical current in its vicinity--all current  flowing in
wires. Power stations stop, cars stop--and telephones,  radios,
elevators, lights; everything depending on electricity stops. Including,
significantly, military command and control centers; no  counteraction
could be ordered. The answer to this paralysis was found in optical
fiber, a material  not susceptible to EMP but very efficient in
conveying signals. Because  missiles in flight could also be affected
the firing circuits and fuses  immobilized by nuclear blasts in nearby
orbit they, too, had been  reequipped. Now every nuclear power's armory
was invulnerable to EMPTo  EMP but not now to everything. For our chance
discovery had opened a  new window of vulnerability; and several
security establishments were  now at work on it. It had been found that
the harmonic could be  transmitted in a variety of ways by narrow-beam
radio for instance,  where tracking devices could lock it on to moving
targets.

At the simplest level (as a scatter weapon) it could physically blind
ground forces on foot, in tanks, or in bunkers, for the frequency
penetrated all structures. Against missiles, its potential was
incalculably greater.

At present the tests were at laboratory level, but it was hoped later
to conduct them on a missile in flight. Under current agreements the
flight-testing of missiles had to be internationally supervised.
Plainly we could not have this test supervised. But as it happened,
China was not a party to these agreements, and a new guidance system was
under development there. It would be flight-tested to their base  at Lop
Nor;

indeed the regional commander there, a General Liu, had already
received advance instructions. Means were now being considered for a
directorate establishment to track this test, by satellite.

And how, I asked him after a moment, would this affect our discoveries
for sighting the blind?

"Efraim," he said gently, "you know what is needed to sight the blind,
and how that operation is completed. To produce a paper showing your
harmonics would lead to an investigation of all that range of harmonics.
And then?"

He went on much longer in fact, with good arguments.

(Our country was in a state of great instability. There were nuclear
adventurists on all sides. The people might yet be exposed to horrors.
The directorate had a duty to protect the people. Sighting the blind was
a magnificent thing. But for the moment this must have priority.  People
lived with blindness, but could they live after events that this  was
designed to prevent?) "Come think it over! You'll agree!" he  said.

I did agree why not?

But all I thought was. They aren't going to publish.

Not now, perhaps not ever. It was slowly sinking in.

"Efraim," he urged me, on leaving next day, "forget this military
application! Your own achievement is very great and no resources will
be spared for you to develop it and the world one day to have it! Each
one of us at the directorate, I assure you, is absolutely aware of what
you are doing. Press on with it!"

They were by no means aware of what I was doing. (For that same night  I
thought, To hell with them all! For everything they had an argument,
and everything could be used for good or evil. Now the good must have  a
chance; and I embarked on the course that you know.) But we certainly
pressed on!

Our lenses at the time were bulky, heavy, quite awkward in use. This
our optical specialist (the man who told me of rocketry!) soon changed,
for he was a leader in the field of thin-film layers. Now, although
cased in glass, the lenses consist of superfine membranes, almost
weightless, which maintain constant focus by a new principle. And  soon,
too, we were engaged on improvements to the insertion procedures, trying
them out on a batch basis (the operation is quite reversible),  and were
still doing it at the time of the explosion.

Of our military work here I will not speak. I have never taken part in
it, though I am nominally responsible for all activities here. So I  say
nothing of the explosion, except that safety procedures regarding
certain gases were not observed, and that the result was calamitous. We
lost the genetics lab. We lost the apes' quarters, also their  adjoining
sick bay. Several apes were then recovering from operations,  their eyes
bandaged, and those who survived the blast we got outside as  soon as
possible, for a roll call although they were very few in  number.

The situation, in fact, grew worse. Those apes still alive were badly
contaminated. In a few weeks, only one of them was left as it  happened,
the least representative one, a testimony to my own hubris  and of a
line that must not be crossed.

This creature I had made myself, in a Petri dish: a non hardy female.
By then we could identify early the non hardy and should simply have
washed her away. But I was then working with the fetus and investigating
what else we could draw from it.

Since the contents of the dish would be non hardy they would be
"intelligent." I decided to discover how humanly intelligent I could
make this cell cluster, by copying cerebral material from Sibir's fetus
and trying to incorporate it. And this experiment was a success but a
frivolous one, an unforgivable one, and one that must not be repeated!
For this creature that I made (now fifteen years old and called
Ludmilla) is neither ape nor human. In fact she is part Sibir, part
Neanderthaloid, and part ape: an animal of a kind, but with a mind that
seems human. The apes did not accept her and she lived apart, attached
only to me. I gave her lessons which, alas, she found  tiresome. On
these occasions she had to sleep the night in a room kept  for my
directorate friend; which room by association she also  disliked!

This she was doing in the night of the explosion--in safety. I rushed
out myself, ordering her to stay in safety. And an ape would have done
so, for they obey instructions. But she was concerned only for my safety
and ran crying after me--into the secondary blast. This  happened as I
picked my way through the genetics lab. I had put on the  mask and
goggles we always wear in this lab, but the poor child was  without
them.. ..

But see how things turn out.

She was contaminated, of course, and also horribly blinded--her eyes
requiring removal, for they were destroyed and infected--and thus became
our first real patient. The others, remember, were experiments,  still
with their own eyes.

Ludmilla had none, and so became the first true case of blindness ever
to be sighted by our operation.

Well .. . It's standardized now, the operation--simple, brief, and all
the parts of it I explain here: the junction, the incisions, the graft,
the fiber, the regulator chip, the lenses. And the harmonic--to be  used
for good or evil, you see. They're here.

"All here."

Porter thought at first he was being offered a chocolate. The old man
sat looking at it in his open palm: a gilt-wrapped dinner mint. Then  he
took another one out of the drawer, silver-wrapped.

"On disk. Four-centimeter disks. The silver one is by way of a  history.
A personal one, for you. The other has the technical  information, a few
hundred pages. It's compressed--they'll know what  to do with it, the
people you give it to."

Porter looked at the fancy coins.

"What do / do with it?" he said.

Rogachev poked again in the drawer and withdrew two slim pouches,
themselves not much wider than dinner mints.

"They go in here. And the pouches in a belt." He found the belt, too,  a
canvas one.

"And the belt next to your skin. The disks won't deform or break.
They're encased, but don't try to open the cases. It needs laboratory
conditions to open them--below minus 240 centigrade anyway, or they'll
be erased. There's a temperature lock. That's the most important  thing
to remember. Now--it's late.

Do you want a last drink?"

It was indeed very late. It was almost three, and again they had  talked
the night away. Porter went and got himself a drink, and when he came
back found the  old man sitting with his eyes closed, deathly tired. But
the disks  were in the pouches, and the pouches in the belt, and on the
desk under  his hand was an envelope.

"Here's the letter. You'll need it to show the Evenks. It's just  blank
paper--a few sheets."

"How about the ring--I tell them it couldn't be found?"

"No. It's here." He opened his hand.

"My wife's, actually... There's no one to send it to, and they'll
cremate me in a few weeks. You have it. You may find the inscription  a
little sentimental."

He turned it over and over in his hand for a few moments, smiling
rather crookedly, and offered it with a magnifying glass.

Through the glass Porter examined the gold band. The engraving was on
the inside, its Russian words very worn: "Like our love the circle has
no end."

He read them silently.

"Her death is why I'm here," Rogachev said simply.

"This is how it happened. A funny circle, life, eh? Well, that's the
ring. And here's the book. Put the belt on."

Porter put it on, under his clothing.

"You've remembered the temperature?"

"240 degrees."

"Minus 240. Even below that. Say liquid hydrogen, it's easier. That's
to allow it to be opened. Once safely opened, no special conditions  are
needed. They'll figure out how to read it. Remember, the gold one  has
the technical information.

Now.. . " He gazed warmly at Porter.

"I knew you would come. And I hope you think it was worth coming  for?"

Porter looked steadily at him in return.

"If I can get it out. Then it will have been worth coming for."

"Yes," Rogachev replied.

"There's that." His chair turned to one side.

"Do I thank you again, or is it just goodbye?"

It was just good-bye, without words. And it was in the library; two
pairs of hands clasped for long seconds. Then the chair was whining  out
of the room, and Porter's last view was of a single arm raised.

In ten minutes, farewell to Stepanka too, and he was back in the
washroom. And soon after that, back in his bunk.

All done now. Everything accomplished.

That the people shall no more sit in darkness, nor like the blind
stumble at noonday.

Under the covers he felt the belt.

Just a few hours to go. And in two or three days he'd be gone for good.
He thought over what had to be done, but the day had been long.  Up most
of the last night, little rest after it, and none at all since  they'd
been called in from the wind and the snow. He closed his eyes,  drifting
into sleep.

At the time that Kolya Khodyan and the Evenks had been summoned from
the wind and the snow to learn that a name had been chosen for the baby,
another man was learning some news, far away.

It was eight time zones away, and eight o'clock in the morning. And it
was a very curious piece of news.

He knew he must have read it wrong.

He read it again. The print was so poor, it was hard to read anyway.
His eyes were bad today. He looked up from the newspaper and blinked  at
the sea. It was at the other end of the short side street and he  could
see just a bit of it, beyond the promenade, the water a surly  lead
color. A palm tree was lashing about there.

He had drunk a lot last night, for his cold. It hadn't done anything
for his cold but it had given him a bad head. God, how he hated the
Black Seal Alexei "Alyosha" Ponomarenko sat under the flapping awning
outside the cafe and longed for the north. He'd never had a cold in  the
north. Wonderful Green Cape.

Wonderful Kolymsky. Pure, pure snow; good comrades, plenty of money.
New frost outside every morning. Good dry heat inside. Not drafty,  not
damp. He longed for the princely apartment he had left behind in  June.
Here he lived like a pauper.

Above this shitty cafe! Him! Even apart from the civil war now  messily
spluttering on here, his money was running out and he'd had to  move
from his decent place on the front to this back street.

He lit a cigarette but left it smoldering in the ashtray, and went in
to get another cup of coffee. A kerosene stove was stinking away inside,
which was why he was sitting outside. Nowhere in the place was  there
central heating.

"Put a shot of brandy in it," he said.

"Cash," the surly proprietor said.

Ponomarenko slammed the cash on the counter. The coffee he'd poured
himself; it came with the breakfast.

"And who gave you exclusive rights to the newspaper? Others are  waiting
for it." "Buy another paper," Ponomarenko told him. He hung onto the
paper.

"There's no hurry," one of the other guests said. A few disconsolate
individuals were sitting about eating their lousy breakfasts. Ghosts,
wrecks, pensioners.

"It's all lies, anyway. They tell you what they want to tell you.  Who's
winning today?"

"Everybody's winning," Ponomarenko said, and took the newspaper and his
coffee out with him.

The paper was full of tanks going here, there. Sod the tanks. He
swallowed the improved coffee and felt his eyes improve. He concentrated
on what interested him. The two panels were side by side,  one in
Georgian, one Russian. He read the Russian one again.

"Edict of the Government: Ministry of Justice."

He read it twice more. Very tricky, the bastards here. Very. There  was
bound to be a catch in it somewhere.

He lit another cigarette and thoughtfully smoked it, blinking in the
distance at the thrashing palm tree. Then he folded over a few pages  so
they wouldn't figure out what interested him and took the paper  inside.

"Tell me," he said to the fellow behind the counter, "is there a
respectable lawyer anywhere in this town?"

The lawyer was a small man with a very large mustache, and he was an
Armenian, which made Ponomarenko anxious; he had wanted a Georgian, one
who knew all the shifts and changes of Georgian law anyway. He was  also
not impressed with the premises. To enter the lawyer's office he  had
had to walk through a room with a dentist's chair in it. The man
reassured him on both points. He had practiced for twenty years, he
said, both in Batumi and Tbilisi; this was his week in Batumi. The
dentist's chair was his brother-in-law's, who was this week in Tbilisi.

The lawyer first of all had a point of his own to make. He understood
his visitor had come to consult him on behalf of a friend. Did the
friend understand that such consultations were on a cash basis, and the
cash was U.S. dollars?

Ponomarenko put twenty down and when the man merely looked at it
explained that his friend wanted only one simple question answered
before deciding whether to go further. The lawyer remained looking at
the money, but he nodded, and Ponomarenko told him the question.

There had been a government announcement in the paper that an amnesty
was being offered to drug offenders who disclosed the source of their
supply; what was the meaning of this announcement and what was the catch
in it?

The lawyer nodded again.

The meaning of the announcement was that the government had recognized
that an enemy of good government was organized crime. For the
maintenance of law and order in the present turbulence it had identified
it as a principal enemy.

Organized crime was based in this region upon powerful drug rings. To
isolate the rings it had been decided to pardon lesser offenders. That
was the meaning of it. There was no catch.

Ponomarenko remained silent for some moments.

"Your friend is known to the police?" the lawyer quietly suggested.

"No."

"Is being blackmailed, perhaps, forced to continue with .. . certain
activities?"

"Not exactly ..."

"It's a well-known squeeze. Speak freely."

"Well what if certain things came to light after he'd gone and said
everything things that aren't really, sort of, to do with it?"

The lawyer looked at Ponomarenko and then he looked quite hard at the
twenty dollars.

"That's not the same simple question," he said.

Ponomarenko put another twenty on the table.

"If I understand you," the lawyer said, leaning back more comfortably,
"your friend is worried that the police might start investigating other
misdemeanors, once they've got him. Forget it. They're interested in
drugs. They want to eliminate the small offenders. A fault of the
previous system was the harsh sentencing capital punishment, life terms.
They want to wipe the slate. Once the facts are given, that's  the end
of it. Finish. Nothing on the record. Have no fear for your  friend.
Unless it appears, when they look into it," he said jovially,  "that he
committed a couple of murders. Has he?"

"Christ, no!" Ponomarenko said indignantly.

"Not that. But supposing, if they look into it, they find out he has a
wife and various things. That maybe he hasn't kept up with .. .
payments, things like that."

The lawyer laughed heartily.

"My dear friend," he said, "they are interested in powerful forces
challenging the state. Once your friend has reported the facts regarding
drugs, he will be pardoned. It's guaranteed. Take my word  for it."

"Well, / would," Ponomarenko said.

"But there's my friend. How do I get him to believe this guarantee?" The
lawyer leaned back and hoisted a telephone directory from a shelf.  He
leafed through the pages.

"You read Georgian?"

"A bit."

"What does it say here?"

"Ministry of Justice."

"Call them." The lawyer pushed the phone across.

"Ask for the chief prosecutor's office. When you've got somebody--I'll
talk."

Ponomarenko dubiously dialed the number and followed instructions. He
got the deputy prosecutor and handed over the phone.

The lawyer identified himself and spoke affably to the deputy
prosecutor. He said that on behalf of a client he would like today's
amnesty announcement for drug offenders explained in simple terms, and
listened, nodding for a few minutes.

"Quite so ... Well, I have here, Deputy Prosecutor, a friend of the
client. He would like it confirmed that no action whatever would be
taken against his friend once the full facts have been given. And that a
pardon would be automatic--nothing on the record, and no other areas
investigated. Exactly. And the same with revenge evidence? ... Oh, I
expect the usual--photographs, tape recordings. Yes. Yes. Destroyed  and
no copy taken--very good. Well then. Deputy Prosecutor, if you  would
not mind repeating that to my visitor I think I can deliver the  first
success in your campaign. Eh? Very good, ha-ha. Yes. Here he is."

He handed the phone to Ponomarenko, who asked a few husky questions,
and listened intently.

"Satisfied?" asked the lawyer, when he had hung up.

Ponomarenko lit a cigarette. He was not so much satisfied as stunned
with relief. The slimy little bastard blackmailing him had been met
barely two weeks after his first joyous arrival in Batumi. Six
nightmarish months ago--in June!

He let out a great lungful of smoke.

"Actually," he said, slowly, "there isn't any friend. It's for me. I'm
the client."

"No!" the lawyer said, opening his eyes very wide.

"You surprise me!"

But what Ponomarenko had to tell him soon surprised him much more.

The lunch hour was twelve to two in Batumi, but half a chicken each was
sent up to the prosecutor's office and they talked right through it. By
then the discussion was exclusively on the agent who had trapped
Ponomarenko, and on making arrangements to meet him again. In this
matter, too, Ponomarenko had been given immunity, and  was gladly
cooperating.

His earlier statement--on handing over the keys to his apartment in
Green Cape, on the detailed information he had given of conditions
there, on the strange interest the man had shown in a chance Asian
companion--had already gone off to Tbilisi.

With regard to the chance Asian, Ponomarenko could remember very
little. He had met him in a bar. His name was Kolya, also a driver  from
the north. The agent had seen them drinking together; had been  very
interested; had wanted every detail about him. God knew why; Ponomarenko
didn't. But Kolya had been glad to talk about himself and  he had let
him talk and had later given the details.

Kolya what? Couldn't remember. What details? Couldn't remember  those,
either.

Something about Chukotka and his background, he vaguely thought, and
various places the guy had been. He was a native, a Chukchi. Only stayed
a few days, anyway. Hadn't seen him again.

But at two o'clock a fax arrived from Tbilisi that threw more light on
this chance-met Chukchi. It also threw Ponomarenko into something like a
stupor. The name of the Chukchi was Khodyan--Nikolai Dmitrievich
Khodyan--and he was presently occupying Ponomarenko's apartment in Green
Cape.

The fax, transmitted via Yakutsk and Irkutsk, had originated in
Tchersky.

Tchersky was in the same time zone as Tchemy Vodi.

There it was now ten p.m." and Kolya Khodyan was just going through  the
wall.

The Evenks were especially jovial with Kolya Khodyan on this, his last
morning at Tchemy Vodi.

One of them, cleaning Major Militsky's suite, had heard that the lower
guard post was being opened up at eleven. Medical Officer Komarova would
be at the camp before noon. And surgery would be held as usual  in the
guards' barracks, which had occasioned so much winking and  chuckling
that Kolya was apprehensive that even the thickest of the  staff must
notice it.

Major Militsky noticed it. "They're cheerful today, Sergeant," he said,
on his rounds.

"They are. Major. No accounting for these fellows."

"This baby's name, is it making them so happy?"

"Ah. That. Never thought of that, Major. I think you've got it.
Childish people."

"Yes. They are childish," the major confirmed, with a nod.

"Respect their traditions, though, and you get good work out of them.
Makes for order."

"Well, that's certain. I've known 'em turn very awkward, otherwise. Oh
yes, that's certain."

"Yes," the major said. He was never more certain of anything in his
life. To be congratulated on his tactful handling. He felt tactful.  He
felt well braced. His face was rosy as an apple this morning.

"Good morning all," he said in the storage sheds.

"Everything in order here?"

"All in order. Major." The corporal of the stores detail saluted  him.

"Empties stacked. Got them ready for a quick hitch in case the medical
officer has to take off fast again."

"Ah well, she won't be in such a hurry today," the major said,  smiling.

"That was a special situation before." Although said with a smile  there
was nothing particularly humorous in the remark, so that he was
surprised at the great explosion of mirth it drew from the Evenks. He
continued nodding kindly at them.

"Very good news that the baby now has a name. Excellent!"

"Yes. Excellent, Major!" agreed the Evenks, grinning.

"My congratulations again," the major said, and took his leave;

but somewhat puzzled. There was something anticipatory in all the
grins, as though they expected him to say something even funnier. Well,
they just felt good, and it made them smile. He felt good and it made
him smile.

It had not, however, made Kolya Khodyan smile. There was a childish
delight in guile among tribal people that he knew too well. He hoped the
guards didn't know it so well. Just a few hours more to get  through. He
felt very tense. He had a sense of premonition. Something  wasn't right
today. He scented the freezing air.

Something not right.

He had shown them the sealed letter, and the ring. They knew, and very
joyfully, what they had helped him do; and what still had to be done.
And an unexpected problem had arisen. In the guards' barracks, where the
surgery would be held, the rule was "hats off." The Evenks in the
general business of the camp remained always covered but here, as a
courtesy in the guards' quarters, they did uncover. Obviously he
couldn't uncover. The matter had been debated. Since the present squad
of guards had only seen them covered they couldn't tell whether  or not
one of them had a shaven head. But it would draw attention to  him, at
the last moment, and he could do without that.

Then what?

Then they would all keep their hats on.

And say what?

"We'll see," they said.

This happy-go-lucky attitude filled him with foreboding. He wondered  if
it was responsible for his feeling. He didn't understand the  feeling.
He was very tense.

But he continued at work. Yesterday's plane had again filled the
storage sheds, and the tractors were kept on the go to the delivery bay
at the rear. A good deal more snow had fallen and he wondered if she
could even make it today, whether the thing wouldn't be canceled at the
last moment. But at a quarter to twelve, returning to the sheds, he  saw
the small convoy appear at the perimeter gates, and his heart  leaped.

He carried on working. The guards would be attended to first at the
surgery; and the dinner hour was being staggered so that everybody would
see the doctor in turn. Already it had been agreed he would be  among
the last.

He had his dinner. He had trouble eating it, but he ate it; and while
doing so was joined by the first returning Evenk patient, grinning.

"It's okay with the hats."

He looked up inquiringly.

"For the baby!"

He didn't inquire any further, wiped his mouth, and went out to take
his place.

A guard stood in the porch outside the barracks keeping the few Evenks
in line.

As one came out he sent another in. Kolya evaded the grinning eyes and
looked around him. It was dark, but under the floodlights he could see
the bobik. It stood outside Major Militsky's office and a guard was
standing by it, beating his hands together. The motor was running and
the driver was sitting inside out of the cold.

"Okay, next."

An Evenk had come out, and the first in line went in.

She was taking them very briskly. Within three or four minutes another
man was going in; and Kolya had been joined in the rear by two more. One
further man was still to come; this had been arranged. The further  man
arrived at just the moment when Kolya was at the head of the  line.

"Next man inside."

He went inside. The guards' dormitory was exceedingly tidy; iron beds,
not bunks, and  all made up with military precision. There was also a
long table and a  few comfortable chairs, but these had been moved to
the far end of the  room, beyond reach of contaminating Evenks. The only
piece of  furniture for the Evenks was a bare bench, and three of them
sat on it,  with their hats on. A guard stood beside them, his uniform
fur hat  held ostentatiously under his arm. They moved up, winking, and
made  room for the new man, and Kolya sat.

There was a small sauna off the dormitory. It had running water, and
here the surgery had been set up. Another guard, hat under his arm,
stood sternly outside it. The door was a little ajar and he could hear
her voice. She dealt just as briskly with the new patient, and soon
another man had come in and he was moving along the bench. In no time he
was at the head of the bench--the last three Evenks shuffling along with
him and grinning so broadly that even the guards began to stare.  He
couldn't tell what they made of it. No sense was expected of the Evenks;
what sense was there, after all, in keeping hats on because a  baby had
been named? But it kept him on tenterhooks, until it was his turn to go
in.

He saw at once that something was wrong.

Her face was tight, stiff, paler than ever.

She sat at a table with a pile of papers, her medical case open. A
sheet had been spread on another table and a pillow placed on it. She
was writing.

"Well? Any medical problems?"

"I've pulled a muscle. Doctor. Here, in my back."

"All right. Let's see. Take your top clothing off."

He did so, and she shook her head at him as he opened his mouth.

"Yes. I can feel it. I'll give you an injection, and a preparation to
be rubbed in. Guard!"

The guard outside the door looked in.

"Send my driver in."

The guard looked at her, and shook his head.

"Can't do that. Doctor. If there's something you want, I'll send for
it."

"Yes, very well. It's the diethyl amine salicylate solution,
camphorated, and quickly, please."

"The--what was that?"

"The diethyl amine sal-Just a minute." She irritably shook her head  and
wrote swiftly on a slip of paper.

"It's in the fixed brown compartment, left upper quadrant. And I want  a
spare 100milliliter bottle. And funnel. Lift your arm," she said to  her
patient. "Fixed brown compartment, hundred milliliters, upper quadrant,
and a  funnel," the guard said and went bemusedly out of the room with
the  slip of paper. This he gave to the guard outside the barrack door,
who  went with the instructions to the bobik. He returned presently and
conferred with the surgery guard, who tapped on the door and put his
face in again.

"He doesn't know what you mean," he said.

"Doesn't know what How many patients are out there?"

The guard had a look.

"Three," he said.

"Still three? Send that driver in!" she said, with fury.

"Doctor, I Well, for a moment," he said, seeing her mouth open again;
and in a minute or two the driver was lounging in, with his fancy
balaclava and his fine hat, chewing gum.

"Sorry, Doctor, I couldn't make out " "God above! ... Just a minute
you! Leave the room!" she said abruptly, noticing that the guard had
come in with the man.

"Doctor, he can't come in here unaccompanied."

"And you can't come in when I have a patient!" The patient was now  bent
over the sheeted table with his shirt up, and she was bent over  him.

"Get out at once!"

The guard hastily vacated the room, and the medical officer slammed the
door on him, and stood against it, while the two remaining occupants
swiftly changed places, and clothes. Papers, too, passed.

"A bottle, a funnel, and solution from the brown case!" her voice rang
out.

"Here, written in the largest letters. Does it take so long to
understand a simple " It didn't take so long, and the driver was soon
out again with the paper, ruefully shaking his head. He was not  allowed
to remain unaccompanied for long.

The surgery guard accompanied him outside. The barrack guard
accompanied him to the bobik. And the bobik guard watched closely as  he
unlocked the rear of the vehicle. The rear was now stacked with  cases
of empty jars and drums, but the fixed compartment was accessible  and
it took him no time to pick out the large jar of liniment, with an empty
medicine bottle and a funnel.

These he was not allowed to take back in himself, so he returned to the
driving seat; from which, less than ten minutes later, he hopped out to
open the passenger door for Medical Officer Komarova. She was leaning on
her stick and carrying the file of medical papers, one guard holding her
medical case and another the liniment jar and the funnel.

Major Militsky, forewarned, hurried out of his office.

"I can't tempt you to stay for a bite. Medical Officer?" "No, thank you,
Major. I must get on the weather is very  threatening." She handed over
the file.

"And thank you for facilitating the matter of the baby's name. The
Evenks are happy about it. It means a great deal to them."

"We must respect their traditions. It was a pleasure."

"Very good. Is everything ready here?"

Everything was ready. The funnel and the liniment were back in the
fixed compartment; the rear shut; the escorting jeep waiting.

"Good-bye, Medical Officer." Major Militsky handed her gallantly into
the bobik, and snapped off a most happy salute.

"Good-bye, Major."

"Until next time ... Off you go. Sergeant."

And off they went, through the two sets of gates and down the icy  path.

"Something's wrong," he said.

"Yes. I'll tell you later. I feel sick."

He slowly followed the jeep down. They halted at the lower check post
to be signed out, were saluted off the premises, and entered the  creek.

"What is it?" he said.

She had heard the news this morning at a settlement where she and the
driver had spent the night both nights had been spent at European
settlements, the man unknown at either. Her secretary had telephoned  to
say that Tchersky militia wanted the Chukchi driver, Khodyan. Why?  The
secretary didn't know, but the militia had asked for the medical officer
to call them.

This she had done immediately.

The militia chief was an old patient, and he had told her that a small
matter had cropped up: an inquiry late last night from Batumi on the
Black Sea. A man called Ponomarenko was being held there, and Tchersky
had been asked to find out who was at present occupying his apartment.
He had told them it was Khodyan and they'd asked for him to be held and
his papers checked. From the transport company he had learned that
Komarova had him for a few days. Was she coming back now?

Yes, sometime today. Was this man a criminal?

Not as far as the police chief knew probably just needed to confirm
some aspect of Ponomarenko's story. They'd be sending him more
information on it. Anyway, get him to look into the station with his
papers when they returned.

They drove for some minutes in silence.

"You can't go back to Green Cape," she said.

"No." He kept silent and she looked at him.

He was like an animal, scenting.

"If they're inquiring who's in his apartment," he said at last, "that's
a funny inquiry. Why should anybody be in it? Why should they want to
know? He's told them. He's told them how he was fixed. I'm blown."

He stopped the car suddenly. ' "You spoke to this policeman soon after
nine? Now it's two. Call your office.

See if he's been in touch again."

She switched on, got the crackling, and called in.

No. Nothing. No messages.

"You may be delayed," he told her, softly.

"You want to know if , the militia call."

"Irina, I may be delayed a little. Let me know if there's anything-or
if the militia call again, right?" :

"Right, Medical Officer."

He lit a cigarette.

"Soon they'll have photographs," he mused.

"Of Khodyan. They won't match mine."

"Things don't happen so fast here."

"Faxes happen fast. They'll transmit them.. .. Why didn't they get in
touch with Tchemy Vodi? They knew you were going."

"They can't get in touch with Tchemy Vodi. Only the medical office can
do that, and on medical business. It's a sealed line, teleprinter. The
commandant can make calls out; the militia certainly can't call /n."

He nodded, thinking.

"The inquiry came late last night, from the Black Sea?"

"That's what the chief said."

"Then, there it must have been earlier. They're some hours back,
surely--four, five?"

"Eight, I think."

"Eight. Then the inquiry was made during the day. And now it will
be--what, six in the morning there? Maybe nothing happened in the night.
After all, they'd have to get hold of photos, probably from  other
regions. We could still have a couple of hours."

"For you to catch a plane?"

"A plane to where? No, no. If Ponomarenko told them who fixed him,
maybe they have the agent. I don't know how much he knew, but I can't
risk ... I have to think this out. We'll run into Tchersky--to the
outskirts, and you'll call again. I'll think it out as we go."

He started the car again and they proceeded in blackness along the
creek. He stopped before the end and took the pouches out of the body
belt and gave them to her.

"What are they?"

"I'll tell you later. If I don't get the chance, hide them. Don't try
to open them, they will be destroyed. They aren't any danger to you. But
keep them safely," he said.

She handled the tiny pouches uncertainly.

"What do I do with them?"

"For now, put them in your bra. They're no danger to you," he  repeated,
and got the car moving again.

Outside Tchersky she called in once more. It was now after three
o'clock.

Nothing. And also no concern expressed. He listened carefully to the
voice on the radio.

"You're calling because you want the car unloaded right away," he told
her, quietly.

"You'll be in soon."

This message she passed; and now he told her what they would do.

Lights were on in all windows of the administrative building in
Tchersky, and he drove once around the square looking for any sign of
unusual activity.

There was none, so he drove through the gates at the rear to the
packing bay of the medical center. His own bobik was still standing
there, and a rubbish truck, and that was all, the dimly lit yard with
its stamped snow quite deserted. He helped her out and went in through
the swing doors of the packing room. The two packers there expected  him
and came cheerfully out to unload the van.

"Kolya, remember the militia," she said, as they did so.

"And don't forget your papers."

"I'll do it when I'm through."

"You don't have to unload--they can do it themselves."

"It's all pretty light now. I'll just help finish."

And this he did, carrying in the very last drums.

"That's the lot. See you again, boys."

"Sure. And thanks, Kolya."

He went out and found her in the dim light fiddling with the car keys
at the open rear doors. He swiftly entered the back of the bobik, and
she locked the doors and went into the building.

It was almost four o'clock, and she didn't stay long.

The expected headache, she said, after a three-day trip .. . She
glanced over the new paperwork, inquired into a few cases, saw that
everything was under control, and left. Back in the bobik she drove the
short journey home. She parked in the  shed and let him out of the back,
and he waited there until she had  unlocked the front door. She didn't
switch the light on but returned  to close the shed, and in the dark he
went ahead of her into the  house.

The militia telephoned at six o'clock, and fifteen minutes later were
ringing at the doorbell. The lieutenant and a sergeant found her in  her
dressing gown.

"I'm sorry. Medical Officer. A few things the chief couldn't go into  on
the phone. There's something funny about this fellow who was  driving
you."

"Good God, Lieutenant, you haven't woken me for that? I've been
traveling three hard days--I need some sleep!"

"We can't find him. He didn't go home."

"Maybe he went to a friend's."

"Not to any we know about. And his bobik is still at the medical
center. He left it there."

"Well--he knew he had to go and report with his papers. I think I even
reminded him."

"You did. The packers at the medical center remembered it."

"Then--probably he found a bottle, and is sitting over it somewhere.
You know how it is with them."

"Yes, it's what I think myself," the lieutenant said.

"And he'll turn up with a sore head in the morning. The thing is,
they're worrying us at Irkutsk for a report. They don't understand how
things are here. Can we sit down?"

"Of course. I'm sorry. Help yourself to a drink." She got a couple  of
glasses.

"Irkutsk?" she said, puzzled.

"Counterintelligence," the sergeant contributed.

"They run about looking for spies there. It keeps them happy. Your  good
health, Doctor. The leg's improving?"

"Yes. It's nothing. A Chukchi spy?" she asked in surprise.

"I know, it's crazy," the lieutenant agreed, raising his glass.

"But this fellow isn't who he says he is. They sent in some pictures,
from Magadan, where he was supposed to have worked. It's a different
man. The chances are, this one stole Khodyan's papers. It's how he got
in here. The papers are okay--the transport company checked them  in
with us, of course, when he started but he'd changed the photo. No  way
we could tell that. A Chukchi's a Chukchi."

"Why would he want to do that?"

"Who knows? Trouble with a wife, a paternity suit? He must have met
Khodyan on the Black Sea. What he's doing with Ponomarenko's apartment
is a puzzle. They've told us nothing yet. To them it's espionage, of
course, so they're giving nothing away. What these people can think up a
spy from Chukotka!" he said, drinking, and wiped his mouth.

"Anyway, if you'll just give a statement, the sergeant will take it
down."

"What else is there I can tell you?"

She watched as the sergeant took his book out.

"Maybe his reaction when he heard we wanted him."

"Well he was irritated. He thought people were picking on him because
he was a Chukchi. I'd had to take him off long-distance journeys, you
know; his medical record showed he had a heart murmur."

"Yes. He was due for hospital tests next week, I understand."

"Cardiological. For the murmur. That annoyed him too."

"He didn't want it?"

"Well, he wasn't too happy about it."

"Aha. Did he talk about that?"

"A little. He understood I had no choice from his record. I couldn't
risk allowing him on long journeys, whatever they'd allowed in Chukotka.
They asked me to arrange a hospital test for him, and I did.  He
accepted that."

"He did, eh? Well, they think a bit slow, you know, these natives, but
they're very crafty. I guess he'd have skipped, even without this
inquiry. Still, it must have worried him, being called in. You say he
was just irritated?"

"Well. He cursed."

"He cursed," the lieutenant told the sergeant.

"And what then? He asked questions?"

"He asked what I thought it was about. I said it was a routine check  of
his papers."

"Did he want you to find out more?"

"Well, I called the office for any messages."

"Did he ask you to do that?"

She thought.

"Maybe. I'd have done it, anyway."

"How many times did he ask?"

"Oh, now. Lieutenant, I don't know how many times."

The lieutenant had leaned over and was turning back a page of the
sergeant's book. "You called in at two o'clock," he said.

"And again at five past three. Did he ask you both those times?"

"Lieutenant, I've got a splitting headache, and I can't remember what
he asked me or how many times."

"I'm sorry. Medical Officer. But with these natives--if a problem  isn't
so serious, they'll wait for it to happen. I'm wondering how  serious he
thought it was.. .. This last time, now, you must have been  pretty near
Tchersky, and he's driving you in. He knows he's on false  papers and
will have to produce them.. .. Didn't he seem nervous at  all?"

"Well.. . not that I could tell. He just drove into the yard and went
in to get the packers, and helped unload the van. Then he came out and
asked if there was anything else I wanted, and I said no, and he  went."

"Where?"

"Out of the yard, I suppose."

"And left his bobik standing there?"

"What would he want with the bobik? The militia station is almost next
door."

"He didn't go to it. Where the devil could he have gone on foot?"

"Look, Lieutenant, I'm tired. Probably he's drinking somewhere now,
wondering what to do."

The lieutenant nodded.

"He'll be in Tchersky, anyway. He won't have walked four kilometers to
Green Cape. He could have hitched a lift, of course.. .. Still,  thanks
for your help. If he calls in--which he might, when he's had a few--find
out where he is and calm him down. Let us know."

"All right."

She waited till the noise of the car had receded and went and opened
the cellar door.

This was Friday night.

They left at nine o'clock when traffic had ceased and it was silent
outside. The two disks he now had back in his body belt. He was  certain
that a house-to-house search would begin and knew he had to be  off
immediately.

She had three ten-liter jerricans of petrol in the shed. These he put
in the back of the bobik, with a small extra one of kerosene for the
stove. He packed some clothing in a grip, took a sleeping bag and food
and the remainder of a bottle of vodka. The route to Anyuysk she knew,
and he stayed under a blanket in the  back while she drove. But once
they were off the river and onto the  made track he took over the wheel.

The dark was intense and in the featureless country the headlights
showed no sign of the turnoff to Provodnoye. He had clocked it at nine
kilometers, and at the eighth he slowed so that she would see. Next time
she would be doing it on her own.

They made the tributary, and he took the bends slowly so that she would
know them. From the entry, fifty-five kilometers to the cave;

this too he had clocked, and she had to remember.

The overhanging willow came on a sharp bend the bend where spring
floods had eroded the cave in the first place and if not spotted at once
it could be missed while negotiating the bend.

At fifty-four kilometers he slowed again, and she made it out for
herself.

He turned the nose of the bobik into the cave. The tarpaulin had been
left hanging, and it draped over the windshield. They got out and in the
headlights she saw the place for the first time: all as he had left  it,
last weekend, when he had turned up at the house at five in the morning.

His own spirits sank as he took in the skeleton of the car. It was  more
of a mess than he remembered. He started the generator and backed  the
bobik and parked it and switched the lights off. They began  unloading
in the dark and he took the jerricans.

In the naked lights the cave was exceedingly dismal, the walls gleaming
with ice, the bare chassis strewn with half-fitted parts. She came in
with the food and bedding, and looked around.

"Oh, my darling you'll freeze here!"

"I'll survive." He lit the stove and examined the tarpaulin at the
entrance, frowning.

Then he went outside, and came in again.

"The light shows. There's a glow," he said.

"Anything changing down at the bend would see it.... With the generator
going I'd never hear what's coming."

"What should be coming here?"

"Trucks could be running regularly to Provodnoye now. I'll have to put
the blanket up as well."

"All right, I'll bring another. I'll put it on the list."

The list was growing. He already had four jerricans of petrol stacked
in the cave. Her three made it seven; and he now calculated he needed at
least three more. He also needed a map and a compass and extra batteries
for the flashlight, and more provisions. "Okay, don't wait now," he
said. It would take her at least two and a  half hours getting back, and
it was now almost midnight. Tomorrow she  had to let her Yakut cleaning
woman in; she would put in only an hour  or two at the medical center,
and then go out to the stores.

"Have you remembered the turnoffs?"

She had remembered them: nine kilometers off the Anyuysk road for the
tributary, fifty-five more to the cave.

"Okay. Tomorrow night. Be very careful," he said.

"Oh, Johnny!"

"Kolya! Only that!" he said, removing her arms.

"And no goodbyes, just go, TanyaPanya."

He waited outside while she turned the bobik, and watched the rear
lights recede, and went back in. Now, on his own, it looked starker than
ever. To turn this mess into a car! But he would have to turn it  into
one, and by the time she returned. Whatever state it was in, he'd  start
the engine when she appeared, anyway; it would give them both a  boost.
But then he realized he couldn't start the engine. The last  item taken
from Vassili was still in the shed at the house.

The car battery was there, charging. He had hidden it under a sack,  and
it was not on the list, and his stomach turned to lead.

With the December solstice so close there was now no daylight at all.

A little after one in the afternoon the sky grayed faintly for an hour
as the sun rose and set below the horizon, but this was only when there
was no overcast. For some days before and after the blizzard there had
been heavy overcast, perpetual night. Despite this, normal hours were
kept in the region, and he took account of this in figuring when trucks
could pass.

He was midway between Green Cape and Provodnoye.

From either point it would take the heavy vehicles three hours to the
cave. From Green Cape they would leave at eight in the morning, so
around eleven they could be outside. By then his lights had to be off.
Even with the blanket a faint glow was noticeable in the dark. He
couldn't tell when they would return from Provodnoye, but it was
unlikely to be the same day. He himself had stayed overnight and
returned in the morning.

Eleven in the morning was the time, both coming and going. The
generator had to be off then. He would grab three hours' rest, from ten
o'clock to one, all lights  out.

He worked through the night, worked solidly; but at ten in the morning
he hung the bobik's floor panels, took a good swig of vodka, spread the
sleeping bag, and got in.

In the biting cold he got all of himself in, including his fur hat, and
slowly warmed up and dozed. And was glad of the precaution when after an
hour he heard the distant sound of a truck. He listened  carefully.

From Green Cape.

He could plot the bends as it slowed and picked up.

It ground slowly past; a few meters from him. A big Kama. They were
using them now. In the blackness he went off to sleep, and slept
soundly, and woke abruptly. One o'clock, he saw on his watch by
flashlight: one in the afternoon.

As planned.

He got out and started the generator, and topped up the little tank of
the kerosene stove. It had been going all night. Then he gave himself
something to eat: bread, cheese, a cup of coffee from the flask. He
hesitated over pouring a drop of vodka into the coffee, and decided
against. There was not much left and it was going to be a long day.  She
was leaving later, and he didn't expect her till one in the  morning,
another twelve hours.

He relieved himself outside, and shifted his production, immediately
frozen, to a crevice in the opposite bank with the bobik's little snow
shovel; it came with the kit.

Then he got to work again.

The short sleep had done him good and he felt considerably more
cheerful. He had passed some gloomy hours considering his prospects.
Ponomarenko would have led them to the agent, and the agent, however
little he knew, must have received instructions from somebody. He
himself had a number to call at Tbilisi perhaps the agent's own  number.

Tbilisi, nearly bordering on Turkey, was one of two exit routes planned
for him.

Both exits involved a trip first to Yakutsk, where new papers awaited
him. Now Tbilisi was out. But Yakutsk was still good. The Tbilisi  agent
(so he had been told) knew nothing of Yakutsk. All he had to do  was get
himself there. But not from Tchersky airport. That too was  out now.

Perversely, this cheered him. The idea of the bobik had occurred as a
means of avoiding Tchersky. Too much security at that airport, the
gateway to the Kolymsky region. It had seemed best, if he had to leave
in a hurry, to find some other airport, a more relaxed one. And he had
found it, at Zirianka, a few hours along the river. Zirianka was the
distribution center for the summer barges sailing  south: a sleepy small
place, with a sleepy small airport. This sleepy  small airport, as he
had discovered when running a load to it, had  regular service to
Yakutsk.

That had been the idea wheels to take him fast out of Tchersky's
control. But Zirianka too was not on now. For though away from Tchersky,
it was still on the Kolyma, within the region; and soon the  hue and cry
for him would be region wide

He needed an airport outside the region. And the reasoning still held
good a bobik could get him to one.

A bobik with a battery could get him to one.

The battery, obviously, was going to hold him up. She would have to
make an extra journey out.

But after some hours he saw it wouldn't be the only holdup. Assembling
the parts was one thing. One after the other, he found he had been
assembling them in the wrong order. The book showed the exploded  parts;
it showed how to take them down for repair and how to put them  back. It
didn't show how they had to go in in the first place. He  leafed there
and back. Each section covered a different one of the  bobik's systems.
At the back there was a two-page plan of the whole  thing complete.
There was no plan showing how you got the thing complete.

He struggled and cursed, dragging the chassis out and dragging it in
again, to get at one part or another with the block and tackle. The
transmission came in and out, and the differential. The engine was twice
hoisted out. But slowly, by trial and error, the logic of the  thing
became clearer. The rugged little beast, apparently so simple,  was in
fact highly complex.

At a quarter to seven in the evening, with the best part of another six
hours' work behind him, he stopped again. If the Kama had decided to
return after just a couple of hours at Provodnoye unlikely, but possible
it would have left at four, and would pass here again at  seven.

He hung the floor panels back, laid his sleeping bag out, had a snack,
still left the vodka alone. Then he turned the generator off and got
back in the bag.

Seven o'clock. No Kama. He listened for an hour, decided to sleep
anyway.

He woke at ten o'clock, as he had planned no novelty, but it still
pleased him for he had been very exhausted. He got out, started the
generator, and lit up.

And now he had the vodka. He drained the bottle, a good whole measure,
and felt it lighting up his whole body. Wonderful. The bobik didn't look
so bad now. Still only at chassis level and  with a mountain of work to
do, but it was beginning to look real. She  would be here in three
hours. He decided to make it look more real.

He sorted through the body panels and saw how to put them on-- a couple
of hours' work. The whole thing could be taken down again in no time.
But it would look a real bobik and cheer them both up. He drank the last
of the coffee and got moving.

Again, the little bastard was perverse, no section fitting as expected.
There was a lower frame bar that obviously had to go in first. The  book
showed the parts attaching to this bar. But how?

He swore, kicked the thing, crawled underneath. Found the little holes
presently, at regular intervals in the steel pockets of the frame-well
concealed, wisely concealed, against the snow and the weather. Located
the right bolts for them in the pack. Fitted the frame bars, and started
with a side.

Half an hour's work showed you couldn't start with a side.

The rear had to go in first.

The framev ork for the rear doors had to go in first.

The constant problems, one after the other, exhausted him again, and by
half past midnight he still hadn't finished. He put a spurt on. He  had
the back and the sides loosely in position by one--no point in
tightening anything, since it all had to come down again--but she had
not turned up, so he hung the hood, too.

The windshield had to go in with mastic so he didn't bother with it, or
with any of the glasswork, or the lighting array, or even the catches
and handles. But the thing looked real.

He lit a cigarette and walked around it.

He could do with a vodka. Well, soon. It was nearly half past one,  she
was taking it slowly. He finished the cigarette and decided to fit  the
catches and handles.

By a quarter past two she had still not arrived, and worry began to
gnaw at him.

Had she missed the turnoffs? But she knew the way to Anyuysk. After a
few kilometers she'd realize the mistake and turn back.

Or had she got onto the tributary and passed the cave? With the
generator going, he wouldn't have heard. Well, it was possible. She'd
done it only once. But how far would she go? Not more than twenty,
thirty kilometers. Half an hour, three quarters. And back again.  Well.

He smoked another cigarette, fiddled some more with the catches. He
couldn't concentrate. At half past two he went outside. It was pitch
black, unbelievably cold--at least sixty below. In the cave, the
kerosene stove going for over twenty-four hours had had some effect.
Here a thick mat of frost was growing by the minute, dragging at his

'>/l-7 boots. He looked both ways for some hint, some glancing
reflection,  of a car's lights. Nothing.

Had they stopped her, maybe, on the main river? Perhaps stopping cars
there now . And she'd dreamed up some excuse and gone back. Or an
accident. Or a breakdown. She was stuck somewhere. But she had her radio
phone. Except she couldn't use the radio phone. How would she  explain?
.. .

He began walking along the track to Provodnoye. He didn't know why he
was doing it and he only walked as far as the next bend. Nothing.
Blackness. His face froze; eyelashes stuck with frost. He walked back
again. A faint glow from the cave, and he could hear the generator
chugging away. He got to the cave and passed it and walked to the
farther bend. Still nothing. Not a hint of light. If she was coming,
there'd be some faint flicker, down from the overcast.

She wasn't coming.

He went back to the cave.

He didn't know what to do. A quarter to three in the morning. Even if
she came now, it would be six before she got back.

She wouldn't be coming.

The stove needed replenishing, and the generator. He attended to these
things, brooding over the situation.

If she couldn't come now she would come tomorrow. She wouldn't leave
him like this. He had nothing to eat or drink. He was trapped here,
stuck, couldn't leave the place. Had there been an accident? She
couldn't have gotten lost. Not for this amount of time. Something had
held her up. It would be another whole day and night.

There was no point in doing anything now--all the body work to come
down first.

The truck would be back from Provodnoye at eleven;

eight hours to go. He had better sleep a while, and start again.

He laid the sleeping bag back in the bobik, switched the generator off,
and got into the little van. The loose structure swayed and creaked with
his weight, and he had barely settled himself when he heard the  sound
of a motor. He lay for a moment listening, and raised himself,  and
grasped a heavy wrench and got slowly out.

A bobik engine. And from the direction of Green Cape. He went to the
entrance, raised the layers of curtain, and peered through the branches.
He saw the flicker in the sky and suddenly the headlights,  swinging
blindingly around the bend. The car came on, very slowly. He  couldn't
see who was in it, how many were in it. Then it slowed  further, and he
saw the shape of her head, peering, and he switched the  flashlight on.

"God!" She got out and hugged and kissed him.

"I'm sorry--I'm

><(? so sorry, my darling! I couldn't leave before. They were
searching."  She had hungered for him, he could see. As he had for her.
But in the  present hazard the hunger couldn't be indulged. He took her
inside,  and got the lights working, unloaded what she had brought, and
right  away took a long pull at the vodka while listening to her hurried
story.

The militia had started in the afternoon. She thought they were now at
Green Cape, searching the transport company. Her own house had been  the
last in Tchersky and they had not started till 10:30. They thought  he
had broken in somewhere and was lying low. They had gone through  every
nook and cranny the shed, the cellar. It was midnight before  they'd
left and they were still poking about the area, so that it was  another
half hour before she had dared take the bobik out.

She had got everything: full jerricans from the pump at the ambulance
depot.

Sausage, cheese, black bread, two bottles of vodka, more coffee. From
the little general counter at the post office, flashlight batteries and
a child's compass, it was all they had; from the same place a school
atlas of Siberia there was no public map of this reserved area. If he
could delay a little she might lay hands on one in the ambulance section
or her own administrative office: it had been locked when she  had
realized the lack. And a blanket.

"But you've finished it!" She was tired and dazed from the journey,  and
had only now noted the transformation in the bobik.

"No. I haven't." He explained about the bobik.

"To encourage me, you put the doors on?" She enfolded him again,
stroking his face, breathing his breath.

He breathed hers. Still breathing it, he told her about the battery.

She pulled back, staring at him.

"Oh, God! I didn't even know it was there. I didn't see it.... They
didn't, either.. .. Maybe people keep spare batteries. . Well I'll bring
it, then."

He saw she was swaying, deathly pale, and he held her. He opened the
rear of the bobik and sat her there, and poured a little vodka into the
vacuum flask cap.

But she took only a sip.

"I've still got to get back.. .. Well, maybe I'll be able to get you a
proper map now.. .. But no. I can't how?" She shook her head, still
dazed.

"The office won't be open today."

"What day is it?"

"It's Sunday."

"Sunday?" He had lost a day somehow, both of them dazed.

"Okay, you'd better go.

You'll make it before anything's moving in Tchersky. But take it easy.
You're very tired." "Yes. I'll come earlier tomorrow--that is, tonight."
She dragged  herself up.

"I'll try to get here by midnight. And I'll find out what I can."

He turned the bobik for her on the river and saw her into it, and she
smiled wanly as he kissed her.

"With all these mechanical activities--the disks are safe?"

"Yes. They're safe," he said.

She stroked his face and he kissed her again.

"Go safely, TanyaPanya."

"Yes."

He watched the lights recede and went back in the cave. On his own
again.

He ate a little and took another swig of vodka and turned the generator
off and got back in the bag. As he dozed off to sleep he felt the body
belt. Through all the activities, safe.

By noon on Sunday an embarrassing situation had arisen in Tchersky. The
native driver posing as Khodyan had driven into town at four p.m. on
Friday, had helped to unload a van in the yard of a building next to the
militia headquarters, and had then vanished into thin air.

Almost forty-eight hours ago.

There was nowhere that he could have gone. The militia had searched
every building where he could have gone; they had even searched
buildings where he couldn't have gone. They had searched the jail, the
schools, the old women's baths, the militia chief's own home, apart from
all other private dwellings.

He wasn't in Tchersky.

But if he wasn't in Tchersky, how had he gotten out of it? He hadn't
taken his own vehicle, and he hadn't taken anybody else's. No vehicles
were missing. Apart from Green Cape, four kilometers away, there was
nowhere else to go.

He could have walked to Green Cape, or taken a lift. Nobody had
knowingly given him a lift, although he could have grabbed one, hidden
in the back of something.

But once arrived there, then what? He wasn't in any private dwelling,
or in the basements or boiler rooms of any apartment blocks. He wasn't
in the supermarket or its warehouse; or in any of the premises of the
port authority. That left the sprawling sheds and stores of the
transport company  above; and the militia chief thought they were the
most likely. By  some means or other he had got himself there. Plenty of
booze crated  in the place, and food. He was familiar with it and he was
resting up  there, deciding what to do. He couldn't escape, and there
was nowhere  to go if he did. But you could look a long time before
finding him  there; and this was a problem for the chief, who did not
have a long  time. He was being driven mad by urgent calls and faxes
from Irkutsk.

Irkutsk was 3,400 kilometers away and it was a big town; they didn't
understand there how it was possible to lose someone in a little
settlement of ten thousand people stuck out in the taiga. In particular,
they didn't understand the nature of the people here.  Oddballs, many of
them, running away from something, but not had. There  was no crime
here, no theft or fraud. Everybody knew each other. The  jail was for
drunks, fighting mad at night but best of friends in the  morning.

This particular individual had been the best of friends with everybody.
No one had a bad word to say of him, only that he could be touchy, if
picked on as a Chukchi. Well, here he'd been picked on, for having funny
papers. Knew someone had told on him. Plenty of people here had  funny
papers; the militia chief knew that. But this one had gone  broody. A
broody native hid himself. With a bottle.

Obvious. He was holed up, would come out when it suited him. Explain
that to Irkutsk!

He had tried to explain it, on the telephone, and had been asked to put
the details more concisely in a fax.

This he had done, setting the matter out with clarity and authority. It
annoyed him that his competence seemed somehow to be under question at
Irkutsk.

The person concerned, he dictated, had almost certainly smuggled
himself in a vehicle into the premises of the Tchersky Transport
Company. The premises covered a vast area, stacked with hundreds of
thousands of crates, many containing alcohol and canned food. The person
was a native person, brooding on a slight. To find him in this  maze was
a matter of time. But in his own good time he would come out  anyway.
This was the way of natives. There was nowhere for him to go,  and the
situation was under control.

The chief signed his memo and faxed it off. and ten minutes later got
one back.

He got a series of questions back.

If the wanted person had smuggled himself in, Irkutsk said, why
couldn't he have smuggled himself out? Of the premises of the Tchersky
Transport Company? What routes were taken by vehicles of the company?
How many of them had left since four p.m. on Friday? What communications
were there with these vehicles?

The militia chief looked up at his lieutenant. Both of them had been
staring down at the fax as it rolled out.

That was the embarrassment at noon on Sunday.

By one p.m. it was established that seventy-three vehicles of the
Tchersky Transport Company had left its premises in the relevant period.
Communication with the ones on long-distance journeys was by  means of
the road stations. The road stations were spaced one hundred  kilometers
apart--roughly three-hour intervals for the big trucks.

Within three hours all those' still traveling were being searched and
their cabin crews questioned.

The short-haul trucks presented a different problem. On the shorter
distances there were no road stations. But there had been far more
journeys. The purely local ones could be ruled out, but many had not
been purely local. Ambarchik, Anyuysk, Provodnoye, were not local, yet
trucks had visited all of them. The police posts there were contacted
and inquiries started.

By five p.m. all the road stations had reported negative, and so had
most of the police posts; a few half-constructed buildings had still to
be checked in outlying parts. But within an hour all this was tied up,
too, to the militia chief's great relief. There was nothing in it, and
he told Irkutsk so.

Since they liked faxes he gave them a fax.

He added that the drivers had been quite astonished. The man had not
been up front in any of the cabs, and behind he would have frozen to
death; any driver in these parts knew this, and this experienced driver
certainly knew it. A knowledge of local conditions was necessary. The
warehouse search was continuing.

His message was curt, and he was pleased with it.

The fax went off soon after six and he waited for a reply.

From Irkutsk replies were very prompt, if not immediate. This one took
two hours and the message, when it finally came, was even curter than
his own. Control of the operation was being assumed, with immediate
effect, by Irkutsk. A major general of the security service was flying
in. All vehicles of Tchersky Transport Company were to be halted.
Details and locations of all other vehicles within fifty kilometers were
to be prepared. Acknowledgment of these orders required  immediately.

In shock, Tchersky's chief of militia acknowledged the orders, and then
he set about halting all the vehicles of the Tchersky Transport
Company.

Such a thing had never happened before. The economy of northeast
Siberia had not been so disrupted before. And a major general of the
security service! Obviously he had underrated what he had been told so
far. But he had been told very little so far. He was totally dazed.

"What is it with all other vehicles in the area--not everything to be
halted surely?" he asked his lieutenant.

"No. No," the lieutenant said, looking at the message again.

"Details and locations only. Just the company's vehicles to be  halted."

This was as well, for it was now nine p.m. and Medical Officer Komarova
was just setting off in her own. She had the battery aboard.

While the commotion had waxed and proliferated all Sunday in Tchersky,
the lost man spent a productive day in the cave.

He had slept and worked, and slept and worked, with meals in between.
He was pretty sure now that he had got the hang of the thing and he
proceeded confidently.

By eleven at night, after a meal and a drink, he went around the bobik,
shaking the structure, bouncing the suspension. All solid. Everything
that had to be greased was greased. The various grades of oil had gone
in. Fuel was in the tank. He had left the seats and the floor panels
out, so that he could look down at the works. The works looked as they
looked in the book.

Everything looked as it did in the book. The windshield and wipers  were
in;

lights in; doors and windows in; everything opened and shut properly.
He thought he had done it.

He turned the engine over with the handle. It was very stiff; no oil
circulating yet. Nothing could properly circulate without the  electrics
in. But the gears slotted in place. The brakes worked, as  far as he
could tell, jacking the wheels and spinning them. Even after  he'd got
the battery, hours of testing still had to be done. But  nothing more
could be done now.

He went out and chipped ice and made himself a pan of lukewarm coffee
on the stove. Then he put the floor panels in, switched the generator
off, and got back in the sleeping bag--and again, almost as soon as he'd
stretched out, heard the approaching note of the bobik.

He got out and waited at the entrance; saw the flicker in the sky, then
the headlights, and she was there again, bundled up in furs, pressed
close to him, her nose in his neck.

She was alert now, not dazed or tired, for she had slept well. And she
had news. The militia were combing the warehouses of Green Cape. They
knew he  was hiding there. But Irkutsk had ordered them to look further
afield.  All the trucks were being searched as they pulled into road
stations,  and even short-haul drivers were being questioned.

She had spoken earlier to Bukarovsky, the company boss, and he thought
all this was tremendous nonsense. He agreed with the militia:

The Chukchi had got hold of a bottle or two. He had even summoned
twenty of the warehouse staff to help with the search and call out to
the fellow not to be such a fool. Nobody was going to shoot him! If they
shot every driver who had funny papers here ... He had always  known the
Chukchi must be in trouble at home. Why was he here instead  of at
Chukotka? But it would certainly take time to find him in all  the
warehouses.

She related this with excitement, and was disturbed at the fox like
scenting look that came over his face again.

"This isn't good news?"

"Yes. It's good news," he said, and kissed her again. There was no
point in explaining now that it wasn't. He went and collected the
battery. He lowered it into position and fitted the terminals. Then  he
checked that everything was in place, and drew a breath.

"Well. Here goes," he said, and with the hood open pressed the  solenoid
for the starter.

He got the first jump, and a croak, and tried again. The engine was
very stiff, but it turned. At the fifth try the thing caught and  roared
into life. The row was immense in the cave, and he knew right  away it
was running too fast. The timing was going to need fixing. He  left the
engine running, tried the lights, the wipers. All okay.

"Look, I have to move it while you're here. I might need a tow  back."

He closed the hood, fixed a seat in position, got in, reversed slowly,
and braked. He tried this operation again, there and back, braking
sharply. Then he took it out on the river, and drove a short distance,
in first and second, and stopped. He tried the brakes going forward  and
backward, and made an awkward many-point turn, everything very  stiff,
the engine racing hard. This he did twice, left and right, and  drove
back into the cave.

"It's okay," he said.

"Oh, darling. Lovely man!" She embraced him as he got out, smothering
him in her furs.

"Tanya." He nuzzled her, thinking how to put it without panicking  her.

"We have to talk a little. You mustn't stay long here, but there are a
few things to say."

"I love you." "Yes, that. But listen to me. You're going to be seriously
questioned not by the people here. Probably they're already out of it,
and don't know yet. But if Irkutsk told them to look for me elsewhere,
and they still think I'm here, then Irkutsk hasn't told them everything.
The chances are people will fly in, senior people,  professionals. You
must be prepared for it. Tell me Tchemy Vodi is  the one secret place
here?"

"So far as I know."

"Then that's what I've come for they must know that. They don't know
how I got here. But they know a place was prepared for me;

they know the whole Ponomarenko angle now. He doesn't know why;

the agent who fixed him doesn't know. I'm certain of that. But they
know. They know there was an explosion here, and that a satellite
observed it. And a few months later, I arrived. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

"Who is allowed to go to Tcherny Vodi from here?"

"I am you know that."

"Exactly. Only you. Who drove you there?"

"Ah."

"Yes. Now remember / initiated everything. I volunteered. I struck  up
acquaintance with you, asked if I could drive you to anywhere, to
Panarovka, to settlements. I hung onto you, made myself available, was
very willing. You didn't ask for me. That's the first thing. Now  Tchemy
Vodi could they find anything out from there?"

"Find out what?"

"Are they entitled to ask them questions? Could they question the
Evenks on what happened?"

"They wouldn't get far with the Evenks."

"No." He thought for a moment.

"When you left, the first time, you went to a couple of European
settlements and stayed the night. What happened to the driver  there?"

"They gave him a room."

"Did he eat with them? Did they get a good look at him?"

She thought.

"No he took a tray to his room, he didn't eat in the dining hall.

The same both nights. He kept to himself. And in the mornings, too. I
remember there was only comment on his fine hat, his fancy balaclava.
That's all they'd remember a native. They can't tell one from another.
I'm almost certain."

"Okay." He thought about this.

"Now, they're going to assume I had help here that at the least someone
must have helped me skip from Tchersky. They need steering away from
you. You will have to mention a couple of things."

He told her what they were, and she listened seriously. "Have you got
it?"

"Yes, I've got it."

"Stay very alert. They'll be professionals. In another life I've had
experience of the type. Unexpected questions come up. I wish I could
think of some more for you. You'll be stuck with this, after I'm gone,
and I can't help."

She absorbed what he said, and for a moment buried her face in his
chest.

"Oh God, darling, sweetheart." She opened her coat and enfolded him in
it, pressing them close together.

"Only go safely! Please be safe. Lovely one! I want you. And we'll  be
together again." She drew back and looked steadily into his dark  eyes.

"I'll move from here. At some time I'll move, and we can be together,
in another place. I love you!" She caressed his face, and kissed  him.

"You're necessary for my life! And you love me. Say it to me. Tell  me."

"Yes. I love you," he said, and meant it. He was moved by her, and  she
had fallen very much in love with him. But now he only wanted her  away.

She grew more practical.

"I brought you more food and two flasks of coffee. I couldn't get a
map. Can you manage with that?"

"Yes, I'll manage."

"Do you know where you're going?"

"No," he said. But he did.

"I have to work it out, and go where I can. When I've got this working
properly--it isn't anything, I can do it."

"Is there anything more you could want?"

"I don't know, I hope not."

"I'll come back to see. I'll come tomorrow night." ;

"I don't know," he said slowly, "if that's so wise."

"I'll be very careful. If it isn't safe, then as soon as I can. But I
will come.

If you're gone, will you leave me a sign?"

He kissed her hard, wishing her away.

"Yes, I'll leave you a sign," he said in her ear.

He turned the car on the river, and got her into it and, as she clung
to him, felt the tears on her face.

"Sweetheart, darling. Say it's only good-bye for now."

"It's only for now," he said.

"I love you forever and ever, my lovely lover. You know that. Say it  to
me."

"Forever and ever--I love you, lovely TanyaPanya."

He watched her lights recede, and went in and had a stiff drink, and to
his surprise found his own eyes were moist.

Then he lit a cigarette and looked through the book. Engine. Timing. 50

As she drove onto the main river, the aircraft passed overhead, and she
saw its lights emerging through the overcast. But in the river's curve
it went out of sight, dropping lower and lower.

Ahead, many kilometers ahead, unusual activity was taking place on the
river;

cars milling, headlights swinging.

Although it was almost three in the morning, a full reception committee
was awaiting the major general of security, who was not in the best of
tempers. He had slept the last hour of the long flight and had awoken
bilious.

"What's this--have the fools turned out the town band?" he said,
peering out of the window as the plane taxied.

Not the town band, but senior town hall staff and all the headquarters
staff of the militia were tumbling out of cars and lining up as the
plane came to a halt, its engines whining down. The general had a team
of four with him and they went slowly down the steps, shielding their
eyes in the powerful glare of headlights.

In this glare the general's shoulder boards were very prominent, and
the chief of militia had no difficulty in identifying him. He stepped
forward and snapped off a smart salute, receiving a nod from the
general.

"Are you head of the militia here?"

"Yes, General."

"You've got me an apartment?"

"Of course, General."

"Come with me to it. Which is my car?"

A fine apartment had been secured for the general, and two more, not
much less fine, for his four aides, who included a colonel. In fifteen
minutes all of them were at the general's.

He had brought a set of large-scale maps with him, and on the journey
had ringed a number of areas. He took a glass of bismuth while casting a
sour eye over these.

"The routes you sent were not so clear. On these short hops, the
drivers seem to have a choice. Who determines it?"

"It depends on the load, General, and what's to be dropped off. They
can stick either to the river or to the made tracks. To Ambarchik, for
instance--" "Forget Ambarchik. He hasn't gone to Ambarchik. He's gone
south or east." "General, I don't think he's gone anywhere. He's an
experienced  driver. He knows there isn't anywhere to go. He's a native,
drinking  his way through a problem. I know his type. When you see the
warehouses you'll appreciate--" The general halted him, with a shake of
the bismuth.

"You know this fellow, do you?"

"A hundred people know him! I have their testimony."

"He's a foreign agent," the general told him bleakly.

"His operation was set up in June. Khodyan's papers were stolen in
June."

"General, there are many people here with stolen papers. We need
skilled workers--we don't inquire too closely whether they're using
stolen--" "His papers aren't stolen. P said Khodyan's were stolen."

The chief of militia blinked at him.

"General?"

"Khodyan's papers were stolen at Batumi six months ago. He reported  the
matter to the police. Thirty-six hours later they turned up in a  pocket
of his suitcase. End of inquiry. You've seen this fellow's  papers?"

"Of course, General. When the transport company took him on we
naturally--" "All correct, were they? Stamped? Right-colored seals, red,
blue, green?"

"Certainly. Magadan papers. We're familiar with Magadan papers."

"They were copied. Color-copied, overnight--and properly bound and
embossed, I expect, if you noticed nothing out of the ordinary. And  the
originals returned.

That's a foreign operation. Khodyan gave us the benefit of his
reminiscences.

He's in Magadan, working. Your Chukchi with a hundred friends is a
spy."

The chief of militia listened aghast to this, and to the story of
Ponomarenko.

"There will be many things for me to look into here," the general told
him forbiddingly, "but Tchersky's warehouse facilities--fix this in your
head--are not among them. He's got away. These trucks are all  halted?"

"Every one. General."

"Too late, I expect. I'll have every man jack re questioned all the
same. He knows of a vehicle somewhere. You've got a complete list of all
those in the area?"

"All of them. General. Full details, within fifty kilometers. All
surrounding areas contacted also, according to your last  instructions."
"And nothing's missing?"

"Nothing."

"Well. Every one of those to be rechecked, too--confirmed. These
short-haul routes you say he knows best--I've been looking them over. A
lot of scattered developments. This one here, Anyuysk. What's doing
there?"

"Various works. We had the local police check them out."

"Hmmm. And beyond it?"

"South--a few small places. They were all checked. And east, nothing
till Provodnoye. Also checked--a truck delivered a load there Saturday."

"This river in between, the ice road. What's near it?"

"Nothing--the odd trapper's hut."

The general looked up and stared at him. Then he turned to his aides.
The colonel was stretched on the sofa, the others in easy chairs;

all hollow-eyed, but alerted now at his gaze.

"The odd trapper's hut?" the general asked, quietly.

"Tiny shelters," the chief of militia said placatingly.

"Maybe three or four.

Spread over a hundred kilometers--well away from the banks. For
trappers. He couldn't get to them."

"Do the trappers have vehicles?"

"No, General. Trappers don't have vehicles."

"What do they have--dogs, sleds?"

"Yes. Dogsleds. Where could he go with a dogsled?"

"God knows where he could go with a dogsled! Find out! Trappers scout
around.

Maybe they've seen something. Go there. Cover that area. Cover this
stretch from--where is it? Anyuysk. Anyuysk to Provodnoye. Volodya,  I
believe I could manage a drink now," he said to his junior aide.

"And you--sit down. There are more areas like this. Have you got a
notebook? Start writing down in your notebook."

It was well after four a.m. before the chief of militia got away but
before five the sturdy vehicles of his force, their searchlights mounted
on top, were off on their missions, the first of them bound for Anyuysk,
and for the little tributary that branched off to  Provodnoye.

In the cave, he had done what he could. A screwdriver at the
carburetor, and a series of fiddles with the distributor, had brought
down the revs and evened out the note.

He still didn't like the sound of it. It was too noisy. He knew he had
to get it out on the track for a proper test. but was nervous  about
moving it at all. It could let him down after half a  kilometer.

He bent over the engine, revving up and down. After all, a new engine
.. .

Maybe it had to settle in.

He let it run for five minutes and took it out.

He ran on his sidelights, eyes adjusting to the dark. He went toward
Provodnoye, made a kilometer, tried all the gears, tried the brakes.
The bobik slewed left when braked hard. And the suspension was too
stiff; it would give trouble on rough ground. He reversed a fair
distance, stopped, turned, went back, passed the cave. On a high bank
beyond he tried out the lights. Also a bit out of true.

He decided to forget the lights. They worked, high beam and low; it  was
enough.

He drove back to the cave. It was now 2:30 a.m." and he needed a  rest.
But the brakes and suspension had to be attended to first. He  knew them
inside out but it still took time. And another test outside.  Then it
was finally done, as final as it was going to be, and he got  into the
sleeping bag: four a.m.

But now he couldn't sleep, and at five he gave up and went into the
last routines.

He climbed on the bobik and took down the block and tackle. He fixed
the other seat. He stowed everything he had brought with him in the
back: all the loose cartons and packing, the engine harness, the stove,
all his supplies.

Then there was only the curtaining and the lighting. He dismantled the
circuit--the flex, the plugs, the bulbs--until there was no light and
he used the flashlight. The generator went in last.

He took the bobik out, directed its headlights into the cave, and
walked in for a final inspection. In the harsh beam he could see the
plug holes showing in the roof and the walls. But frost would soon cover
them.

Six a.m. on his watch.

He went, and didn't look back.

By 6:30 the Tchersky militia were threading a tortuous way down the
tributary from Anyuysk to Provodnoye, and cursing hard. Even with the
big headlights, even with the top-mounted searchlight, it was difficult
to see the bends until you were on them. The navigator was counting
bends.

"Cut the lights!" he shouted suddenly.

The driver cut the lights and stopped.

"What the fuck!" he said, alarmed.

"There's a car!" "Where?"

"A flicker. Stop the engine."

The driver stopped the engine, and they both sat peering in the dark.
The navigator opened his window. Dead silence.

"You're seeing things," the driver told him presently.

"There was a flicker."

"Our flicker. Where is it now?"

"It's gone now."

"That's right!" The driver switched everything on again and got  moving,
swearing.

But there had been another flicker. Porter had cut his lights, and now
sat watching those of the militia. They were moving again and he could
hear the engine note. He was barely half a kilometer away. He had  made
it just in time.

In the dark he found a cigarette and lit it.

A few minutes more and they'd have met head on. He'd been going  slowly,
searching for the stream. And by God's grace had found  it-minutes
before.

He had noticed the stream first a few weeks ago, between the cave and
Anyuysk.

He had looked it up on the wall map in the dispatch depot. There it  was
shown as unnegotiable for trucks. From what he could see it ran  from
the northwest, but at some point it changed direction and  meandered
east. On the map he had traced the meander. It ran miles  and miles,
through rising ground, through mountains, to a highway. He  couldn't see
how it got to the highway. But it was the Bilibino  highway; and above
the word "Bilibino" was the sign for an airport, a  major one.

He had tucked this away in his mind as a possible, a remote
alternative. But now, with what had happened, there was no other. He
didn't even know if there was this.

In the school atlas the long range of peaks showed up in purple, with
only a general title: "Kolymsky Heights." A tremendous journey. He
didn't know if a bobik could do it. And this was a Mickey Mouse bobik,
untried, put together in a cave.

But if it couldn't?

He let the militia go and started the engine. Seven

Kolymsky Heights 51

By ten a.m." with only forty-two kilometers on the clock, he had
discovered why the stream was unnegotiable for trucks. No part of it was
wider than two meters, and it was littered with boulders. The  boulders
were iced, blanketed in snow, and he had slithered over or  squeezed
past them. But some were not visible in the snow, and into  these he had
thudded as if into a wall. He was still in first gear,  peering behind
his lights.

He thought he must have gone halfway. On the wall map it hadn't looked
more than eighty kilometers. The powerful heater kept the windows
defrosted, but he could see nothing beyond the headlights.

Presently, uncertain even that this was the right stream, he stopped,
got out, and climbed the shallow bank. In the freezing wind, the  shapes
of mountains showed, still climbing. They told him nothing, and  he got
back in and drove on.

A little after one p.m. a dark outline loomed ahead, and he put the
lights off and got out to inspect it.

A bridge, spanning the stream.

He mounted the bank and found himself on the Bilibino highway.

It couldn't be anything else: six meters wide, leveled, a made road.
The Bilibino highway. But where on it? Left must go to Tchersky, and
right to Bilibino, but how far either way? He couldn't remember the
position on the map.

During the journey with the convoy he must have passed scores of such
bridges.

Nothing was moving on the highway.

He went down again and drove the bobik up. The road ran straight, no
flicker of light visible. For the first time he put the car properly
through its gears, through second, through third, to top--and for the
first time the bobik began to hum. It hummed through seventy  kilometers
an hour, and eighty, and eighty-five. He watched the  needle, and
remembered prizing the bare frame off the ground,  remembered bolting
every part of it together. Oh, you sweet little  bastard, he told the
bobik.

The big trucks wouldn't stop, he knew, just flash their lights. But
there would not only be trucks. On the earlier journey, there had been
the odd recovery vehicle, occasional supply bobiks. And these he had
seen stopped, their drivers chatting. Well, he would have to pull off
somewhere if he saw them ahead; or keep going and chance raising
suspicion.

Somewhere he would have to rest. There were park-and-rest areas on the
road, but he couldn't stop there. Other vehicles might also stop. No
stopping at the road stations, either. He would have to get off the
road. In the mountains there was nowhere to get off it. He would have to
rest before the mountains--if he knew where the mountains were, if  he
could first fix his position.

The next road station might give a clue; but without a map even this
was in doubt. The school atlas was useless. For this reserved area it
showed no details; just main rivers, towns, the red line of the highway,
and nothing else.

Presently he saw the lights of a road station far ahead, and he cut his
headlights. As he approached it he cut the sidelights too, and coasted
slowly in.

A huddle of big trucks, bobiks, a tracked recovery vehicle. All  still.

He switched the engine off and opened the window. Faint music came  from
the log hut. He peered at it. The huts were very similar, all  the early
ones of wood;

only a few, farther along the route, of concrete. This was one of the
early ones. It couldn't be the earliest?

With a sinking feeling, he realized that it could be; that it probably
was. He suddenly recalled that it was only after the first road  station
that the switchback had started. There had been no switchback  yet. This
was the first road station--six hundred kilometers still to  go ... He
got moving again, and worked this out. The clock showed 180
kilometers--the stream was more than double the length he'd thought. A
lot of fuel had been used. In rough going; but the big engine was  heavy
on gas anyway. Even at best it gave only seven kilometers a
liter--twenty miles a gallon. He wasn't getting anything like that. He
couldn't make Bilibino on what he had. The route was beginning to look
familiar, and he recalled that this  stretch he'd driven himself, had
taken the wheel from the first road  station. Under Vanya's tuition he
had swung the big rig into line in  the convoy. The steep climb into the
high passes would start soon, and  then the switchback.

And soon the first pass came, the peaks on either side no longer
visible in the midwinter dark. Ahead, the ice road shone clear for
miles, not a thing on it. He came out of the pass onto a straight
plateau, stopped the car, and got out, with the flashlight.

A savage wind nearly took his head off. He hunched through it to the
edge.

Stanchions and solid railings guarded the edge. Only flanks of icy  rock
gleamed in the flashlight beam, and below blackness. Here he was  over
half a mile high, and below was a gorge. The first task.

He went back to the bobik and collected the debris the engine harness,
the block and tackle, the cans and cartons, everything that could lead
back to its origin and in three journeys pitched it over, together with
Ponomarenko's lumber jacket, the mink hat, the balaclava, the stove.

He was very hungry and he ate, and drank coffee from a flask, watching
the road both ways, and then started off again.

Next would be the switchback, and somewhere along it road station
number two.

Another task there. And beyond the one after it, a place to rest  before
the mountain labyrinth. More and more the little bobik was  taking the
route in its stride. The jolting in the stream had done it  good: the
engine note settling, the eager bark yelping when he stepped  on the
gas. And he was making excellent time no lumbering convoy, and  a clear
road.

The switchback came: rise and fall, rise and fall, a ribbon of ice but
running dead straight. And presently road station number two. He  doused
his lights, approached carefully, and sat and watched it  awhile.

Lighted windows, music faintly audible, and in the parking area a dark
huddle of trucks and bobiks. He coasted slowly in and cut the  engine.

From the back he collected two empty jerricans, the plastic tube, and a
wrench.

The trucks ran on diesel: no use. He kept his eye on the hut door and
tackled the fuel cap of the first bobik. Iced up. He got the wrench  to
it, inserted the tube, sucked, got the siphon going and filled the
jerricans. It took no time, and he was away.

Two jerricans weren't going to be enough.

Twenty liters 120, 140 kilometers. Needed more. What he had in the  tank
would get him past the next road station, and he'd refill from the
jerricans when he found a place to rest. Stars were visible now; the
overcast dispersed. Another weather  system. He'd gone a fair way. He
lit a cigarette to stay awake; and,  as he did so, saw a vehicle
approaching, far off.

It was moving fast, not a truck; headlights coming rapidly up and down
the switchback. As it neared he saw it was a bobik, and that it was
slowing and stopping. They'd both dipped their lights, and now he
briefly flicked his and kept going, and in the rearview mirror saw the
other car had started again.

They'd raised a hand to each other in passing. All okay. The other
bobik didn't belong to Tchersky; some other kind of plates on it.

He suddenly realized he didn't have any plates.

He couldn't run into Bilibino without plates.

He worked this out, and had found a solution before he saw the lights
of the next station, in a hollow of the switchback far ahead, road
station number three.

He stopped on the hill above it, doused his lights, and took what he
needed out of the back. Then he coasted down and went in, in the  dark.

Fuel first, and he took it from a bobik. The car was backed in tight  to
a snowbank. Too tight for the next task. He had decided he needed  only
one plate, and a rear one was the least likely to be missed.

He found his target and got to work. Fixings iced solid, and he didn't
bother with them. He muffled the chisel with a rag and thumped it with
the wrench. In a few minutes he had prized the plate off, and had it
with him in his own bobik.

Road station number three, good-bye. Five p.m.

He was making fast time, but also tiring fast. Eleven hours of driving
since he'd left the cave. And the mountains would be coming up. He  had
to find a place soon.

He drove slowly, looking for it. If he'd left it too late, he could
turn and go back to one he had already spotted. But this he didn't  have
to do. In starlight, from a hilltop, he saw it at the foot of the slope,
a dark hollow in the expanse of white. He drove down, and took  a look
at it.

Barely noticeable when traveling; a little culvert with a bridge over
it, one of many. In the darkness underneath was a frozen stream, a
couple of meters below the road, the same kind he'd driven out of hours
before. The bridge was the width of the road. The bobik would tuck
easily under it.

The bank sloped gently, and he drove down, onto the stream and under
the bridge. He slept two hours there, with the heater off to save fuel.
The bobik  was a deep freeze when he came out of the bag, and he started
the  engine and the heater.

Eight o'clock.

He unwrapped the bread and sausage. The hard salamis had been
separately wrapped when she'd brought them. Now they were in one  coarse
sheet of paper. He ate, and drank some coffee from the flask;

and with the flashlight took a look at the number plate.

One bolt was still bent in it. He had spare bolts in the tool kit. The
whole ingenious vehicle was put together with only a few types of bolts.
He sawed this one off presently, and got out and fixed the  plate on the
front. Then he filled up the tank and attended to a few  needs of
nature.

He hadn't washed much since leaving the house on Friday, and it was now
Monday night. He chipped a bit of ice and did the best he could with his
hands and face, and then his teeth. Then he climbed up and had a  look
at the road. All clear.

By ten, despite the constant zigzagging in the mountains, he had made
road station number four.

He had decided to take four jerricans here. That should see him to
Bilibino, with some extra in case of a detour. He hadn't seen the
airport there. In the mountainous area it could be way out.

He drove in without lights, and got out with the first pair of
jerricans. He filled them rapidly and returned with the second. Only one
other bobik was in the parking lot--too near the hut, but shielded  by a
truck. He siphoned a can out of it and started the next, and  stopped
abruptly. The hut door had opened.

Two men, roaring with laughter, were coming out. And coming to the
bobik. He had no time to get the cap back on. He hid behind the truck
and heard them exchange cheerful obscenities with others still at the
hut door. Then the men got in the bobik and he watched it go, across a
huddle of trucks. Light from the hut door gleamed off the truck hoods,
and then the door closed and he stood for some moments, quite still.

He first secured the jerricans in the car and then went back and looked
at the trucks. In the dark their hoods no longer gleamed, but he went
around them one after the other, and there was no doubt of it. A thick
coat of ice was on the hoods. The engines hadn't been used for
hours--probably not all day.

He had seen no trucks on the road all day.

He got back in the bobik and took off fast.

He had to get out of the mountains. There was nowhere to squirrel
himself away here. He thought the next station was still in this
labyrinth. That would be road station number five. Only one more  after
that to Bilibino. He had gone almost two-thirds of the way to  Bilibino.
And obviously all convoys to Bilibino had been halted.

He was stunned by the revelation.

Tchersky's militia couldn't have done this--not so far out of their
region, not on their own authority. Only a supra regional authority
could have done it.

Irkutsk had done it. Their investigators were already in Tchersky,
then.

And they had figured he was going to Bilibino. What other reason could
there be for halting all the traffic to and from it? From it,
presumably, in case he'd already dropped off, and they wanted
information. But the only reason for Bilibino could be the airport. So
they'd figured that, too.

He couldn't go to Bilibino airport.

For the first time since arriving here--for the first time since
leaving Japan--he was truly at a loss.

He couldn't go back. He couldn't just stop. But there was no point in
going on.

Road station number five came up, still in the labyrinth, and he passed
it with his lights off, not knowing what else to do.

As he switched on again, hanging in tight to a bend, a thought of a
kind came to him. They could figure this and they could figure that. But
there was one thing they couldn't figure.

How could they figure the bobik? It didn't exist. He'd conjured it  out
of parts that didn't exist, a phantom. And the little bastard was  going
better than ever, thriving on all difficulties. Since he didn't  know
what else to do, he let it.

By early afternoon the general had gone far to shaking up the midwinter
lethargy of Tchersky. He was a burly, vigorous man, and he detested
lethargy. To a certain extent he could understand it here. Where he  had
come from, it grew light at eight and dark at four. Here it was  dark
all day. Such street lights as there were were on all day. The  people
crept about like dormice. Everything they did had to be  rechecked.
Everything the militia did had to be rechecked.

The first assignments he had delegated briskly, taking over the militia
chief's desk for the purpose. Helicopters had gone off,  driving crews
were being interviewed, scores of phone calls were being  made. Now,
with the transport question in hand, he could concentrate  on other
matters.

Principal among them was what the fellow had been doing here, and where
he had been doing it. Early on he had discovered that he had not been
where he said he had been. His neighbor, his girlfriend, his work  mates
all said he had spent much of his time at a nearby collective.  At this
collective they'd never heard of him. He had not been there.  But he had
been somewhere.

A place had been arranged for him here; it was likely that cover had
also been arranged. Or he had arranged it for himself. He had  certainly
in a short time made many contacts. In any case, somebody  was covering
for him now. That much was obvious.

He had arrived back in Tchersky at four p.m. on Friday and immediately
disappeared. The man was a professional--knew he had to leave in a
hurry, and before the local comedians could guess he had gone. He hadn't
wasted time hiding himself. He had fl one out of the area,  fast. This
meant an air trip. An air trip meant an airport.

How, stepping out at four p.m. in this hole of a town, could he get to
an airport--and not Tchersky airport, since Tchersky militia wanted him?
In a vehicle. An early thought had been a transport company  vehicle,
but now the general thought otherwise. This artist would  already have
arranged a vehicle for himself.

But where? Since the vanishing trick had been performed in Tchersky  the
answer seemed to be. In Tchersky. But no vehicle was missing from
Tchersky--at least, had not been reported missing, which was another
matter. If the vehicle had not been in Tchersky, then he had been  taken
to it.

In either case, someone was helping him.

That was one thing. Another was why he was here at all. This was much
easier. He was here to get into Tcherny Vodi. And a curious fact had
emerged, one the general had only learned on arrival: it seemed he had
managed to get to it.

The general had tried to get to it himself, and had found this needed
special permission from the establishment. This ridiculous situation  he
had promptly ordered Irkutsk to deal with, and was still awaiting  some
action. Now he decided to wait no longer. All other persons interrogated
had been summoned to his office. On this one he decided  to pay a
personal call.

The medical officer did not rise as he entered, and he took off his hat
and greatcoat, sizing her up. "I am afraid, Medical Officer, this fellow
has duped you," he said.

"So it seems." She was screwing the top on her fountain pen, her smile
frosty.

"Not a common occurrence, I assure you."

"Yes. I hear you're not easily fooled." His own smile was  considerably
warmer as he eased his bulk into a chair. An  efficient-looking person,
he saw; the first he had met in the place.

"I am hoping you can put me right on a few points."

Her intense nervousness she covered with an air of impatience, glancing
at her watch, at the many papers on her desk. She knew the way this
conversation had to be steered and the two points that had to be dropped
into it. But this burly individual did not look very steerable  and, as
Johnny had warned, he knew his business.

She was astonished at how much he knew. He knew of the trips to
Panarovka, to the Evenk herders, to Tcherny Vodi--and in detail the
militia had not asked her.

He had even that morning had someone interviewing Viktoria Eremevina!

He paused over his notes for some moments.

"The man has a contact here. Medical Officer. Someone is helping him.
This trip to the herders, for instance--how did he come to get that for
himself?"

"I am afraid I helped him to it. I couldn't drive at the time--a
sprained ankle.

Of course, anybody could have driven me to the helicopter. But he'd
expressed interest in them, and just then was pestering me for jobs to
do."

The general looked at her.

"How did he do that?"

Her heart faltered.

"He telephoned me. Here."

"Did he? I don't seem to have a note of that."

"I am sorry to have to tell you. General," she said crisply, "that we
don't keep an account of every telephone call here. The girls were busy,
so I answered myself. I told him of my ankle and said he could  come
with me to the herds if he wanted."

The general continued staring.

"Where was he phoning from?" he said.

"Where from? I don't know."

"Was it a public phone?"

"I've no idea. Is there some relevance to this?"

"The relevance is where he was." The general looked at his notes.

"He told various people that he was at a collective. We know that he
wasn't.... It says here that he returned with you from Panarovka on a
Sunday, and went to the herds the following Friday. That's five days in
between. The source of a call during those five days is the  relevance."

"Then I'm afraid I can't help you."

The general considered.

"He wouldn't have been/a;'. On the other hand, he wasn't at home. But
he was somewhere.. .. Let's try another tack. On the way to Panarovka
you picked him up at his apartment. But it seems you didn't take him
back there. Is that right?"

"Yes. Quite right."

"Did he have some other means of getting back?"

The first of the points was coming up, and she felt her pulse  quicken.

"No. I drove him partway and dropped him."

"Why?"

"He asked to be dropped off."

"Where was this?"

"On the outskirts of Green Cape."

"Did he say why he wanted dropping there?"

"No. I assumed he was seeing a friend."

"Was this a residential area?"

"Well, not the most salubrious a few sheds, the town rubbish dump but
yes, people live there."

"How far would it be from here, from the medical center?"

"I would say ... a kilometer, maybe one and a half."

The general made a note, and frowned at it.

"A kilometer, one and a half.. . All right, so you drop him there on
Sunday, and five days later he picks you up and flies out to the
herders.. .. Where he stayed overnight, I believe."

"Yes. Weather. You have it there," she said impatiently.

"Did he know these natives worked at Tcherny Vodi?"

"Yes, he would have known that."

"What could they have told him about it?"

"Nothing. They know nothing themselves."

"The security aspects guard routines?"

"Well that, yes. If it was of any use."

He pondered.

"You made two trips to Tcherny Vodi, I believe."

She nodded.

"During the first I had an emergency call and only stayed to unload
medical supplies perhaps twenty minutes. The second was a normal
surgery."

"How long did that take?"

"I suppose an hour and a half."

"What happened to him on these occasions?" "He remained under guard.
Almost certainly they'd have kept him in  the vehicle.

Security is very tight up there."

"Yes .. . Well, it doesn't seem," the general said slowly, "that he can
have gathered much. But to have got up there at all was a very serious
breach. Also a puzzling one .. . On these other trips, he's off work,
hanging about. But this time he's back at work. How does he come to  be
driving you there? Did someone ask for him specially?"

"No. We asked for a driver. They sent him. Of course I see now he  must
have been angling for the job."

"Could he have known you were going there?"

"He could have guessed. They were told it was a three-day job we group
out-of-town trips and I go regularly. Yes, he could have guessed."

"But you'd never used a driver there before."

"No. I have been fortunate enough." she said dryly, "not to have
sprained an ankle before."

"Ah, the ankle. He knew about it. Tell me one thing more. You spent  two
nights of this trip at settlements in the area. Did he know  anybody
there?"

"No. He'd never been before."

"Did anybody seem to know him?"

"Not that I could tell."

"At both places my officers have visited them it seems he ate by
himself, in his room. Doesn't that seem strange?"

"Perhaps it embarrassed him to eat in public."

"Or perhaps he wished not to embarrass somebody else. There's  something
funny about this. He keeps out of sight.. .. Somewhere  here. Medical
Officer, he has a helper. A helper with a vehicle.  These places have
vehicles running in and out of Tchersky."

"Well, I know nothing of this. General." She had glanced at her  papers
again.

"But perhaps we can go into it a little.... He had a vehicle here. Or
expected one to be waiting for him here. He knew he would be back in
three days, and that his mission was over. I think that's all it was,
incidentally a look at the place, at the security arrangements. A  trial
run. And now he had to leave.

Obviously he had made plans. But now they needed altering the militia
wanted to see him. Which meant he had to leave very rapidly. And he did.
In a vehicle."

The second point was coming up and again she felt her pulse begin to
pound. She looked at her watch.

"General, I don't think I can help you with this."

"Perhaps you can." He smiled at her.

"Let me explain it to you. When he left you, we know he can't have gone
far in the street. The militia have questioned people who were  in it
and nobody saw him. A familiar figure, quite distinctive,  recognizable
to everybody but nobody saw him. I think because the  vehicle he wanted
was right there, close by the medical center. When  you came into town
try to think about this did he seem to be looking  for something?"

"Well." She thought.

"He was certainly looking for the turning the turning into our loading
bay at the rear. He missed it once. We had to go all around the  square
again."

"Did you, now? Cars parked there, I suppose. Did he look at the  cars?"

"He was looking for the turning."

"Yes. Did any of the cars flash their lights?"

"Not that I remember."

The general remained looking at her for some moments.

"All right, so you go into the yard. And here he behaves strangely. We
know he must be in a great hurry.

Yet he doesn't act in a hurry. He carefully helps them unload the van.
He takes in the last of the stuff. Tells them it's the last. He comes
out, asks if you want anything more done. Doesn't that seem  strange?"

"Well, I agree it does."

"As if he's getting everybody off the premises?"

"Perhaps. Yes."

"Had anything come in behind you, another vehicle?"

"Not that I recall."

"Some activity going on in the yard someone fiddling with an engine,
cars maneuvering about?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. There was nothing there. Just his own  bobik
and the garbage truck."

"Which garbage truck?"

"The regular one, for our waste disposal."

"Where does the garbage truck go?"

"Well, I don't know where " "Is it there every day?"

"Yes, I suppose so. And now, really. General " She had risen, and he
rose with her.

"Well, you have been very patient," he said, shrugging into his
greatcoat.

"And also very helpful. You have given much useful information."

And so she had, and she sat shaking, listening to his boots march
briskly down the corridor. She had offered the wrong end of the stick,
and he had gladly accepted it. But where would it lead? The wrong end of
the stick; but a stick. And this general, a  persistent man, was not
going to let it go. Where it would lead, at  the end, was to the right
conclusion; but that was not yet.

The town dump, just outside Green Cape, stank so evilly that the
general shielded his nose. He observed that the garbage was in a
three-sided compound, conveniently open to the highway of the river.

Lights were strung and he saw that the enclosed sides were occupied by
sheds and cabins. Two great garbage heaps were in the middle, a
tipper-truck distributing its load on one, and several natives picking
through the other.

"These fellows live here?" he-asked the chief of militia.

"Yes. In the cabins, with their families. Yakuts."

"Call one over."

The chief did so, and introduced the dignitary.

The man grinned at him affably.

"All well here?" the general asked, himself very affable.

"Yes. All well."

"A good life?"

"Sure. Good life. Anything I do for you. General?"

"Just looking around. Kolya thought it interesting. You know-- Kolya,
Kolya Khodyan. Nice fellow. Remember him?"

"Khodyan? No. Don't know this name."

"Show him the photo," he said to his young aide, Volodya.

The man looked at the photo.

"Nice photo of him," the general said.

"Yes, nice."

"Been here lately?"

"Who been here?"

"This man."

"No. Don't know this man."

And the same with the others, and with their families, the general
observing that the ladies first of all consulted their husbands before
disclaiming knowledge of the nice man.

The sheds, however, produced better results.

They were large sheds, used for the storage of selected pickings;

and the pickings of one of them were motor parts. Doors, seats,
exhausts, wheels, tires: all these not heaped on the ground but stacked
quite neatly around the walls. On the ground, in the vacant center,  was
an oil stain, and the marks left by four wheels. Half an hour later, the
general had still not managed to discover how  these marks came to be
there; but he left not at all displeased.

On the way back the chief of militia explained some local regulations
to him, and he had the first glimmerings of how the trick had been
pulled.

Over a late dinner the general sat with his staff and explained the
situation.

His senior officers had been flying about all day and were tired. But
his explanation was brief.

Vehicles out of use in the Kolymsky region had to have their
registration plates and documents returned, and those past repair needed
a certificate of destruction; vehicles must not be abandoned or  left to
lie about. This regulation, dating from 1962, was intended to  control
all means of movement in the area, and in early years had been  strictly
enforced.

With the area's rapid development, however, some laxness had crept in,
although full records still existed. The militia had identified
twenty-seven vehicles long out of use--their plates and papers returned,
but without certificates of destruction. These were now  being
investigated.

"What is likely," the general said, "is that this man found something
he could put together. And then he found a place to put it together.
Perhaps the rubbish dump, perhaps not. They've certainly had a vehicle
standing there recently.

Well, natives stick together, we can look into it later. What's
important now is to find a disused vehicle which has gone missing. Get a
profile of it and we could be halfway to finding him."

And so they could be, he thought, settling into bed. It had been a  long
day and he was very tired himself. Late in the evening Irkutsk  had got
him permission and he had helicoptered to Tchemy Vodi. A  hundred
percent security there, all as the medical officer had said. An
excellent woman, nobody's fool. The agent could have seen nothing-- a
trial run, as he'd thought. Well, he wouldn't get far.

Profile of his vehicle .. .

Another thought occurred, and he reached for the phone.

"Volodya?"

His aide yawned loudly at the other end.

"Volodya--another thing. It's possible there'll be more than one
vehicle missing.... This fellow could get at parts. The same parts don't
fit all vehicles. If we know what parts he used, that also gives  a
profile of the vehicle. Get them moving at that transport company. Do it
now. Get them out of bed. Let them search repair sheds,  storerooms,
whatever. Anything interesting, call me immediately. If  necessary, wake
me up."

Two o'clock, and he put the light out.

And almost at once was woken up. He stared at his watch: six a.m. A
moment ago it had been only two. But they were quite right to wake  him.
Something very interesting had turned up.

At two in the morning Porter passed road station number six, and ahead
now there was only Bilibino.

An idea had come to him of what could be managed if only he could get
through it. But it was now six hours since he had wakened under the
bridge, and the mountain bends and anxiety had totally exhausted him
again.

He drove slowly, his eyes sore, looking for somewhere to shelter. On
the final stretch to Bilibino there would be buildings and mine
workings; he remembered them. The convoy of a few weeks ago had kept
parallel for some kilometers with a stream. The gold beds ran often near
streams and across country. But that had been close to town, too  near
in. He needed something earlier, and soon.

He passed presently under big overhead cables and saw a pylon:

the power line from Bilibino. It served the gold fields and some
surrounding installations. He was already too near.

Fifty or sixty kilometers back the road had crossed a stream, and he
wondered if he should turn and go back to it. It would eat up a lot of
gas. He didn't know what was for the best and meanwhile let the bobik
chug on. too tired to think.

He saw a glow coming up in the sky on his left. The first of the
outlying gold fields If the gold field was near a stream, and the stream
led to-Where did the streams lead to here? He was now far from  the
Kolyma. Some other river.

A river south of him. Which meant to his right. If there was a river  to
his right and streams ran down from the left .. .

He drove on. watching the glow come nearer, until it was no longer a
glow but lights, floodlights, just a kilometer or two ahead and to his
left, and he knew now he had better go back. And then he knew he had
just crossed a bridge.

He had crossed it and was at the other side.

Jesus Christ! He was too tired to turn. He reversed. He reversed over
the bridge and looked down at a lovely, wonderful,  frozen stream, and
drove down to it, and got under the bridge, and  switched everything
off, the lights, the engine, himself; and just sat  there in the dark
for a minute.

Then he got out and climbed the bank and had a look.

Yes, the first of the gold fields not a kilometer away, the din of its
machinery carrying in the air. He could even see, silhouetted against
the lights, the skeletal housings of the mine lifts. As he looked two
trucks lurched out onto the road a few hundred meters ahead and turned
toward Bilibino.

Too much activity, and too near. But he couldn't be seen, and he also
by now couldn't care. He simply had to rest.

He went down and gave himself a huge vodka, and drank it with his eyes
shut. He tore off a chunk of black bread and ate it, and in his sleeping
bag he ate more.

He slept an hour and woke still tired. But there was no time to  linger.
It was getting on for four a.m. The best time to be in town  was between
five and six, the dead point of any road security, but with  the place
just stirring into activity. He recollected almost nothing  of it except
that during work hours it had been a mess: slow-moving  traffic, the
local drivers leaning out and chatting across to each  other. He wanted
a clear run through, with no curious eyes looking him  over.

He drank some coffee and looked at the school atlas with the
flashlight. He was already off one page and on to the next.

Pevek showed up next, another familiar destination for Tchersky
drivers. Still a colossal distance away; double the distance he had
already traveled. He wasn't going there. Big security installations  at
Pevek, and big security to go with them. Yura had promised it to  him,
he remembered: "You'll go to Bilibino, Baranikha, Pevek,  everywhere!"

Pevek was the end of the route. But where the hell was Baranikha?

He searched for and found Baranikha, three or four hundred kilometers
away, in the tiniest type, a dot. But the atlas was a school one, in use
for many years.

From what he had seen in the dispatch depot, big loads were going to
Baranikha, heavy construction in progress there. So much construction
needed engineers, architects, workers, who all needed flying in. There
would be an airport of some kind at Baranikha, at least a strip.

The idea had come to him while negotiating the mountain bends. If  major
airports were out of bounds, he could try little cross-country  ones.
Cross-country hopping, from one to another, could take him a long
way--and he knew now he had to go a long way. And not at all the  way
that had been planned for him. No Yakutsk, no Black Sea, no  Turkey. He
had to take a route that nobody expected. And there were  still some
options.. ..

They didn't know how he had come in. They couldn't know how he would  go
out.

Light-years ago he remembered the CIA man telling him he couldn't go
out the way he had come in. But why couldn't he? He had come in from
Japan. Why not go back that way? From Nakhodka, far down on the  Pacific
seaboard, ships ran regularly to Japan. One way or another he  could try
to get himself on one. For months now he had lived on his  wits. Were
they going to desert him at the last?

He looked up Nakhodka in the atlas, and his heart sank. Farther even
than he thought--an incredible distance, four thousand kilometers at
least. Well .. .

from Tchersky, even if anyone remotely thought of the idea, it would
seem impossible for him to get there. By land it probably was
impossible, range upon range of mountains in between. But hopping it,  a
bit at a time? Would security be so tight at little out-of-the-way
strips? If he could only get beyond Bilibino .. .

He went up on the road for another look.

Still bitterly cold, but with some change evident in the air; a sharp
thin snow was falling, hazing the gold fields lights and muffling the
continuous clanging.

As he watched, a truck lumbered out, and shortly after it another one,
heading for Bilibino. Local field trucks. Nothing else on the  road--all
long-distance traffic still halted. He went down and started  the bobik
and got back on the highway.

He picked up the trucks after a kilometer, and stayed well behind,
running only on sidelights, wipers going. Now he could see the frozen
stream on his right, running beside the road as he remembered. It had
come down from high ground and taken a sharp turn on meeting some rock
barrier. All of the ground here was high; rich, gold-bearing land.

Presently the trucks began slowing, and he watched their rear lights
turning in at the opposite side of the road. He cut his own lights,  and
slowed to a crawl.

A big compound, evidently a processing plant, with a huge conical tip
and a line of sheds, all well floodlit. He crawled nearer, and stopped
out of range of the lights.

Noisy activity was going on in the compound. A trolley train was  moving
around and trucks were maneuvering. He couldn't see what had  happened
to the two he had followed, but others were slewed around and  facing
him, their drivers out and chatting. He had seen no trucks  going the
other way. They evidently didn't go back that way. They  must return
some other way. When he had driven this section weeks before, Vanya
snoring beside  him, he had noticed little of the route, too busy
keeping station in  the convoy. But over dinner the drivers had told him
a loop road ran  through the gold fields that if you were driving beyond
Bilibino, you  had to take care to avoid that road or you could get
hopelessly  entangled. Maybe these trucks took the loop road, at the
other side of  town, to return through the strung-out gold fields He
watched and  waited, and presently one of them moved; and a few moments
afterward, another.

He started up and followed, keeping well behind, again using only
sidelights.

The trucks ahead were empty and now going at a brisker pace. In barely
twenty minutes he saw another glow appearing ahead, which soon became
town lights.

Bilibino.

Time to move. He switched to headlights, overtook the first truck and
cut in between the two. And not a moment too soon. Almost immediately
the road curved, and ahead he saw a barrier strung with amber lights,
and the truck in front slowing.

The barrier was down but, as they appeared around the bend, it was
already being raised. The man in front had opened his window and stuck a
raised thumb out as he went slowly through, and Porter did the same.  He
saw uniforms--militia uniforms and others he didn't recognize--and looks
of mild curiosity turned on him in the light hail of snow. But  peering
in his rearview mirror he saw that already they had turned to  the next
truck, and he was in. In and sailing into Bilibino.

He remembered it only vaguely. An administrative building like
Tchersky's, a cinema like Tchersky's; all the buildings--post office,
supermarket, apartment blocks--built to the same design in this north
land. He saw the hostel he had slept in; the goods center, the parking
lot. Big trucks were lined up in the parking lot, Tchersky trucks. All
still halted, no activity there. Just a little activity elsewhere: a few
light trucks and bobiks trundling about town, postal vans, food  vans;

the odd militia car parked, cigarettes glowing inside.

He drove with his window a little open and could hear the drone of
aircraft above, and saw one coming in to land, well ahead and to the
right. Stay away from that area. He continued following the truck  that
had led him in, dazzled by the glare of the one behind. Ahead,  the
truck suddenly pulled in and stopped at a dimly lit hole-in-the  wall an
all-night bar or cafe. He passed it and pulled up himself, and  in his
mirror saw the other truck stop and both drivers get out and go  into
the place. Shit! He had planned to follow until they turned off. If the
Tchersky drivers had warned you had to take care to avoid the loop road,
it evidently wasn't signposted. Nothing was signposted in Green  Cape or
Tchersky, either. You had to know.

He switched his lights off, kept the wipers going, and lit a cigarette.
He needed a vodka himself but decided to wait until he needed it more.
Five-thirty.

The time was right: The town just sluggishly stirring into life, the
police sitting out the last half of their shift. He'd been lucky with
the two trucks, the barrier. Would he be as lucky on the way out?

A militia car cruised slowly past and he saw, through the drizzle of
snow, faces turned toward him. The wipers. He should have turned the
wipers off. The car went on, but they had noted him. He couldn't stay
here; they'd be around again.

He waited till they were well away, switched on, and took off. He kept
on the way he'd been going.

The town square passed behind him. He couldn't tell if he was on the
main road;

other roads had run off the square. This one had a few large  buildings,
apartment blocks, depot-type stores; but thinning now,  dwindling.
Definitely going out of town. Headlights came suddenly  toward him
around a bend, and dipped in acknowledgment, and he dipped  his own. A
bus.

polar aviation, he saw, as it passed.

Christ! He was going to the airport, after all. The road went to the
airport.

There would be checks before the airport.

Which now, rounding the bend, he could clearly see. It was on a large
flat plate of land, slightly below, ringed with orange sodium lamps.
Through the snow drizzle he could even make out a lit-up runway.

More to the point, and worse, dead ahead and downhill he could also see
a barrier, and men in Day-Glo stripes, and a waving flashlight. There
was no way of stopping or turning off or going back. He'd been seen. And
the barrier was firmly down. He drew slowly up to it, and opened  his
window.

"Where to airport?" A militia man; there were two of them, also
another, in the unfamiliar uniform; all bundled up, scowling in the
snow. They had come out of a hut, he saw.

"No. Loop road." He hoped to God this was the way to it.

The flashlight examined him.

"Where's your field badge, then?"

"Fuck the field badge! It's not even my job," he said, scowling.

"I'm off in a couple of hours, and I win this. All through the fucking
fields for a breakdown! What's up here, no one can fix a machine
themselves?"

"Where you from, old-timer?"

His number plate was being inspected, he saw.

"Road stations, way back. I'm on equipment. Not my job, this! Got  sent
up here a couple of weeks, and now every shitty number comes up I  get
it. Go on, send me back! The bastards know I'm off in a couple of hours.
Do me a favor!"

As his scowl increased he saw that those outside were mellowing into
smiles.

"Okay, big mouth. You know you lost a rear plate? Replace it as soon  as
possible. What you got in the back there?"

"Fucking tools! What you think I got? A cabaret?"

"Go on move." The barrier had been raised and one of the men was  waving
an illuminated baton. A few hundred meters ahead he saw there  was
another barrier.

He slammed into gear, swearing hard at the now-merry faces as he
passed.

Through.

He tooled slowly downhill.

The wide opening to the airport passed with its exit and entrance
signs. The only signs he had seen so far on the road. Just inside, he
saw, there were more guard posts, and he sailed past and on to the next
barrier, now also miraculously raised.

Then he was on his own, and the street lights ran out, and he drove on
in the dark.

The road curved sharply again and forked, and he took the main branch
and curved around with it; and then slowed and stopped. Was this where
you got tangled up?

He reversed to the fork and took a look at it again.

There was no doubt he'd taken the major road. But was it the right  one?
No sign of any kind, no warning of the fork even.

A large mound of grit was dumped at the roadside before the fork, with
a deep ditch behind it; evidently a runoff for the spring thaw. He  left
the engine running and scrambled down to the ditch. Wide enough,  and no
rocks in it.

He drove the bobik down, sheltered behind the pile of grit, and
switched everything off. The sounds of the airport were still near:

helicopters chattering, a jet warming up. They flew the bullion out,
he'd heard, in ingots.

He waited twenty minutes before the two trucks came around. They  passed
and he watched their lights, saw them keep steadily to the broad  main
track. Exactly. It was the one he'd taken himself: the loop road into
the gold fields  Where he would have lost himself. The through route was
the narrower  one.

He started up and pulled out of the ditch.

Okay. Baranikha. Three or four hundred kilometers. Six o'clock, he  saw.

By 6:15 the general was stepping into his car. They'd asked if the
transport company's vehicles could now be allowed to move. The route  to
Bilibino and beyond was still paralyzed. Yes, he said, on consideration.
He had totally forgotten it.

They had also asked if he wanted the people ahead warned that he was
coming. In no way! Catch them unprepared. The night's work had  already
warned them enough.

Give them time and they'd soon dream up a story to account for the
discrepancy.

A highly interesting vehicle had emerged--or rather not emerged-at the
collective. The native collective, Novokolymsk. Where they'd claimed
never to have heard of the fellow. As the garbage workers had also
claimed .. . Well, he'd been had, and he saw it now. Natives stuck
together.

The man had made dozens of journeys up and down this route. Was it
likely that he'd never even looked into the collective--full of natives?
For certain he'd looked into it, had clapped eyes on the  vehicle, and
had taken it away. Probably on a truck, back to Green  Cape.

Which argued that he'd done it that way around: first of all prepared a
secure place to work, and then taken the work to it. The general was
beginning to get an outline of the man. Well, now for an outline of  his
vehicle.

They found the helicopter warming up, and before seven had landed at
the collective. The row had wakened some of the inhabitants, and from
them the general's aides routed out the half-asleep secretary of the
place and also the individual in charge of its vehicles.

The information required was simple, yet it took three hours to get to
the bottom of it.

Nobody knew Khodyan, of course--photo passed around, heads shaken. All
as expected.

The vehicle was a one-ton Tatra; it had stood for years at the back of
a shed used for storing fertilizers. They had noticed it missing only
when the police had phoned in the middle of the night. The secretary
had roused the mechanic, and the mechanic had gone out and had a  look.

When was the last time it had been seen? The last time probably August
just before winter. Fertilizers weren't needed in winter, nobody had
need to go to the shed. Could anybody have got into the shed? Yes,
anybody could have got in no padlocks, just this bit of string here.

A thorough search of the collective and its environs showed no trace of
the Tatra. It had been a wreck, kept only for parts. Had meant to get  a
certificate of destruction for it, never got around to it. Had no
trouble getting a new one;

authorities knew this one would be turned in sometime. Could it be
moved? Well it had been moved. Maybe some members had stripped it,
shifted it, and didn't like to say. Or maybe just kids, messing  about.

The general's party breakfasted at the collective and took stock of the
situation.

From Tchersky news arrived that all other defunct vehicles had now been
located.

Only this one was missing.

Yes, this was the one. He'd hauled it away, rebuilt it with parts from
the transport company, laid in a few jerricans of fuel and had it ready
and waiting in his workshop, perhaps at the dump. To which he had been
transported, almost by chauffeur service, right from that yard. While
the fools had wasted time searching warehouses, he had been buzzing
away, fast, on the highway of the river.

But buzzing where?

Volodya had brought the maps, and they were studied. With a head  start,
the man would have taken the most direct route out. The most  direct
route was the river.

The first sizable airport on the river was at Zirianka. South. He had
gone south. A call to Zirianka elicited the news that its air services
south had been halted for days by blizzards.

The general was pleased to hear this. On the way from Irkutsk he had
flown over the blizzard himself, had flown high in his service aircraft.
Now he gave his orders personally. A 1966 one-ton Tatra,  farm-truck
body, probably very battered, was to be found and held. Its  driver, a
native, perhaps traveling under the name Khodyan, was also to  be held.

Yes; what registration plates, the Tatra?

The general paused. The Tatra had no plates, of course; they had been
handed in.

But he would have gotten himself plates. The plates, he told Zirianka,
would be out-of-town plates, details unknown; but engine and chassis
numbers as follows. And the native, his description? The general paused
again.

The man would very possibly have changed his description. Hold all
natives, he said. He would be coming immediately.

To Zirianka a long-distance helicopter was required, at present not
available at Tchersky, which meant using the general's own jet. The
pilot and first officer of the jet, anticipating another day of hanging
about, had awakened to titanic hangovers. Further delay. The general
used it to issue a series of orders.

Because of disruption to flights south, the man might try some
crisscross method involving smaller airports. All airstrips in north
Siberia to be warned. Natives without pre-booked flights to be held
until details reported to Tchersky.

Wherever he was, the man would now have out-of-area plates. All
vehicles with such plates to be stopped and details reported to
Tchersky.

The first order involved air control at Yakutsk, the only authority in
contact with the smaller strips. The second involved several dozen calls
to police and militia posts.

One o'clock when the general stepped aboard, and he was tired. Only
four hours' sleep last night.

Medical Officer Komarova had also lost sleep last night. She had left
late, and with a prepared story if stopped. A providential accident at
Anyuysk; she had ordered the patient to be kept where he was until seen.
She would see him at the earliest moment.

No activity along the main river, no watch being kept, so before
Anyuysk she had turned off, driven fast to the cave, and entered with
her flashlight.

Gone. And with no trace left that he had ever been here. Curtains,
lighting, block and tackle, all away; no sign even of where they had
been. Vapor from the kerosene stove had created new frost, bulging on
every surface. No drop of oil, no stain, no scrap of anything left.
Well, he'd been careful. Yet he had promised .. .

She searched with the flashlight, but there was nothing, only frost.
Except one small hump that turned out to be not entirely frost. She
recognized it at once, the wrapping paper from the salami, and opened
the many folds for the message.

No message but as she turned it this way and that something fell, and on
the ground was the ring. In the flashlight she couldn't decipher  the
engraved motto, but she knew it anyway--"Like our love the circle  has
no end"--and felt the tears again on her cheeks.

At Zirianka there was no 1966 one-ton Tatra, which meant only that the
cautious fellow could have left it outside, but there were eighteen
ill-tempered natives stopped from boarding their flight to Druzhina.
Druzhina was north, on the Indigirka River, and the general wasn't
interested in it, or in the eighteen natives, after quickly looking them
over.

Copies of the photo had been brought and they were passed around all
employees of the airport.

Two recognized the man and four didn't. The truth was, the manager
said, many such natives passed through. At flight times the place was
very busy, particularly for flights south.

When was the last flight south? The last flight south had been  Saturday
morning, nine o'clock.

Saturday nine o'clock. Well, leaving Tchersky Friday evening he could
have made it. Records were checked of that flight, and flights to all
other destinations since. Numbers of natives showed up; racial  identity
listed from internal passports. No Khodyans.

Which meant he probably now had other papers.

All flight destinations were contacted; details of all natives given
and follow-up inquiries authorized. At the same time, the local police
were engaged--and had been for some hours--in a sweep of the area in
search of a 1966 one-ton Tatra.

By evening, replies had come thick and fast from flight destinations,
and from local police posts. All negative.

The general took dinner with his staff and reviewed the situation
again. If the man had caught a flight, or even if he hadn't, he had
still had to get himself here somehow.

If he had come here.

Maybe he hadn't come here.

Or if he had come, maybe it wasn't in the Tatra.

The Tatra was the likeliest, the only, vehicle they had to go on. But
perhaps it wasn't the Tatra. Had Tchersky reported Tatra parts  missing?
What the devil had they reported?

Tchersky was contacted and reported that the transport company was
still checking discrepancies. As yet nothing pointed significantly to
any particular type of vehicle. When it did they would call in
immediately. The general decided to hang on till midnight. But half an
hour later  two calls from Tchersky changed his mind. The first was a
response to  his order for out-of-area vehicles, and it came from a
strange area. A  militia post at Bilibino had reported a native passing
through in a  bobik soon after five this morning. The man had claimed to
be a road  mechanic on gold field duties, but no road station had any
knowledge of  him, or of his bobik.

The second related to country airstrips, and was from a source still
stranger.

The general took the phone himself and his eyebrows shot up.

"They've found him where? Say it again. Spell it." But even as  spelled,
he'd never heard of it, and he looked around at his staff.

"Baranikha?" he said.

For Porter, pulling out of the ditch at six o'clock that morning,
Baranikha had still been far ahead. He was not clear how far ahead.
Something over three hundred kilometers, the little atlas showed; but
with mountains all the way and a twisting road it could be very much
farther. In any case, he needed more fuel.

By ten a.m. he had it, and two more road stations were behind him. He
had also a fantastic surprise. All the trucks were running here! Not  in
his direction, for he had overtaken nothing, but the other way. The road
to Bilibino had been the danger--all long-distance traffic halted there.
They hadn't expected him to get beyond it. But now he was  beyond it,
running free. And here everything was normal.

The exhilaration had temporarily lifted his fatigue; but now exhaustion
had set in again. He had driven over a thousand kilometers. He was
light-headed, seeing double.

Somewhere ahead and to the right a halo of light became two haloes, and
one again. Then two. In the snow flurries he tried to focus. He was
running beside a frozen stream but there had been no bridges for the
past hour. The fuzzy light ahead showed activity of some kind;

there had to be a linking track to it over the stream.

Presently, almost abeam, he saw there were two haloes: a floodlit
aerial railway on a mountain slope above, and below it a bucket chain
dumping ore into a line of trucks. He saw also that the track from  this
operation ran to the stream, and the highway and, thank God, to a bridge
connecting it with the highway. He took himself under this bridge,
leaden with fatigue, and immediately switched everything off  and got
into his bag.

A quarter to eleven. Two full hours' sleep, he decided.

And before one, to time, awoke. There was still half a flask of coffee
left, and he swilled a mouthful around. He was faint with hunger. Plenty
of food left, he saw, as he pulled the bag toward him; he had  moved too
fast, too continuously.

He cut himself some bread, and unwrapped the salami, and looked at the
coarse paper for a moment, wondering if she'd found the other one yet..
.

A lifetime ago.

He chewed his food and tried to think when it was. All Sunday he had
worked on the bobik; Sunday night she'd brought the battery. Early
Monday he'd left. Had driven all day, all night.

Only yesterday. And already over a thousand kilometers away. And with
two more road stations behind him he must be nearing his destination.

He pulled the atlas across and found Baranikha again.

All the contour shades still purple. He traced the road he was on. A
major river must be coming up. Once he hit the river, the road ran
beside it straight to Baranikha the river itself carrying on to the
Arctic. He had turned north again.

Now he had to fly south. Several short flights south.

He followed the pages south through the atlas. Nakhodka was so far
there was no point in plotting it yet. But he saw where he had to  head.
Magadan first. Not the place itself but some small spot near  it. Polar
Aviation's flights touched down at many country stops. And  Magadan
wasn't so far now, maybe fifteen hundred kilometers. Two or  three hops.
He could make it today.

He checked out the road and in a few minutes was moving again, into
snow.

Twenty kilometers along, the headlights of a convoy came toward him: a
Tchersky convoy. The big Kamas flashed their lights at him as they
lumbered past, and he flashed back.

Two p.m.

At 2:30 he picked up the river, pulled in, and checked with the atlas
again.

The scale was so small it was hard to tell, but it looked no more than
thirty or forty kilometers to Baranikha now. The color faded to green in
the area around the dot, indicating some kind of valley; probably
accounting for the siting of the town. The airport would be in that
valley. He started up again and proceeded more slowly, looking for
security checks. So far he had seen nothing, but still his  registration
plate was a strange one here. The river coiled away presently, not so
straight as on the map, but  the road ran dead straight. The river was
now below, still to the  right. It dropped quite far below, yes into a
valley, widish,  flattish. The high ground was to his left, fold on fold
of it, an  occasional frozen waterfall showing the chasms in between.
The road  had been built on a straight ledge of rock running between
what was  evidently a marsh on the right and the jagged peaks on the
left.

It rose and fell slightly now with the contours, and quite suddenly, on
a rise, he saw the lights of the town below. And very close below.  Hazy
in the snow, but not more than three or four kilometers. The road  ran
straight downhill to it: a toy town neatly laid out in the valley.
Smoke-pluming factories; lit-up apartment blocks. And an airport, with
runway, control tower, adjacent buildings, parking lot.

He sat and watched it for some minutes. There didn't seem to be a
barrier. He drove cautiously down, entered the parking lot, and  cruised
round. No militia;

no people even; just a few vans and battered work buses, all crusted
with snow.

He stationed the bobik nose out, put a few necessities into the grip,
and picked his way across the rutted ground into the airport  building.

A shabby hall, very grimy, crammed with people. His heart sank at the
sight.

They had all, obviously, been here a long time. Every seat was taken
and everywhere people were sleeping on chairs, benches, the floor. The
air was thick with tobacco smoke and a hubbub of noise. A knot of men
bunched round the check-in desk, and a denser crowd around a bar at the
far end of the hall. There was a canteen there, all the tables full;
card games, domino games, a man playing an accordion.

What the hell! All flights stopped, evidently. Were they looking for
him here, too?

He made his way to the check-in desk, saw the flight board on the wall.
A list of destinations: all times blank.

A heavy smell of sweat rose from the gang here: workingmen, many of
them native, short skis and rucksacks strapped to their backs. He picked
one who looked like a Chukchi.

"What's going on, brother?" he asked.

"They're giving out the tickets. For Mitlakino."

"What's the holdup?"

"No holdup. The blizzard isn't heading there."

A blizzard; not him, then.

"How about Magadan?" he said.

"Magadan?" The man stared at him, and he saw now that he was drunk.

"Magadan out. Everything south been out for days. And for another
thirty-six hours. They laid you off here?"

"Sure, laid off. What's this other place Mitia what?" "Mitlakino. Work
there. See a notice." The man was swaying, and was  jostled aside by
others returning through the crush with papers.

He pulled out of the mob and looked for the notice. It was beyond the
desk, on the wall between it and the canteen. Men were sleeping here  on
bundles on the floor. He leaned over them and read it.

mitlakino (Chukotskiy Poluostrov) Construction workers required. Mining
experience essential. Union rates according to grade. Work permit and
employment record required. Transport, food, and accommodation
provided.

Chukotskiy Poluostrov. The Chukotka Peninsula. Way east, as far east  as
you could go. It was south he wanted. But there would be no way  south
for thirty-six hours. With this mob stuck here for days, there  was no
guarantee he'd get a flight even then.

He pondered this and pushed through to the bar. The bar, he saw right
away, was out of hard drink: Crates of empties were stacked behind it,
the two women working there in angry argument with men leaning over to
see what was beneath.

Some of the men, he saw, had formed tight drinking groups of their own
and were taking swigs from personal bottles passed around.

The end wall of the canteen was papered with an enormous map of
Siberia, and he made his way to it, trying to think what was for the
best. To get as far away as possible was obviously best--but as far east
as the Chukotka peninsula? Still, if it was the only place planes  were
flying. From there, with the blizzard over, he should be able to  fly
south--and to Magadan. Its supplies probably came direct from  Magadan,
the principal town for the Chukotka region. Better than  staying here,
anyway.

Mitlakino he had never heard of, but he saw its position, on the
peeling edge of the map, the sheet greasily fading out by the light
switch, but ringed in red ballpoint. The name itself had been
handwritten in, partly on the wall--evidently nothing there yet, still
in course of construction.

From Baranikha, also ringed on the map, it was a long way. According  to
the scale, something over eight hundred kilometers. But what of it?  A
direct flight would take only a couple of hours.

"What's the problem, brother?" The drunk had found him--had found him
abruptly, pushed backward out of a ring of drinkers.

"Greedy bastards!" he told the drinkers.

"What's the problem?"

"No problem," Porter said.

"You going to Mitlakino?" "Sure going Mitlakino. Know plenty fellows
Mitlakino. Good fellows,  Chukchi, not greedy bastards. Listen, what
kind a fellow you, brother?  You not Chukchi?"

"No," Porter said. The man strongly stank.

"Evenk."

"Evenks all right. Listen, you got something to drink?"

"I got something for me," Porter said.

"You good fellow. Let's have drink. Call a plane soon."

"How soon they call the plane?"

"Soon. On a board. Just time little drink."

"Just a minute," Porter said, and went to see the board, the man
dragging behind him. On the board the Mitlakino time was now up, the
only one up. It wasn't so soon.

Mitlakino 18:00.

The airport clock showed 16:15.

"Okay," Porter said, "we'll have a little drink. Only put your papers
away, you'll lose them." The man was still clutching the sheaf in his
hand.

"And we don't want anyone sharing, we'll find a place of our own."

They found a place in the boiler room. The notice on the door said  keep
out. but it wasn't locked. The one he'd tried first had  electrical
flashes on it and was firmly locked.

The boiler room was hot and he helped the Chukchi off with his backpack
and skis before settling on the floor and producing the bottle from his
grip. It was his last bottle, only one swig gone, and the man's eyes lit
up.

"You good fellow," he said.

By ten to five only a quarter was left in the bottle and the Chukchi,
after a little desultory singing, was nodding.

"I like a man can take a drink," he said.

"You a man can take a drink?" Porter asked him.

"Sure I take a drink," the Chukchi said.

"I take a drink," Porter told him, and glugged at the bottle. He took
nothing from it but he held it up, examining it owlishly.

"That's a good drink," he said.

"I don't see you take a good drink."

The Chukchi took a good drink. He took all of it and showed the  bottle,
and smiled foolishly, sliding sideways. Porter watched,  awaiting the
first snore.

Yes. Out for the count. And for some hours.

It was just on five, and now there was little time.

He took the Chukchi's papers, checking to see that the ticket was
there, and also the backpack and skis. He collected his grip, switched
the light off, and went rapidiy back through the crowded hall.

17:05 on the wall clock. 18:00 on the flight board.

He stowed everything in the bobik and drove out of the parking lot. The
snow was still gusting, but now at him, from the south. He  went back up
the hill, to the rise from where he'd first seen the town,  the river
and the valley now on his left. The rock cliffs were to his  right and
he searched them, looking for a gap. He remembered there had  been
frozen waterfalls, dropping into a chasm, and soon he saw one.

He got out of the car and peered down, with the flashlight. Smooth icy
bulges in the rock. No obstructions. And no sign of bottom. But  deep.
It wouldn't be seen for months, if then; smashed to nothing by  the
summer torrent.

He transferred what he needed to the backpack. Almost nothing left in
the bobik's tank, but one jerrican still full. This he threw into the
chasm, together with the grip. Then he took the keys out of the
ignition, pulled the wheel hard over, let the brake off and pushed it
backward downhill. It ran slowly away from him, ran easily, and went
over easily good little bastard, good to the end, and he watched as it
simply went, vanished, without trouble. Above the wind he heard a
muffled thud, and another, and then nothing.

He hitched the backpack on and undid the skis. They were work jobs,
short and wide, for rough ground; the sticks bound up with them. He
buckled the skis to his boots, had a look at his watch 5:25 and took
off.

He was back in the parking lot in fifteen minutes, took two more to get
the skis off and strapped under the backpack, and was inside the airport
building in time to hear an announcement boom from the  loudspeakers.

"Mitlakino final call! All passengers for Mitlakino, Mishmita, and
Polyamik, go at once to the aircraft! Last call for Mitlakino. Departure
in fifteen minutes for Mishmita, Polyarnik, and Mitlakino.  Passengers
go at once to the aircraft."

A knot of stragglers was still going through and he joined them. Not a
direct flight, then. And something puzzling in the names. Mitlakino he'd
only heard of a couple of hours before, and Polyarnik not at all.  But
Mishmita? Vaguely familiar.

He handed in his ticket and filed through. The plane was an ancient
three-engine Yak, the short-take-off crate of the north. Inside was
pandemonium, a struggling mass of skis and backpacks. Sixty or so men
were aboard and he found himself crammed next to a buttoned up Russian,
evidently a professional man, lips pursed at the noisy and undisciplined
natives.

"Go inside I get off first," the man gruffly ordered, and took the
aisle seat.

"Where you get off?" Porter asked him, companionably. "Mishmita."

"Don't know Mishmita. What's Mishmita?"

"Mys," the Russian curtly told him.

"Not Mish. Mys. Mys Schmidta."

"Ah."

Mys Schmidta Cape Schmidta! Last seen on the chartroom table of the
Suzaku Maru;

he'd watched a plane take off from the airstrip there, had drawn the
captain's attention to it while checking the ship's position on the
chart himself. From there to the mouth of the Kolyma, forty-seven hours.
Now he was reversing his tracks truly going back the way he'd  come.

An idea began slowly to dawn.

"Tell me," he said humbly to the Russian, "were you ever in  Mitlakino?"

"Yes, I've been in Mitlakino."

"As an educated man excuse me, I'm ignorant is it on the sea, the
Arctic?"

The Russian thawed slightly.

"Not on the Arctic, no. Inland a little. From a cape Cape Dezhnev.  The
sea there we call a strait the Bering Strait. You've heard of it,
perhaps?"

"Ah, no."

But, ah, yes. Christ Almighty, yes! It hadn't shown up on the airport
map, all peeled away there. But of course, the Bering Strait. Go far
enough east and you He couldn't wait to get his hands on the little
atlas. He couldn't get at the atlas, stuck in the backpack with a  great
pile of other luggage. He waited for the first stop and the  plane to
thin out.

To Mys Schmidta was an hour's hop, and the Russian got off and others
on, in the same confusion; then on to Polyarnik, another forty minutes,
and more off and none on. And at last, with the upheavals over and the
plane thinned out, he got at the backpack, and the atlas, and hungrily
turned east.

Page after page, and there it was: end of the peninsula. Cape Dezhnev.
End of the peninsula but not of the map, or of Russia. For the deeper
knowledge of Kolymsky students the school atlas showed the boundary of
Russia, and of its nearest neighbor. The boundary was in the sea,
eighty-five kilometers wide at this point: the Bering Strait. The
neighbors had forty-two and a half kilometers each, and the boundary ran
through the middle. It ran between two islands. The Greater  Diomede
Island was Russian, the Lesser Diomede American. Only four  kilometers
between them .. .

He absorbed this and looked back. on the map, at the mainland. Inland
from Cape Dezhnev, the Russian had said. Mitlakino didn't show up
there. Just a wilderness, with a marsh, a lake, a small mountain  range.

North of the cape a coastal dot said Uelen, and south of it Lavrentiya.
There would be others in between. At the place itself there'd be a
bigger-scale map, a work map.

Soon enough a dim haze of light below showed the place itself, with the
straight line of an airstrip.

They landed on it at nine o'clock, and snow tanks were waiting to take
the forty-odd men to the workers' barracks. The journey was short, but
snow was now falling quite heavily.

He got himself into the last of the tracked vehicles. No one had
questioned his presence so far, and the absence of the other man had not
been noticed, but it was as well to see what happened ahead. As  they
neared the building the first arrivals were already filing in, the  lead
tank moving on to an adjoining shed.

Again he positioned himself as last man in the mob outside. Some  holdup
was going on inside, and presently there were complaints and a  great
heave, and they were all in.

Inside, in the tightly packed lobby, an angry telephone conversation
was going on. A wrong permit had been provided, and the matter was being
checked with Baranikha. An official barked to the clerk at the  desk
that papers would be processed in the morning, and the mob began  to
thin. Again he saw to it that he was at the end. The men were  being
handed tags for their skis and bunk numbers in exchange for their
documentation. He had his papers in his hand but was not anxious to have
the name overheard by the man's comrades.

Now he felt himself on edge; time going fast. Nine-thirty. Four and a
half hours since the Chukchi had taken a sleep. He could be waking  up.

He gave in his papers at last the very last and was allotted a bunk and
a locker.

"Just dump your stuff and go right to supper. The kitchen will  close."

He found his bunk, looked into the dining room, and saw that tags were
being shown for meals. He went outside again.

The telephone line was coated with snow and he'd seen it on the way in.
It disappeared into a plastic conduit and he traced it down the
log-built structure to the junction box. With his knife he prized  apart
the join where it met the box, cut the wire, and pressed the  conduit
back in place. No more talk with Baranikha. He decided to  skip supper.
56

In the air the general was in heated conversation with Tchersky. They'd
garbled the story; it was obvious now. The Chukchi found at Baranikha
was not the Chukchi he was after. The man at Baranikha had been found in
the airport's boiler room, drunk. From his incoherent account it  seemed
that some other native had stolen his flight ticket and papers  and
flown off with them. He had flown off with a gang of native  workers to
a construction site. The location of the site was now  providing a
problem.

The name of the place was Mitlakino, and it was not on the general's
maps. It was not on Tchersky's, either.

"What the devil! Doesn't Tchersky supply this place?"

"No, General. According to Baranikha, Magadan does."

"Magadan? Is there an air service from it to Magadan?"

Yes, apparently there was.

"This bastard," the general informed his staff, "is making for Magadan.
He'll go south from there. Now listen," he told Tchersky, "that airstrip
at Mitia--at that place--is to be closed down. Issue the  order at once.
Will he have landed there yet?"

Yes, he would have landed there. The plane had reported landing two
hours ago, at nine p.m." and was staying the night due to heavy snow.
There was now no radio contact with it, or with the small control tower,
which had also gone off for the night. And the telephone line  at the
camp was out of order; Baranikha was still trying to get  through.

"Goddamn it!" the general said.

"Well, close it down when they do get through.

That plane is not to take off, whatever the weather, and nothing else
is to be let in except military craft. Contact the nearest airbase to
it. Get a clear location for them from Baranikha--a precise map
reference with coordinates. I'll talk to them when I land. He's  bottled
up there, at least. That's one thing. Now here's another."  The general
took breath.

"This bobik. He went through Bilibino in a hobik. He will have  arrived
in Baranikha with it. How the hell is it that a bobik has not  been
reported missing? What details have they given of it in  Baranikha?"
Baranikha had not given any details of it. They hadn't found it-not  at
the airport, or as yet anywhere in the town. They were still  looking
for it.

In that case, the general thought, they weren't going to find it. He
had gotten rid of it; no evidence left. Increasingly it was looking as
if he'd left Tchersky in the bobik. He might have used the Tatra to  get
to the Bilibino highway, and there snatched a bobik, a likelier  vehicle
for mountains than a farm truck. But there was no stolen bobik  on the
Bilibino highway; his officers had earlier covered it  intensively, had
covered every long-distance route. In which case,  where had the bobik
come from?

Tchersky. He hadn't simply picked one up on the way. The man was a
planner. He had planned the bobik. In his workshop. Had taken some wreck
there, and then the spare parts to rebuild it. Where had the  spare
parts come from? The Tchersky Transport Company. Where had the  wreck
come from? Same place. Not a Tatra. A bobik. Any number of  crocks must
be hanging about there--a big garage, for God's sake. But  with big
garages there were routines. Was this just sloppy supervision  or had
someone actively ... Who was responsible for such things? And  who was
responsible for parts?

"Tchersky--are you there?" The general had brooded for some minutes,
only a discreet crackle coming from the other end.

"Yes, General."

"Who's in charge of bobik parts there, that company?"

"Bobik parts would be the Light Vehicles Depot."

"Do they work at night?"

"No, not at night. They lock up at five. General."

"Good. Get a key. Have the director of the place there when I land.
Don't tell him why. See that my car is waiting. And have you  remembered
that about the coordinates?"

"Yes, General. You want them when you land."

"/ don't want them. The air base will want them. Give them to the air
base."

Idiots!

Vassili had been very silent all night, his eyes on the TV, and his
wife's eyes on him. He had known she would say nothing unless he said
something; and he had said nothing at all.

Now he settled himself into bed.

"All right, what?" he said.

"Will we lose the apartment?"

"No."

"Will you get into trouble?" "No."

"They say he's bad."

"He isn't."

"They know someone helped him."

He grunted. He should never have told her of the bobik. It had been  in
that romantic period when she had advised that Kolya should fuck an
Evenk. He put his teeth in the glass.

"Could they find out anything?" she said.

"No."

He sincerely hoped not. He had gone through the duplicate order forms
from March; delivery ad vices from July. His stock and deficit books had
needed attention, too, and a razor blade. None of the parts showed  up
now. They'd never been ordered; delivery not advised; no deficits.  The
rumpus would come later, and he would sort it out later. If Kolya hadn't
fixed him. Got himself found. Or left the bobik to be found.  He
wouldn't have done that. No. But Vassili was depressed. He had  been
used.

Eleven o'clock, and he put the light out.

At militia headquarters the general hung on, waiting for the flight
controller of the air base to return to the phone.

His raid on the transport company had not been a success. A haggard
director, evidently an old camp survivor, had savagely accused him of
being spy-happy, of wishing a return to old times. One Liova, the
manager of the Light Vehicles Depot, also an old lag, also summoned, had
demanded the presence of a native store man vetoed by the general.  They
had inspected the stores, and various books, all  incomprehensible.... A
job for an expert later. For now-"Hello, yes?"

"Okay, General. Meteorological conditions are difficult at the
moment--there's a whiteout."

"But you can land there?"

"Of course. What do you want done?"

"Just get him. You'll need to liaise with Magadan, they supply the
place. I have no clear idea of it here--" "I'm looking at air photos  of
it now."

"Ah, you have some. It's isolated, is it?"

"Yes, just a single structure. Is he armed?"

"Assume that he is. When can you be there?"

"Say 0100. I've lifted a squad of airborne now, in helicopters. You
want him held there or brought back here?" "First get him. I'll let you
know," the general said, and hung up,  satisfied.

A right decision to come himself from Irkutsk. The idiots here could
still be combing warehouses. Upon arrival he had been two days behind
the man. By issuing decisive orders--militia posts, airstrips--he had
reduced that gap to two hours.

Now, twenty past twelve on his second night here, the two hours had
been reduced to forty minutes.

He had a drink while waiting.

At 12:30 Porter climbed out of his bunk, tidied the rolled-up bedding,
and took his boots and the backpack. The dormitory was snoring; he had
made sure everyone was snoring before even entering it for a rest.

He had heard one shift go out at midnight and another return, evidently
to some other dormitory. Now the place was dead. He peered out into  the
lobby.

All deserted; semidark.

Behind the counter, a single lamp. In the recess by the door, the ski
stack, now tidied up.

He stood quite still, reviewing the scene, and waited some moments to
be sure he had it to himself. Then he went behind the counter. There was
a chair there and he sat and put his boots on, looking about him. A  few
notices pinned to a board:

work schedules; a plan showing block numbers of work areas. Nothing
more. There had to be better than this, and he looked under the counter,
and found it.

All below the counter was pigeonholed, and in the holes charts. The
holes were neatly labeled.

"Camp Plan,"

"Mining Works,"

"Geological Survey,"

"Topography."

"Topography" had a dozen rolled-up charts and he found the right one.
They were inland from the cape forty kilometers: Dezhnev to the north,
Lavrentiya to the south. In between, a curving bay showed several
coastal villages--Naukan, Tunytlino, Leymin, Veyemik, Keyekan ... Inuit
villages: Eskimos.

The tiny marsh and lake of the atlas were here hugely magnified. The
camp was exactly midway between them. The works were a kilometer to  the
west, in the foothills of a small mountain range, the chart squared  off
so precisely he could place himself to five hundred meters. The islands
were not on the chart--on this scale, too far out. But he  knew that
from midway in the bay they were directly east.

Midway in the bay ... It looked like Veyemik. The compass bearing on
the chart showed Veyemik as due southeast of the barrack block.

He dug in the backpack, found the school compass, and checked it, first
finding north. North, according to the chart, should be the adjoining
shed where the snow tanks had pulled in, the whole block laid out on a
precise north-south axis.

He pointed the compass there, and saw it was several degrees out. No
means of resetting the tinny little job, so he made the adjustment in
his head and scanned the chart again.

There were three main tracks: to the works, to the lake, and to the
nearest coastal village, Tunytlino. This one he examined carefully.

Tunytlino was thirty kilometers away. No track led from it to the next
village, Leymin, twelve kilometers below it, but the ground looked flat.
After that, Veyemik.

Veyemik was another fourteen kilometers, but surrounded by a whirl of
contour lines. The place was on the far side of a creek, frozen  now....
If he hit the coast at Tunytlino, kept the sea on the left,  Veyemik was
twenty-six kilometers below it. The whole journey, from  where he sat
now, fifty-six kilometers.

Thirty-five miles.

Okay.

He slipped the chart back in its pigeonhole, went to the ski stack, and
found the pair he had arrived with, tagged by bunk number. He removed
the tag, hunted in his pocket for its twin--this one looped to a locker
key--and took them back to the desk. They'd come out of a drawer, he
remembered. In the night's confusion the desk man had hastily stuffed
the papers in the same drawer. He opened the drawer and found his own
papers, the tag number scrawled in one corner . He took the papers,
dropped the tags in among a jumble of others, and closed the drawer.

With backpack and skis he went out through the double doors. The outer
one had a simple latch and it clicked securely behind him.

Outside the wind was howling, snow blowing horizontally.

He hunched through it to the shed and turned on his flashlight. Four
snow tanks, three bobiks. He looked over the best bobik; then the  other
two. No keys in any of them. He swore. A snow tank, then.  Cumbersome;
also very noisy. But nothing for it. He inspected the  snow tanks, and
found none of them had keys.

Jesus Christ! He wasn't going thirty-five miles in a snowstorm on
little work skis, not in view of what else he had to do tonight. He
shone the flashlight around and saw the snowplows--one actually out in
the snow, shrouded in it. He had a look at the other. It was at the
mouth of the shed, a tracked vehicle, big tracks like a tank; its shovel
raised and pointing out. High, with an enclosed cabin. He  climbed up
and opened the door.

Keys in.

He shone the flashlight around the cabin. He had driven a snowplow
before but the arrangement of levers was unfamiliar here. To hell  there
was a gear stick, accelerator, wipers, lights, brake. He'd  figure it
out on the move.

He settled the skis and backpack, closed the door, and turned the key.
It took several turns before the thing clanked hideously into life. He
didn't know if it could be heard above the wind. Just move.

He slipped the gear in and moved. Got it out of the shed and well away
from the building before turning right to pick up the track at the north
side. In the dark he couldn't see the track. He flashed the  lights
briefly, but the broad shovel was sticking out, blocking the  view. Just
a dazzle of snow, twin embankments hazily visible ahead.  Evidently that
was the track, swept by the snowplow.

He drove between the embankments and switched the headlights on again.
In the glare, high walls of snow passed slowly on each side and
presently began curving right east. Yes, this was it. On the chart  the
only track east led to the coast:

Tunytlino. He ran for another minute, and stopped.

He switched the interior light on and inspected the controls. Found  the
lever for the shovel and lowered it out of the way. Now, the  wipers
going, he could see clearly at least the two embankments he had  to
drive between. Ahead the lane ran straight, no signs of the plow's
earlier tracks. With the heavy snow falling there would soon be no  sign
of his own. All to the good. The thing had no speedometer and  was
certainly not a racer. Still, only thirty kilometers to the coast.  It
was just before one o'clock; he thought he could make it in an hour, and
started again. And almost immediately stopped again.

He switched off the engine; and then the lights, too.

A helicopter was muttering overhead. Even above the engine he'd heard
it. A big one. There seemed to be more than one. Or was it the same one,
circling to find the landing strip?

He opened the window and looked up. Through the whirling hail of snow
he could see, intermittently, the hazy beam of a searchlight. The
landing strip was switched off; the pilot was hunting for it. Maybe a
telephone crew to see to the fault. Strange, at one in the morning.  But
communication crews worked around the clock. He started up again  and
drove on, with the lights off. From the air, he knew, he couldn't  be
seen, the vehicle shrouded now in snow. He drove for several minutes,
and stopped and cut the engine again.  The clatter was still in the air,
but distant now. The guy hadn't  landed yet, or if he had was making a
hell of a row, his rotors still  going. But no sign of a beam through
the heavy snow, and the  helicopter was well behind him, so he switched
on the sidelights and  got moving again, pensively.

The line crew had arrived unexpectedly fast. He'd been right to move
fast. The Chukchi at Baranikha would be awake by now and raising hell.
He drove on, musing, the track dead straight, glaring white between the
snow embankments, the sidelights for the time being sufficient.

At ten past two the first village appeared. Tunytlino.

A semicircle of shacks, their backs facing him, chimneys smoking. The
smoke was coming toward him. No lights showed and he couldn't make out
the sea; all frozen now, of course.

He switched everything off, opened the window, and listened. No dogs.
The wind hissed only a little now, but it was coming from the sea. And
the snow was definitely less. Already, from the sea, a different weather
system.

A single street ran behind the shacks a cleared stretch, at least. A
path had been made from it to the track he was on, which simply petered
out a hundred meters ahead, the embankments falling away. There he had
to turn right.

He thought he had better get down and see how.

Coal smoke was in the air, acrid, from the sleeping houses. He  crunched
through the new snow, the village dead silent, and walked  beyond it
until the houses stopped and the cleared path ran out. Now  he saw the
sea. The beach shelved, a long way, perhaps two hundred  meters, and the
flat plain began. Utterly featureless. The Bering  Strait.

To the right, everything similarly featureless. Another white plain,
set above the sea. All the way along, the shoreline shelved. The
temperature had definitely risen here, some mistiness in the air, a few
snowflakes whirling.

Between the flakes and the snatches of mist he could see a star or two.
All the land flat ahead. Okay.

He turned and went back.

In the silence, switching on the engine, he gritted his teeth at the
racket.

Couldn't be helped. He kept the lights off, drove the last bit of
track, turned right along the coast, and kept going. The mirrors all the
glass areas were snowed up, and he leaned out of the cab to look  back.
A light had come on in one of the houses, but soon went out. He  had
been heard, but without interest. He switched to headlights and  drove
on.

The last few days he had slept little. But even sleepless, he seemed to
be dreaming. He was driving a snowplow along the Bering Strait.  Out in
the darkness was America. In between, the two islands, locked  in ice.
All he had to do was walk there. Just get himself in  position.

Leymin next, twelve kilometers.

Patches of mist, sudden squalls of snow; the weather changing every few
minutes.

But a night of changing drifts would cover his tracks anyway.

Just under the half hour, Leymin.

He turned inland, kept distance with the village until the shacks had
passed, and returned to the coast.

To Veyemik, another fourteen kilometers. The chart had shown wavy
contour lines here, but he could see no contours.

In a few minutes he came on them. The ground rose suddenly, the shore
dropping below. And now on his right, snow-covered rocks, rising. The
rocks became a cliff, and he was wedged between it and the drop on his
left. He slowed to a crawl. No way of turning here. And no point in
backing anyway. To return and go inland would mean only some other  kind
of contours, perhaps impassable: The chart had shown a chain of  them.

He kept on, at a walking pace.

Veyemik was on a creek, so there had to be a descent to it, sea level.
Whether you could drive down was another matter; it could be a
precipice. Get as near as possible, have a look at the place. If
necessary ski to it not so far now. But there was the problem of the
vehicle. He couldn't abandon a snowplow, leave evidence of where he'd
gone.

He crawled on, peering ahead. The frozen strait was now a long way
below, and the track very narrow. It could simply peter out and he'd  be
over the side.

And then, in a minute, everything had changed again.

The track veered seaward, a sudden squall blew in, snow spattering the
windshield, wipers working double time. And gone. Calm. Flakes  twirling
in the air, and below, the creek. He could see it clearly,  the
shoreline broken, quite a wide inlet. At the other side of it, a  huddle
of houses: Veyemik. And a long easy slope to it.

He drove down, dropped smoothly onto the creek, crossed it to the other
side, and came out behind the houses.

Three o'clock.

He switched the lights and the engine off, and got out to have a  look.

To seaward, nothing a great plain of ice, snow-covered. This was it.
The islands were now due east. In the plow he could go the whole way.
Except, of course, he couldn't. The thing would be detected at once.
Both islands were certainly observation posts full of electronic
devices.

It would have to be on foot. From here the distance was greater than
from Cape Dezhnev, perhaps fifty or sixty kilometers, but a simpler run,
less chance of error due east. Even with the little skis he could  do it
in five, six hours.

Totally exposed, of course, if anyone knew where he'd gone. Time to
lose the snowplow.

A stream cut down from the hills backing the creek. He'd seen it on  the
chart and now he could see its banks. He climbed up into the cab  again,
made the stream, and drove up it. The track soon lost itself,  twisting
and turning in the tangle of hills. He drove for twenty  minutes without
finding anywhere to ditch the plow: no cave, no gorge.  It began snowing
again while he peered. He decided to leave it anyway.  No one would find
it here before next summer. And time was going  fast.

He switched off, climbed out, attached the backpack and skis, and was
down again quicker than he'd gone up.

His face was crusted with snow, his gloved hands numb as he came out
onto the creek. He poled himself across the ice to the mouth. The little
broad skis made hard work of langlauf striding, but they were  better
than nothing. He stopped to beat feeling into his hands before  taking
his position.

No shelving beach here. Just the creek running out flat with the
strait. The great void stretched before him. The Russian island came
first, three times the size of the American and masking it completely.
He had to hit the larger one and work around it before taking a position
for the other. From now on, it would be dead reckoning, his  bearing
checked every few minutes, for in the ocean of darkness he  would be
totally blind. He unhitched the backpack and dug out the  flashlight and
compass.

He could scarcely feel the little compass. He took his gloves off and
breathed on his hands and shone the flashlight down on it. He couldn't
steady it with one hand, so he gripped the light under his chin and got
both hands to it. Even so, the needle was hard to steady. He found after
some moments that it wouldn't steady. It fluttered and swung,  and
fluttered and swung, ten degrees, and twenty, and thirty. It swung round
the dial. He saw it wasn't merely swinging, but pulsing. Radar  pulses,
some bloody pulses, from somewhere.

He watched it a full three minutes to see if there was a pattern. The
pattern was a continuous pattern: the needle, in fluttering jumps, going
around the dial, around and around.

This was the position at four o'clock, when he realized he had no
compass and no vehicle, and nowhere to go if he had one. The nearest
shelter before he froze was the village of Veyemik, and as  he trudged
there he racked his tired brain.

The first house was also the largest house. He hammered on the door,
and continued hammering till he heard babies crying and shouted oaths,
and presently an Eskimo stood before him in a suit of long Johns.

"I stole nothing!" Porter told this Eskimo.

"What?"

"I swear to God! They're chasing me. They've chased me all the  way!"

"Who's chasing you?" said the Eskimo.

"From where?"

From Tchersky, the general was again on the phone to the air base. It
was two a.m.

"What the hell are you saying?" he said.

"He isn't there. They've searched the camp block, they've searched the
whole site. He's nowhere on it."

"But he's got to be there. What else is there?"

"Mine workings, a kilometer away. He didn't go there--at least not  with
a crew.

They send them out in snow tanks, it's snowing like hell. Do you want
the mine workings searched?"

"Of course search them. He could be hiding there. We know he's there
somewhere.

He flew out there."

But this was by no means so certain. The camp said it had no record of
him. He had slept in no bunk, eaten no meal, been allotted no tags and
deposited no papers. There were also no skis or luggage for him.

"But he was on that plane," the general said.

"He stole a ticket to get on it."

Again this was not certain. Another worker might have stolen the  ticket
and papers--unintentionally, in the course of a random robbery.  But the
thief would have had his own ticket. He didn't need this  ticket. And he
certainly wouldn't have handed in the papers. Which  would account for
them not being there.

The general thought.

"The flight crew that's staying there--don't they know if the ticket
was used?" Again--no. It had been a madhouse on the plane. And no
tickets had  been handed in on it. They had been handed in at Baranikha.
Should  they check with Baranikha?

"I'll check with Baranikha. You check the mine workings." The general
checked with Baranikha and he found that the ticket had been handed in
and the man had got on the plane. He had got on it but he had not
apparently got off it; not, anyway, at two intermediate stops, for they
had checked and no natives had disembarked. The man had certainly
proceeded to Mitlakino but what happened to him there they didn't  know.

"They chased me with a snow tank! They chased me from Mitlakino. Ask
them in Tunytlino--a tank roaring after me in the middle of the  night!"

"From Mitlakino you skied--from the mining camp?"

"What could I do? They'd have killed me. I've skied all night, I'm
exhausted.

They hate Evenks--and the Inuit too." He was speaking Inuit with the
Eskimos.

"The Chukchis don't trust us. In Chukotka it's only them--no jobs for
Evenks."

"Well, I don't know." The Eskimo was a plump individual with a mild
manner, and his house was large because he was the headman. He stroked
his round face and looked from the hysterical Evenk to the other members
of the household. Eleven of them gazed back with bewilderment.  He
studied the Evenk's face and made a decision.

"You'd better sleep now. You can sleep by the stove. In the morning
we'll work it out."

"But you'll speak for me? You won't let them take me?"

"I'll speak for you. I don't understand it yet. Where do you get the
tongue?"

"Up north. I worked some seasons.. .. But you won't give me up? They
know I'm here. They chased me all the way to Leymin. They couldn't  get
past it, not on that track in the snow. But I got past it. You'll  speak
for me in the morning?"

"In the morning we'll see. It's still snowing. It shouldn't be  snowing
now. In the morning there could be fog. For now, everybody  sleep--it's
past four!"

It was past four, and at six everybody got up again, and there was  fog.

And the Evenk, after his sleep, was altogether calmer. He was
apologetic about his hysteria of the night. Maybe they wouldn't have
killed him, but they would have beaten him badly. A man had lost money
in the mine and immediately they had accused him--the only Evenk. He
could prove he had stolen nothing. He had nothing. When they came
looking for him today "Look," the headman told him. "nobody will come
looking for you today. They can't. It's a fog. And if they should,  the
women will hide you."

At this the Evenk showed alarm again. Why women? Why would women have
to hide him?

Because the men would be away, working.

Where away? How far away?

On the ice. The sea.

Sealing by the shore? No farther than that?

The Eskimos smiled. Not sealing. Not at this season. Fishing. At  their
fishing station. Out in the strait. They would be out all  day.

At this he showed even greater alarm. He wasn't staying all day with
women. He would ski on down the coast, then. Unless the men would  take
him with. Would they take him with?

If he wished, but there was no danger. Nobody could get here in the
fog. Still, if he was nervous.. .

He was very nervous, and he asked nervous questions. Could anybody
follow them?

How far were they going?

Fifty kilometers, they said, amused; and nobody could follow. You
needed a signal. The authorities fitted it in your vehicle, a tracked
vehicle. The signal told them on the island who was coming there was  an
island out there. And it also guided you to your station. There  was a
beacon at the fishing station, also fitted by the authorities.  You'd
never find it otherwise. Nobody could follow no need to be  nervous!

This calmed him completely, and as they briskly set off after taking
only steaming tea he showed a lively interest in the fishing. The best
grounds, they told him, lay where the seabed shoaled near the islands.
There were two islands there, but you couldn't go to the second, it was
American. The first you could go to only in summer. The military let you
camp in the small rock bays then that's where the seals came up, on
slabs.

So what kind of fishing did they do now?

Ice fishing, through holes, two meters square. You had to know where  to
cut.

Mainly the ice was two meters thick out there but in some places it ran
to twenty. You cut it in layers with an electric saw, off the car's
battery. The authorities came and checked your holes from time to  time,
and they had to be near your beacon. The signal directed you  there see
it?

The signal was an amber light on the dash which pulsed at wider
intervals if they veered off course. They veered a bit to show him  how
it worked, and laughed at his astonishment.

It was crowded in the vehicle; eight men in it, all loudly instructing
the interested Evenk. Another vehicle had set off a few minutes before
them to set up camp, and a third was keeping company close beside, its
headlights dimly visible in the fog.

Did people come out from the island to check the holes? he asked.

Sure. They checked your beacon too, and usually you gave them a bit of
fish;

they always needed fresh stuff there.

They drove over in cars, did they?

Sometimes if recruits were being trained. They trained the soldiers in
ice maneuvers. Native guys, some of them they used them as trackers. But
mainly it was in a helicopter.

They kept a helicopter on the island?

A helicopter? An army of them. See, the place was just a big hump of
rock, about a kilometer long, and they'd taken the top off and made a
whole landing ground up there. If they all took off at once you couldn't
hear yourself speak.

Was it that near?

Ten kilometers from the fishing station. In summer, in the boat, you
could see it from right here not far to go now.

It wasn't far to go. And then they were there, the fishing station.

Lanterns burned at the fishing station seal-oil lamps, on stakes, in a
large square. Much activity was going on in the square. In the dense fog
spectral shapes from the advance party were rigging a tent, others going
around refilling the lanterns. All of them were on short skis,  and now
he put his own on. The backpack he had left in the village,  and all he
had taken from it was the flashlight, now rammed inside his  anorak.

Various bits of gear came out of the vehicles: a winch, fishing lines,
ropes, fish boxes. The men bustled at the work, and he followed a  party
of them to the first hole. Lamps burned here too and from all  four
sides tethered ropes slanted into the hole. The men tugged the  ropes,
assessing the weight in the basket traps suspended there, and  each hole
was visited in turn. Once the traps were hauled in they  could do line
work for bigger fish, they said. You dangled hook baits  down through
the holes; all this after breakfast.

They went to breakfast in the tent, and as they ate he asked how long
the fog would last.

It depended. Snow was rare at this season, but when it snowed you got  a
fog. It hadn't snowed long so the fog wouldn't last long. Maybe  only a
few hours. You waited for the wind. Did it affect their work?

No. Out there it affected them, the island. They didn't like fog.  Just
in darkness, they could see--they had special glasses. But in fog  they
saw nothing.

What was it they wanted to see?

The Americans, just four kilometers the other side of the island. They
watched each other. That's what they did, while the rest of us did the
work.

The men were cheerful at breakfast and cheerful as they went to work,
and the headman jovially told him he could stay and help wash the dishes
to pay for his keep. He shoveled snow in a bucket and put it on  the
stove and observed the day's chef cocking an ear.

"That's funny--there's one up there," the man said.

"A helicopter?" Faintly now he could hear it himself.

"Yes. Not one of the island's, though."

"You can tell the difference?"

"It's from the mainland. A big one, going there and back, can't you
hear? No business being up in the fog."

Porter moodily cleared the tin plates and scraped leavings from the
pot.

"Fat and rinds go in the basket. It's bait," the chef told him.

"Hello--they've started up now!"

A harsher clatter was suddenly rending the air.

"The island?"

"That's them. Going up in there" "Where is it, the island?"

"Out there .. . What are you doing with your skis?"

He was strapping them on. They had all removed their skis as they'd  sat
round the trestle for breakfast.

"I'll just go out and take a look," he said.

"You'll see nothing in this.. .. The island's over there, past our
first hole, a straight line. Jesus--more going up! Hey, stay inside  the
lights! It's easy to get lost. Don't go more than a hundred  paces'."

"Okay."

For the first fifty paces he couldn't see the dimly lit hole, and then
he saw it. At the hole the men were busy hauling in and didn't notice
him. Looking back he could just make out the dim haze of the camp. He
started counting again. He counted fifty, and sixty, and seventy;

and looking back now could see neither the hole nor the camp. He had
not moved his skis as he turned, and when he started again he kept on in
the same straight line, and he also kept on counting. His paces on  the
skis were just about a meter, so after a thousand he had done a
kilometer; the air black; the blackness now all roaring. 59

By four a.m. the air base reported that the man was not in the mine,
not on the site, that no vehicle had been removed from the site, and
that there was no sign whatever that he had ever arrived.

The flight controller went further. He had been growing steadily more
skeptical all night, and he now said that they had wasted enough time
and he wished to withdraw his men.

The general considered this. Unable to talk to the godforsaken camp
himself, his communications had been entirely with this little air force
shit, who was becoming a peremptory shit, and an increasingly  insolent
one.

"How many men have you got there?" he said.

"Twenty-four. In three helicopters. Eight-man squads."

"Isn't there one among them who can mend a telephone?"

"There's a signals staff, yes. But they're in a blizzard there. The
line could be down anywhere."

"Have they tested the one in the building?"

"I'll ask them. But this is your last request. General. I will give  it
one hour."

"Request? What request? It's an order! You will report to me in one
hour," and he had slammed the phone down.

But the man was right, he knew. Four hours of air force time wasted ..
. And the bastard had slipped away again, it was certain; could by now
be halfway to Magadan.

He decided not to speak again on the phone himself.

But when the next call came, in under the hour, he took it most
eagerly, having heard where it came from.

"Mitlakino! You've found the fault?"

"Yeah. A break. See, they have this conduit, running into a junction
box, and what we--" "Was it cut?"

"Well, it doesn't look frayed. Only nobody said--" "All right. You.
What's your rank?"

"Sergeant, sir."

"Stay by that phone. Tell the director of the camp, from me, to check
his vehicles again. Every one of them has to be checked. He is to
inspect them himself, including anything they have at the mine. He  will
report to me personally, and he had better not miss any. Do that  now.
I'm waiting here; I can hear you. When you've done it I have  another
order."

The other order was for the civilian aircraft on the airstrip to be
inspected again. It was to be inspected from nose to tail, every
centimeter of it; every seat, under every seat, the cargo space, the
toilets, any hollow part of the fuselage.

"But stay by the phone yourself. Somebody will talk to you. If they
don't talk, still stay on the phone. Keep this line open. Don't let
anybody else use it."

This was at five o'clock.

At 5:30 the director of the camp asked permission to come on the phone,
and the general gave it.

"Well?"

"General, there's no actual vehicle missing--" "What 'actual'? What  are
you talking about?"

"Not a vehicle. We checked them all hours ago. It's just--a snowplow
isn't here.

It could have broken down and the driver be spending the night at
Tunytlino.

They don't have a phone there, but what I'll do right now is send--"
"Tuny what? Have they any vehicles there?"

"Yes, they have vehicles. They have special tracked vehicles for going
out to--" "How far to Magadan from there?"

"To Magadan?" There was a puzzled silence.

"Well, I don't know. I would say maybe--two thousand kilometers?"

"Two thousand--" For the first time the general was aware he didn't
know exactly where Mitlakino was. Since nothing of note existed there
and it wasn't on Tchersky's maps nobody had given him the location. But
the air base had the location. He had thought the air base was near
Magadan. He had thought Mitlakino was... "Where the devil are you?"  he
said.

"Where am I?" the director said in a strange voice.

"I'm at Mitlakino. Above Lavrentiya. Below Cape Dezhnev."

"Cape Dezhnev!" The general's flapping hand had summoned  maps.<"Dezhnev
.. .

Dezhnev. You mean--the Chukotka Peninsula?"

"Yes, certainly. The Chukotka Peninsula."

"I see a lake. And a marsh, is it?" "The lake and the marsh. Yes,
General, we're between them."

"With Tuny--Tunytlino--away on the coast?"

"Thirty kilometers away. That's where I think the driver of the
snowplow--" "The coast of the Bering Strait?"

"Certainly the Bering Strait."

"Good God! Good God!" the general said.

"He's not going south. He's going-Is that sergeant there? Give me  that
sergeant."

By six o'clock, the helicopters were airborne again and making for the
string of coastal villages between Tunytlino and Keyekan. Their orders
were to land at the villages and search them.

By 6:30 all were reporting dense fog over the coastal area. They could
see nothing on the ground, and nothing of each other. They asked
permission to return.

"No! Refused. Absolutely not!" the general told the air base.

"They are to land at those villages."

"But they can't see the villages."

"Let them go down lower and look."

"General, I can't endanger my men or their aircraft in these
conditions. You'll see on your map there are hills in that  vicinity."

"And you'll see on yours there's also a strait there. The Bering
Strait! Let them fly over it, a little offshore. The villages will  have
lights. If they get out on their feet they'll find them."

By 6:45 a helicopter had found Tunytlino.

It reported that nothing was known of the man there, but the villagers
had heard a vehicle passing in the night. It had passed soon after two
a.m. It had passed in the direction of Leymin.

Shortly afterward Leymin called in.

Nothing of the man there, either, and no vehicle had passed through.

"He's made his try in between, then," the general said.

"Or he went inland a bit." He was tracing the route on his map.

"Let them search both villages. But I think he went on to the next,
Veyemik. From there he has a clear run, due east, to the islands. But
not with the snowplow--too soon detected. He's on skis. He took them
with him! But on skis he couldn't have made it yet. And in the fog  ...
I think he's still there. He's either spun them a yarn or he's  hiding
there.

He's in Veyemik!"

At 6:55 Veyemik called; and the general's heart sang. A stranger had
come in the night to Veyemik. A terrified stranger. He  said a vehicle
had chased him. It had chased him from the mines at  Mitlakino, where he
had been accused of stealing money. He had been in  fear of his life and
they had taken him in. Their menfolk were looking  after him. Had they
done wrong?

In no way! Lay hands on him immediately; subdue him, take him back to
the base, keep him bound at all times! And promptly report his  arrival.
He would come himself as soon as notified.

Very good. One squad would remain there until the fog lifted. Then
they'd go out and get him. The menfolk of Veyemik were presently at
their fishing station. The man was with them.

He was where?

It took some minutes, the babble going there and back from the
helicopter, for the general to gather that the fishing station was fifty
kilometers out in the strait. That it was only ten kilometers  from the
first island. And that the party would not yet have reached  it. They
had left twenty-five minutes ago.

Twenty-five minutes!

"Go out now!" the general said.

"Go immediately, don't delay! He'll slip off this is what he'll do!"

Go where? How could they find the fishing station in the fog? The
Eskimos found it by beacon. The beacon was controlled from the island.
The helicopters couldn't be directed to it by the island because "All
right. I'll manage the island. The helicopters are to take off
immediately all three of them. Sweep behind him, go due east. He's still
in a car, going there! From fifty meters they'll see the car,  even in a
fog. Get them down to twenty meters! I'll call out aircraft  from the
island. You'll find him between you. If he tries to slip away and go
left or right he'll miss the island, and he's lost in the  fog. Then we
pick him up at leisure. How long is the fog due to  last?"

The fog was due to last, according to latest information, another two
to three hours.. .. But if aircraft took off from the island there could
be midair collisions visibility was zero! The best  instrumentation
couldn't So arrange a corridor. The fishing station  was fifty
kilometers out? Fly forty-five. The island would be  informed
accordingly. Keep communication with them. He was contacting  them
himself immediately.

Which, immediately, he did.

From the island, after a few minutes' delay, he learned that the
Eskimos' vehicles had already arrived at their fishing station. Three
vehicles had been monitored arriving. Yes, island aircraft could reach
the station very shortly.

With the beacon, fog was not a problem. The general asked what mobile
forces were available on the island.

Twelve helicopters, he was told; augmented in winter by a company of
patrol jeeps. Also sixteen personnel carriers, half-tracks, in four
platoons. Four vehicles to a platoon, four men to a vehicle.  Sixty-four
men.

The general ordered a deployment of these forces.

The helicopters would surround the fishing station and search it. If
the man had already skipped they would lift off again and support the
surface force of personnel carriers. The surface force would leave at
once. Six kilometers from the island it would assume its blizzard
formation: the troops off-boarded fifteen meters apart. With the
vehicles they would form a line of one kilometer, to sweep forward at
ski walking pace.

In case the man tried to slip back to the mainland, air force
helicopters would sweep the area between. To avoid risk of collision  in
the fog, five kilometers would be kept between the two forces.

The fog was expected to last two to three hours. In that time the man
could make a try for the American island. But first he had to find it;
which he could only do from the Russian side. Was any audible signal
used by the Americans in fog conditions?

No, no audible signals were used. But when the fog lifted the island
was easily visible, only four kilometers away. Its masts and aerials had
blinking hazard lights, and the satellite dishes were clearly
illuminated.

But there was also another factor. The island was four kilometers  away,
but the international line was only two kilometers. On skis it  could be
reached in no time.

The general agreed another plan.

In one hour's time, if the man had not been taken, all forces would
proceed at speed to the other side of the island. The man must not be
allowed to leave it.

If he made a dash for the American side he was to be brought down
brought down, not killed. At all costs he had to be taken alive.

While he was still speaking, urgent news arrived. The helicopters had
reached the fishing station, and the man was there! He was washing
dishes, in a tent, with the chef. A moment later this report was
amended. He had been washing dishes, but at sound of the helicopters  he
had gone outside to have a look at them; he didn't seem yet to have
returned.

When had he gone? When?

Three or four minutes ago, the chef thought. On his skis.

"Good God!" the general said. In the rapid turn of events he had been
saying it repeatedly, but now he said a few things more. From two  days
he had reduced the gap to two hours, and then forty minutes. and  then
twenty-five. Now it was only three or four! If they merely  hovered over
his route, they would catch him now. How far, in three or  four minutes,
could he have gone?

At his second kilometer the roaring in the air was deafening and
continuous.

They were directly over his head now. Hovering; going on a little;
hovering again.

The rotors thrashed away, a shattering row, but disturbing the fog very
little.

He could see the yellow haze of their searchlights. He couldn't see  the
machines. And he knew they couldn't see him. They were keeping
altitude. And he now understood the reason why. The same reason was
giving him problems.

The strait was no longer flat. Toward the center of it huge hummocks
had begun to appear, windswept snow tunneled between the mainland and
the islands, now turned into pillars of ice. They loomed suddenly,
disappearing up into the fog, very high, high enough anyway to keep the
helicopters off him. But in sidestepping them he had lost his track.

Twice when the racket above had gone ahead he had taken a risk with the
flashlight and shone it back to see the ski marks, had even gone back
to check them. But the ice pillars were enormous, ten meters wide at
least, and in pacing sideways from them he couldn't be sure he was still
parallel.

Now, the ground itself was exhausting him. The stubby skis were too
short, sinking into the recent snow. The row, the exhaustion, the
uncertainty, had addled his brain, as he suddenly realized. He didn't
have to worry about direction. The bloody helicopters were directing
him.

Their job was to stop him rounding the island. They knew that first he
had to reach it. Only eight kilometers to go. The two kilometers he  had
done in under ten minutes, despite the conditions. He was sweating under
the anorak, could feel it trickling under his fur cap. He gulped  the
freezing fog, poled himself rapidly on. one ski after the other;  still
counting.

980 .. . 990 .. . Another kilometer. Seven to go.

The machines hammered and swished above his head. Hovering;

advancing; hovering. Hazy blurs, bobbing there, searching. Keeping pace
with a man on skis. When he was too close to the island they  would have
to land and face him. Or if the ice was flat, come at him  at ground
level. And they surely wouldn't be alone. The place was a  garrison. Men
could be lining up there now; a final barrier. But what  else was there
for him? No other place to go now.

Because there was no other place to go, he planned this one. He had
scarcely any idea of it. A kilometer of rock, the Eskimos had said and
on the other side of it, the American island, only four kilometers
farther. When the fog lifted it should be visible. But when the fog
lifted, he would also be ... Well, to hell. While there was fog he had
to use it at least get himself in position.... First ski within reach of
the island.

Then turn left or right, to the end. And go around it and up the other
side. At five hundred paces the opposite island would immediately face
him. If trouble was waiting there, other noise, the Americans would
probably respond with their own, which also could direct him. Even now
he was only minutes away. Another kilometer had passed, the fourth. In
under the hour he could be over the international line.

He was aware suddenly that there was other noise. Not aircraft noise.  A
steady rumbling ahead. And dimly through the fog saw the hazy glow  of
headlights; and in the same moment recalled what the Eskimos had  said.
There were vehicles on the island. They came out on ice  maneuvers. They
had come out for him.

He went flat on the ice immediately. And immediately saw a line of  them
ahead.

In line abreast ahead, not more than a hundred meters ahead. And in  the
same instant, from the ground, saw that something was happening to  the
line. The two sets of headlights facing him had stopped and the  others
were fanning out. From the vehicles facing him lights began to  flicker,
hazy stars descending in arcs;

which after a moment he translated into men with flashlights. They had
jumped out of the vehicles, were strapping on skis.

He was rapidly getting out of his own skis spreadeagled too obviously
on the ice. And also out of his anorak too visible on it. He swiftly got
the white fleece lining uppermost and went flat under it. The men  on
skis were spacing into a formation. The other vehicles had faded  into
fog, only the two facing him now visible. And they too were  spacing
out. The men, the machines, seemed to be placing themselves  fifteen
meters or so apart. Lining up for a ground sweep.

Jesus! He'd been right to drop. A moving figure would soon enough  have
been seen. He couldn't outflank vehicles. Half-tracks, he now  saw,
personnel carriers. But what now? The line was taking time to assemble.
Even above the helicopters he  could hear the tinny quack of radio talk.

The men were stamping up and down on their skis. In padded white snow
rig, he saw, hooded; automatic weapons slung around their necks. They
were beating themselves with gloved hands in the biting cold. With his
anorak merely stretched over him he was freezing up himself, the sweat
instantly gone.

But the spacing between them, he saw, was very murky. And they would  be
looking, after all, for a hurrying figure on skis. If he could get  them
to pass him ... He began maneuvering himself sideways between two  of
the stamping figures. And had not yet made it when the line  stiffened
suddenly and moved forward, and he went prone, skis  underneath him,
anorak drawn over his head.

He was just a hump of ice, he prayed. And they had only now started,
not yet accustomed to the task; were seven or eight meters on either
side of him.

He heard the rumble of engines, the swish of skis, and held his breath.
And they were past. They'd passed. He held it a while longer before
daring to get his head up and look back. Yes. Fading into fog. He
buckled the skis on, got back in the anorak, and immediately set off,
very fast, on the tracks left by the vehicles. And at once stopped.  No!
His own tracks! They'd spot them. Were certain to maybe not  right away.
But soon, not a doubt of it. Would come chasing after  him. Vehicles
would get to him long before he could reach He turned  and went back.
Went rapidly, in the ski tracks, and in a minute had caught up with
them, saw the flickering line of flashlights, the wide  hazy beams of
the vehicles. The drivers would be peering ahead. A  skier next to a
vehicle, immediately next. He came behind the man,  careful not to
tangle skis, and hooked him at once, one arm around his  neck, a glove
in his mouth as it opened. The neck he could have broken  immediately,
but the face as it hinged back was that of a Yakut lad,  maybe eighteen,
the eyes innocent and astonished.

He caught the boy's heavy flashlight and hit him with it. It struck
only the padded hood and, swearing, he left the glove rammed in the
mouth, and wrenched the hood back and hit him again, two solid thuds,
and had him on the ice. He wrenched the gun off his neck and smashed the
stock hard against the boy's temple. The tunic top was in one  piece and
he yanked it off him and got it on himself. It was weighted,  equipment
dangling at the back. He couldn't do anything about the  trousers. He
left the trousers, also his own anorak, took his glove,  hung the gun
around his neck, and set off rapidly after the patrol. In  a couple of
minutes he had reached it and taken up position next to the half-track.
All as before, the line swishing steadily forward, flashlights  pointing
ahead.

He got the boy's flashlight pointing that way.

With gloves on, he couldn't feel the parts of the little automatic
weapon. He'd done a course on it at the operations camp. He fumbled with
it, identified the safety, snicked it off, found the trigger, and
pulled. A rapid burst spat out and with immediate effect. The flashlight
nearest in the fog turned toward him and he saw the  half-track driver
peering sideways out of flashlight, window at the  white-hooded figure
now waving frantically beside him.

He was signaling with the flashlight, shouting.

"He's there! Just turned going like hell! Going back!" He put  another
burst ahead, saw his neighbor do the same, was aware the  half-track
driver had increased speed, shouting into his radio, and  that gunfire
was now sounding off along the line.

He let it go and turned and sped back, keeping to the tracks. Fifteen
minutes at least, maybe twenty, for them to sort out the confusion,
longer still for them to decide what the hell to do about it also where
the missing man had got to.

He came on the man very rapidly, still crumpled on the ice. The  slender
young face was solemn in sleep, mouth open, breath gently  steaming. He
wrapped him in the anorak, shoved his head in the fur  hat. The boy's
gloves had been half pulled off, and he pulled them on  again.
Frostbite, hypothermia he couldn't do anything about it. I'm  sorry, he
told the Yakut.

The boy was still attached to his skis, now crossed on the ice an
altogether better pair. He quickly took them off him, with the ski
sticks looped around the wrists, and got them on himself. There was a
flashlight lying on the ice his own, he saw; evidently fallen out when
he had left the anorak. Now he switched it on and left it, for the Yakut
to be found, and told him again he was sorry, and took off.

It had taken no more than two minutes and now he went fast, on good
skis, unworried by the ice pillars, in no doubt where the vehicle tracks
were leading;

and after another kilometer was aware that the helicopters had gone. He
could hear them well behind. They'd been called off, were now giving
support to the men hunting him.

Soon he had stopped counting; no longer any point. His paces had
greatly lengthened, a thousand of them now obviously much more than a
kilometer. And going very much faster. In only minutes the island  would
be there in front of him. He could almost feel it, the solid  mass of
it, all his senses alert, all his exhaustion dropping away.

There would be men lined up, he had no doubt. And sensing devices. It
was, after all, the most advanced of the electronic outposts, right on
the border. The equipment would mainly face the other way, but the
extremities of the place would certainly be covered. It struck him  that
he wasn't going to make it out on the ice; no question of simply  going
around it. He would be located immediately. He would have to  get on it,
behind the sensors, a thought that lit up in him suddenly  like a
bonfire.

Which in the same moment took material form immediately over his head.
Amid a great whooping of sirens a flare had gone up. It arced obliquely,
descending over him, and from a dozen points others  instantly arced.
The fog all around him became a brilliant aquarium  green, shot through
suddenly by a blinding narrow-beam searchlight. He  skied crazily
through it, waving his torch and yelling.

"Hey, hey! We're onto him!" He was panting hard.

"He's doubling back there. You got the flares ready?"

"Flares? What flares?"

Behind the beam, white-hooded figures had materialized, guns at the
ready.

Several military jeeps were standing by, he saw.

"Christ, we yelling for them! This man moving fast already he broke  the
line once! I tell you, we don't move it here, we lose him. What's  the
cock up with the radio?"

"Operations! Operations!" One of them was shouting into a handset.

"They're calling for flares out there. They've spotted him and they
need What? Wait a minute. Who's saying this what mob you from?" he said.

"We're all split up. They send me back a tracker, I'm to lead a jeep
there, with plenty flares for Christ's sake! Here I go to Operations
myself." He blinked around him, dazzled.

"Where they keep the Operations here?"

While the man shouted into the handset, others were now surrounding the
tracker.

"You one of the new recruits, then?"

"Sure. Know the country, don't know too much this army. Where they  put
the Operations?" ' He was already slipping out of his skis. In  the many
lights that had now come on he saw that all of them had skis  strapped
to their backs. The whole company was standing on a wide  platform,
cleared of snow, under the overhang of a cliff. A ramp,  evidently for
vehicles, led up from the platform, and at either side of  it a walkway
faded away into the fog.

"They sent back a tracker!" The man was still shouting into the
handset.

"Some fuckup with the R/T, he says.. .. Well, / can't fix up Okay,
check it out.. They're checking it out. You can't go up there," he said.

"Jesus Christ they'll lose him! Is too slow here. Is slow picking me
up, even!

How soon you see I'm coming, man?" ""Corporal you call me corporal," the
man said.

"And the sensors picked you up, animal! They're heat sensors. What do
you understand?"

"This fucking island I understand is why they pay me. This fellow get
through, you'll see. I go take a look around the point. I think maybe
needs men there not sensors! When I fire off a few shots you know I beat
the sensors, eh? I'm back four, five minutes. For the car and  the
flares!"

He took off at once took off at his tracker's half-trot, and so
confidently that they simply watched him. He took off along the left
walkway, carrying his skis, and found it sloped upward a little, and
gave it half a minute, and got off it.

He felt over the edge with a ski and found it was a fair drop now. He
sat and found he was sitting on the equipment belt. The ski holster  was
there, and a spare magazine for the gun, and a line and pick, and a
hunting knife. He eased himself off them and dropped to the ice, and got
into his skis.

He skied out seventy paces and looked back and could see nothing. The
sensors had picked him up at roughly two hundred meters. That was the
range he had to stay inside. They had seen him go left. Now he went
right. He went fast for two hundred paces and decided he had better turn
in and keep contact with the island to be sure he wouldn't  overshoot
it.

The last twenty paces he took slowly until he could just make out the
presence of the massive bulk in the fog. Then he continued alongside it,
keeping contact.

It took barely three minutes to reach what seemed to be the end. He
went in closer, and found that it was. The great hump had turned inward.
He followed its fretted shape round until it turned again and
straightened out, and he knew he was on the other side.

Now he took off again, long loping paces, a hundred, two hundred, very
fast.

If the rock went a kilometer, another two hundred paces would get him
to the middle. But he knew now he wasn't going there. The other  island
was opposite just four kilometers away, with the international  line
only half that distance. He could go for it immediately a mile  and a
quarter! One frantic dash, and he'd be over it. Safe.

Suddenly, without further thought, he did it: left the rock behind him
and headed out into the strait.

He had made fifty paces when the sirens went off.

His first thought was that he had set them off.

But almost at once a tremendous whooshing and roaring in the air told
him otherwise. The helicopters were back. And this side of the island.
Not only helicopters--vehicles, a confused uproar of  vehicles, coming
from the left and from the right.

But going where? Confused, disoriented, he stopped, trying to make out
where.

Several events, at this time, were taking place simultaneously, the
details of every one of them changing by the minute.

The general was changing them, in Tchersky.

He sat with two telephones, talking to the island and the air base. A
few minutes before, the hour almost up, he had confirmed his order: all
forces to be ready to transfer the search to the other side of the
island. Were the vehicles in contact? Yes, in contact. And the
helicopters? All in contact.

Then go.

And almost immediately, chaos, confusion, contradiction.

The surface force reported they had sighted and were pursuing a man,
who had turned back to the mainland.

The island reported the arrival of a tracker, requesting flares for the
pursuing surface force.

The surface force reported they had requested no flares and sent no
tracker. But they were missing one man.

Hoarse now, the general rapidly took a grip on the situation. Was the
tracker still on the island? Yes, he was there; with a platoon of patrol
jeeps waiting on the beach platform below.

Then hold him. Hold him at once. Report back at once.

And at once the report back. The tracker was not now on the beach
platform. Two minutes ago he had gone on an urgent mission to inspect
the defenses at the north point of the island.

The general, his ears singing, absorbed this information; also, on the
map, the distance to the international line. The man could be there in
minutes. But not in two minutes.

Abandon the search.

This was the first change of plan.

All jeeps at once to the international line. Every available man to go
there.

The island's helicopters, the air force helicopters, the surface
force--all to proceed there at speed. All personnel to disembark and
form a chain, blocking access to the opposite island. The man to be
brought down on sight--disabled, legs shot to pieces if necessary-but
not killed. Imperative he be taken alive.

Moments later, advised by the island that gunfire was not permitted
within five hundred meters of the line, the general amended his  order.

The force would not now form up on the line. It would form up 250
meters before the line. But firing orders still to stand. A minute
later, on further advice, another change of orders. With all  the
activity ahead, the man might turn north or south. It would take  him
longer but still give him time to bypass a static force--the fog  was
expected to last another hour. Suggest jeeps be detached to cut  him off
before he could reach the line.

Agreed. Wait till the half-tracks arrived--in minutes now--then detach
the jeeps. Catch the man on the ice.

But the man was no longer on the ice.

At first the sheer numbers had stunned him. Helicopter after
helicopter, a great stream of jeeps, then the half-tracks, all
thundering away out into the strait.

Sent to chase after him, to pick him up before he could reach the  line.

But soon he knew it couldn't be so. They'd gone too fast--just racing
to block the line before he could cross. Once the men had disembarked
and the little island was sealed, vehicles would be spared to hunt
him--jeeps probably, zigzagging fast on the ice between the islands. He
had to get off the ice.

This side of the island was deeply fretted, eroded by tides in the
narrow channel. The Eskimos had said that in summer they camped in rocky
bays, that seals came up on slabs then. Perhaps there was a  place to
hide there. He made fast work up the coast, and came on  slabs, a great
line of them.

They began in a heap at one side of a small inlet, and extended out
like a breakwater, huge rocks, mainly flat, all iced. He skied along the
line, peering for a cavity. He could see there must be gaps  between the
rocks, but snow had iced up a continuous wall. There was  no way into
the wall, and he couldn't climb it with his skis. He also  couldn't tell
how much farther out it went. They could be at the end  hunting him at
any time.

He skied rapidly back to inspect the inlet, and saw the Eskimos had
used it; the beach sloped sharply upward and bits of their gear still
littered the slope. A windlass for hauling boats, its tarpaulin blown
open; a few nondescript humps now iced over; an abandoned lantern,
hanging in an opening of the cliff face. He went in the opening, found a
sizable cave, and looked swiftly around it with his flashlight. There
was a fireplace; heavy seal hooks in the roof; a rock bench for
handling the carcasses. He'd seen this before in the north. Nowhere  to
hide here. He turned and went out fast, almost at once taking a  tumble
on the slope as he hit a couple of the humps. He picked himself  up,
looking at the humps.

Seabirds, frozen. There were four of them, caught by winter. And  after
the Eskimos had gone. The Eskimos would have taken them for  bait.
They'd fallen. He looked up the rock face. There would be an  eyrie up
there. In the flashlight beam a hollow showed in the pitted  face, ten,
twelve meters up.

No way up there, with the cave opening in between.

He shone the flashlight on either side of the hollow, and saw there had
been a rock fall to the right; a jagged ledge was exposed in the cliff
face there. The ledge ran above the first tumbled slabs. From the  slabs
it looked possible to get to the ledge; and from the ledge, the  eyrie.

He went to the slabs, knowing it was a crazy risk to take. But the
breakwater effectively stopped him from skiing farther anyway. He
rapidly got out of the skis, holstered them on his back, and tackled the
slabs.

Icy smooth, no footholds. He reached behind him for the coiled rope in
the tunic belt. The plaited nylon was hooked to its little ice pick.  He
slung the pick, managed at the fourth try and hauled himself up the
slab.

High; three meters. From the top he could see the outline of the  eyrie.
Still seven or eight meters above, and to his left. Hazy in  the
flashlight beam but with a long shadow inside.

He looked up at the ledge and flung the pick--flung it repeatedly until
it caught. He tugged hard on it with his full weight: a long, long  drop
this time.

Then he twisted the gun on its strap around to his back, and started
up.

The battered rock had footholds, slippery, unreliable, but giving
purchase. He walked up the cliff face, hand over hand on the rope, and
when his head came level with the ledge felt carefully with his feet for
a hold and swung himself up.

He knelt there a moment, released the pick, gathered the rope in his
hand, and slowly raised himself.

The ledge was glassy with ice, very narrow; no room to turn. He faced
into the cliff, and edged sideways along it, watching his feet.

He couldn't see the eyrie until he was at it. The cliff bulged out
slightly and suddenly there was no more ledge.

He stood quite still, his arms on the cliff, and looked sideways at the
eyrie.

An irregular hole, very jagged; a meter wide, about the same high. It
had its own small ledge, slightly below, evidently the perch from  which
the birds had fallen, and above it another, like an overhanging  brow.

He kept his arms on the cliff, extended a foot sideways, and lowered it
to the perch. The brow above was so slight there was almost nothing to
hold on to. He got a gloved hand on the icy rim, steadied himself, got
the other foot quickly on the perch and threw himself in. The skis
snagged behind him in the opening and he was held for a moment before he
wriggled them, and himself, inside and found he was on his knees on  a
floor.

He stayed there panting for a while. Then he took the gun and the skis
off his back, helped himself to one of the Yakut's cigarettes, and sat
and smoked it with his eyes closed.

This was a few minutes after eight in the morning, and he had some
thinking to do.

The Greater Diomede Island, on its east-facing cliff, is dotted with
bird eyries and Porter was in three of them while the fog lasted. The
first, above the so-called Seal Causeway, he decided was too obvious a
place to hide in, and he didn't stay long. The second was where he hid
what was in the body belt. (A half of it, for one disk was still on  him
when he was cornered.) The third was where he was brought down.

His account of what happened here is not totally coherent. But he knew
that, although he couldn't see it, a tape recorder was running at the
time and that his words, necessarily distorted, would all the same be
subjected to careful analysis.

He was in this last place some time after half past nine. (The gilt
wrapped disk, containing the data, he had just hidden. He had got away
from it fast; but now he was wondering whether he should bury the silver
one too.) The helicopters were then still grounded but he could  hear
their rotors slowly turning; also the sound of vehicles, less  muffled
by fog now and evidently patrolling to north and south of the  opposite
island. From this he knew that the strait was covered for  miles and
that he had no chance of skiing across.

He also knew that survival on the icy cliff was impossible; that he
would be trapped on it when the fog lifted, and that his options were
either to give himself up or to be caught.

A jeep had turned up below at this time and he heard the crew get out
and search a cave. The man in charge had shouted:

"Remember, lads, he's to be taken alive. But put a few in his legs:
He's a wriggly bastard--can still make it, give him half a chance." This
had given him pause. He was to be taken alive. And he was a  wriggly
bastard who could still make it.

He wondered.

He had his pick and line. He had his skis, his gun.

A few minutes later he also had a fantastic view.

The breeze, already snatching at the fog, turned suddenly into a
blasting wind that blew it away entirely. In minutes the air was crystal
clear, and the other island stood immediately before him. It  looked no
distance at all a huge skyscraper of rock, laced with  lights.

Helicopters were going up and down on it, taking a look at the
disturbance before them.

Before them was the disturbance facing him.

He counted sixteen half-tracks; the flickering flashlights of some
scores of men; many jeeps skimming on the ice; and helicopters
fluttering, a long line of them, now too beginning to lift off.

He saw three long-bodied ones thundering away, evidently back to the
mainland.

The smaller ones went blinking up into the sky, to land somewhere above
him. The half-tracks and the flickering torches remained.

The place he was in had a low roof and the floor was covered with
debris. This slit in the rock for this was all it was was four or five
meters deep, and wider inside than out, the walls at either side of the
opening hollowed in.

From the opening he observed something new happening.

A helicopter had evidently lifted off above, and presently he saw it
flittering like a daddy long legs along the coast, its searchlight
examining the cliff face.

As it drew closer he hid himself in the hollow by the opening and
stayed there as the eyrie lit up. The searchlight looked in for half a
minute, and moved on.

A little later, he saw that two vehicles were following the helicopter
on the ice. Some banging had been going on, but it took him time to
figure out what it was. One of the cars was a jeep. The other seemed  to
be a fire-fighting vehicle.

It had an articulated ladder, and at each cave where the helicopter had
lingered the ladder was raised.

Porter watched as, in the beam of a searchlight, a man in a gas mask
went up the ladder. At the top he flung in what seemed to be a stun
grenade, producing the bang, and shortly afterward a canister of tear
gas smoke streamed out, anyway.

Then the man paused, head well down, before suddenly rushing the place;
with a sharp rat-tat, and another pause, before he reappeared and came
down the ladder.

Porter positioned himself in his own eyrie to be nearer fresh air,
prepared to take a deep breath and hold it. He knew he could hold it for
two minutes. The man hadn't taken as long as two minutes. He was waiting
there when it happened. He saw the walls turning milky  white, heard the
scrape of the ladder and the man coming up. He gave  it ten seconds,
filled his lungs, and actually saw the stun grenade  come arcing in. It
struck the low roof, bounced sharply onto his  chest, and exploded in
his face.

For some moments, the flash was the last thing he saw. It blinded,
deafened, almost paralyzed him.

He still hung onto his breath.

The second canister he didn't see or hear. He knew it was there by the
stinging of his lips and a prickling around the eyes. He was aware,
through the smoke, of a bulky presence at the opening, a pig's snout
emerging there. He smashed the man's head with his gun and yanked him
swiftly in, remembering to rap off a quick burst at the roof. He had the
gas mask off in seconds and put it on himself, exhaling and  inhaling.
He still could hear nothing at all. He waited some moments  more,
breathing quickly in the gas mask, and went out backward.

It was the trousers (this he did not learn) that gave him away. He
didn't hear the order to face around, didn't even hear the warning burst
chattering around his head; was aware only of the solid jolt in  his
right leg, that he no longer had the use of the leg and was  tumbling
off the ladder.

By this time he had less than two meters to fall and he landed in a
heap, but with the gun in his hands. He got off a short burst with it,
and saw the men standing there take cover. In the brilliant beam he  had
almost a flashlight picture: of the fire vehicle's driver staring  out
of the window; of the man at the ladder mechanism gaping at him; of  the
jeep, its offside doors standing open.

Two armed men had been positioned by the jeep, both now down on the ice
and peering at him from underneath the car. One was yelling at him; he
could see the mouth going but couldn't hear what it said. The man had
his gun leveled, so Porter shot him and saw the man punched back flat on
the ice; and in another soundless moment saw the other man wriggling his
gun out from underneath, and he put a burst into him too.

The driver of the jeep was still in it; he now saw his legs emerging.
He put two single shots near them, tore the gas mask off and yelled,
"Stay where you are!

Get back in!" He could just, now, above the ringing in his ears, hear
his own voice, and he saw the legs go back in.

He crawled to the offside door, poked the gun in, and kept it on the
man while he pulled himself in.

"Don't shoot me," the man said.

He was very frightened. "Just drive." He had the gun at the man's chin.

"Drive where?"

"To the line--get going!"

"We can't make it. They'll blow us to pieces!"

"/7/ blow you to fucking pieces!"

He fired under the man's chin, shattering the window.

The man was trembling very badly, but he put the car in gear, and
moved, bumping over something.

He said shakily, "Give yourself up--they won't kill you. There's  orders
not to kill you. We can never make this."

This seemed very likely. From nowhere jeeps had come spinning-from the
left, from the right.

"Go faster!"

"We're going as fast as we can."

Maybe they were. He wasn't seeing too well. When he looked ahead his
left eye couldn't see the man beside him. (This was because his left eye
was in the eyrie, blown out by the stun grenade.) The other jeeps  were
not going any faster; they had come out fast, trying to cut them  off,
but seemed now only able to keep pace, and automatic fire was  coming
from them. He understood they were not trying to hit him but to
immobilize the car. The firing was at the engine, at the wheels.

And some of the half-tracks ahead, he saw, were moving. Their
headlights were on and their searchlights now came blindingly on. The
ones that weren't moving had also begun firing; puffs of smoke came from
them, and a few meters ahead the ice began to erupt: small  grenades,
propelled grenades--again intended evidently just to stop the  car.

The effect of the grenades was to detach the jeeps closest to him,
which turned rapidly aside--giving them, so it seemed, a final lucky
burst, for the car jerked suddenly and slewed, the driver wrestling with
the wheel as they tilted and slithered round in a complete half  circle

"We're hit, they've got us--give it up now!"

"Keep going!" His balance, his spatial sense had gone; couldn't tell
which side was down.

"Where are we hit?"

"Your side--we're all down there. See it!"

He took a look, and saw they were down.

"Give it left wheel," he said, and turned back and saw the man was no
longer at the wheel. He was no longer in the car. His door was open  and
he had flung himself out.

"Jesus Christ!" The back doors too were open, and now banging to and fro
as a jeep struck them. He got his gun up and put a burst in the  jeep's
windshield. The magazine ran out with this short burst and he  levered
himself, in great pain, behind the wheel. His right knee was  now in
torment, no movement in the leg. He carried the leg over the  seat and
got his other foot down.

The car hadn't stalled, was still slowly circling, in first gear. He
stepped on the accelerator, shuffled his foot to change gear, and
straightened out. Two more jeeps had slammed into him and his lights had
been shot out. But there was light enough, he didn't need  lights;

and in the frantic minutes had barely even noticed the collisions.

One wheel was dragging in the soft surface ice, and the steering was
heavy. He had little speed and now was being banged again and again by
the jeeps. In the brief interval when he'd appeared to stop, the RPG
firing had ceased and the jeeps had closed in. But now, straightened out
and on track again, he saw the grenades restarting, the jeeps again
sheering away.

The moving half-tracks had come closer, their searchlights dazzling
him. He saw the intention was to ram him, to catch him between two of
them. He pressed the pedal to the floor, squeezed the last bit of  speed
and found, with the motion, the wheel dragging less, the steering coming
lighter. He didn't turn away, went directly at the converging  lights,
waited till he was almost at them, and spun the wheel. But  now, hammer
blows coming from his left eye, his distance was all out,  and he was
jolted out of his seat as he hit the rear end of one. He clutched onto
the wheel as the car lurched left, right, skittering on  the ice.

His foot had come off the pedal, and he found it again, hunching back
in the seat. Firing had started behind him, a hail of it hitting the
rear end, low down. And ahead now, perhaps no more than two hundred
meters, the stationary half-tracks were puffing at him, the ice spuming
up. But they were far apart, he saw, a gulf apart, and the line of
flashlights in between was wavering. They could not fire at him, not  in
the car, could only try to stop the car.

He aimed at the gap between two half-tracks, saw the men on the ice
there scattering, turning carefully to fire and he was through. But
Jesus, Jesus caught once more! Now, at the last, another wheel. The  car
dragged, slithered. He was through the waiting line, but crippled,  two
tires at least gone. And the half-track engines were now roaring  into
life behind him; an iron voice rasping over a bullhorn there.

"Stop! Stop while you can! You'll be blown off the ice!"

He kept going: swearing, coaxing, willing the thing to move. He was
moving, moving, six or seven miles an hour maybe, the wheels churning,
moving only when zigzagged. His eye, his knee, were now alight with
white fire the ice also alight, lit up, spuming with small geysers
popping in front of him.

Distantly now there were other lights, racing about. The American  side:
surely not far now. With nothing following him and he was sure  nothing
was or it would easily have overtaken him he thought he must  now be
over the international line.

(In fact he was not yet over it. The vehicles behind had been ordered
to remain 250 meters from the line, and this they did; a fact confirmed
by watching American helicopters. But they had also been ordered to
continue firing up to it, and this too they did; the subject of later
official complaint.) For the men on the half-tracks the job was now very
difficult. Even at one hundred meters, RPGs could not hit a  target with
any great accuracy. And this target, a man. in a vehicle,  was not to be
hit at least not with a grenade but only halted. The  only way to halt
him now was to hit his engine. If this could be achieved before he
reached the line, men could go out on skis and get  him.

Probably at this time some small mortars were used.

The geysers that had been popping in front of the slowly zigzagging
vehicle now came closer; and with his zigzag now established and
predictable, they scored, and a cheer went up.

"Hit! Stopped him! Okay, boys, go out there."

The boys went out there, but to their consternation the target, though
stopped, did not remain stopped.

The thing had landed with a whoosh, a metallic clang and a cascade of
glass. The clang was the ripped-apart hood of the jeep, sections of
which, and of the grenade, came through the shattered windshield and
into Porter. The furnace in his head roared briefly and went out,
leaving him in the dark. It had also bounced his foot off the pedal,
stopping the car.

Still in the dark, he started the stalled engine again, twisting the
wheel this way and that, and rocking the car in and out of reverse,
which got it sluggishly crawling again.

The blast seemed to have stunned him completely. He couldn't see
anything. And the shock was making him pant. The glass had exploded  in
his face and must have cut his mouth. He tasted blood there. The panting
he recognized after a minute to be not panting but something  like
choking. This nightmare quite a familiar one he had often had.  Driving
a car, choking, and unable to see where he was going. He knew  he must
be going right, that he hadn't turned completely. When the car  stuck
and churned he wriggled the wheel and got it moving again, very slowly,
a crippled insect, stumbling, stopping, wriggling on. The U.S. aircraft
watching from above stated that it took him eight  minutes and that he
halted when he was told to.

A loudspeaker told him to, in English, and presently some closer voices
were bawling at him to open the door and step out with his arms raised.
He opened the door but didn't manage the arms or even the step, flopping
out like a bundle on the ice. Many big amplified voices were  sounding
off all around him, and from the island itself, and among them  he
picked out, weirdly, the mellifluous one of Bing Crosby, hoping that his
days would be merry and bright, and all his Christmases white.

The medical facilities on the island were found to be not adequate for
Porter's injuries and a helicopter was readied to take him 120 miles
down the Alaskan coast to Nome. He was fully conscious and urgently
demanding a tape recorder, which the radio room made available to him,
together with a throat microphone--this last a requirement of the
military surgeon who didn't want him shouting over the engine.

At Nome, the facilities were also found to be insufficient and he was
jetted another six hundred miles south to Anchorage. Here, in the  early
afternoon of December 25, he was admitted to Providence  Hospital.

Because of the festivities only a skeleton staff was on duty at the
hospital, but Nome had informed them of the case and specialists had
already been contacted.

The specialists drove in, and they agreed that immediate surgery was
needed. The patient was still conscious but now in great difficulties.
Apart from possible neurological complications, the more obvious damage
was very extensive. One eye was missing; he was blind in the other; he
had two shattered legs, and severe injuries to most of his upper  body.

In stripping him for examination, the staff had found a body belt which
he refused to give up. During the X rays he insisted on holding it
himself under a protective lead apron. The tape recorder had been  taken
from him (the tape, after being turned for him on the aircraft,  had now
run out), but he insisted that he had to give some immediate
instructions about it to a man in Washington.

This man could not be reached, but at a redirected number somebody
promised that he would call in as soon as possible. He had still not
called in when Porter, now speechless and unmoving, had to be taken down
to the operating theater. By then, however, he had made his instructions
understood: The belt and the tape were to be locked in the  hospital's
safe, and if he was incapable of speech for any length of  lime after
the operation the man from Washington had to hear the tape  before
touching the body belt.

These instructions were observed: The belt and the tape went into a
safe and Porter himself to surgery.

The man in Washington was his CIA escort, Walters, with whom he had
established at the "operations camp" a fair working relationship.
Walters was not, at this time, in Washington but in Seattle, where he
was spending Christmas with his.

in-laws. Seattle, though well north-the most northerly city of the
contiguous United States--was still fifteen hundred miles south of
Anchorage.

Transport was made available, his flight cleared, and he arrived at the
Providence at nine o'clock. Porter was by then long out of the
operating theater, but not expected to live. His visitor identified
himself, had his identification confirmed, and signed for the tape and
the body belt. He had been keeping contact with Langley and was now
instructed to go there at once. Langley was another three-thousand  plus
miles. But by lunchtime next day, which was December 26, the  material
he brought with him had been duly processed. By then,  however, the
Providence's morgue had received its expected corpse.

The voice on the tape was a husky whisper, not always understandable,
but quite understandable about the body belt.

Inside the belt was a pouch, and in the pouch a foil-sealed case.

When manipulated in a vessel of liquid hydrogen the case sprang easily
open and popped out its disk. The disk was four centimeters in diameter,
and the material on it highly condensed. The technicians  soon unraveled
the protocol and transferred the contents to a screen.

The information on the disk was known to be addressed personally, but
even so the directness of the opening caused surprise as the lines began
streaking, one after the other, across the screen.

"How long, dear friend--how long? I await you with eagerness...."
Epilogue

The man who had been awaited with eagerness was given no name at the
inquest held at Anchorage.

The medical witnesses said he had died of multiple injuries, and the
military ones that he had sustained them in a vehicle that had halted,
damaged, on the sea ice of north Alaska.

He had entered U.S. territory from the Russian side of the border,
perhaps having strayed there in the fog. He had evidently been caught in
crossfire during a military exercise, at present the subject of official
complaint. For the exercise had taken place within five  hundred meters
of the international line, and gunfire within 250 meters  of it: a clear
violation of treaties.

The man was non-Caucasian. He had carried no identification and had
given none.

The coroner found he had been unlawfully killed, and ordered the body
held until its identity was known and culpability for the death
established.

The inquest was fully reported in the town's two papers, the Anchorage
Times and the Daily News.

In Irkutsk the general read these reports and added them to his own for
a tribunal he would shortly be attending. The Americans, he had been
informed, would be producing clear and certifiable photographs of the
violation. A fig for the Americans! His only regret was that he was
unable to produce their agent--a counter violation But the man had
gotten away, if only to die. He read through the evidence of the
civilian surgeons again, and decided there was no doubt about that. He
was dead. And nothing had come of his mission.

The fact of the mission was very amply confirmed, however (evidence from
Batumi, from Ponomarenko, from the many forged papers). And that
nothing had come of it was equally plain. Major Militsky, the guards,
the Evenks--the testimony of all of them showed that. It was  impossible
for the man to have made contact with anybody on the  mountain. And
obviously he had never intended to. A reconnaissance  only.

How he had arrived in the Kolymsky region was a problem, and how he had
left it was another; as yet unresolved. But the action at the strait
(bearing in mind the high security issue involved) was unquestionably
justified. The object was to catch the man, discover who had sent
him--and how. Unfortunately it had not been achieved. But the next  best
thing had. Meanwhile, inquiries were still continuing.

At Green Cape many inquiries were continuing.

Ponomarenko turned up and was soon appearing about town, with a variety
of explanations. As was Lydia Yakovlevna, with a black eye. At the
Tchersky Transport Company the inquiry into missing parts continued for
weeks: ending with a new set of rules for the disposal of dismantled
vehicles. Too many of them had been found about the works, and the
removal of parts without signed authority was now strictly forbidden.

In these weeks Vassili relaxed and his wife also relaxed, for she knew
he was no longer worried. He whistled a bit, and winked, and she thought
he was himself again. And this was true, for he was. Some  small
problems still lay ahead, relating to his deficit book, but these  were
familiar and unimportant ones, very minor. The one that had  darkened
him had gone. For though the Chukchi had used him he knew  that, at the
last, he had disposed of the bobik--had not let him down,  and his faith
in the man was restored.

At Murmansk there was the question of a missing seaman.

Two Norwegians, who had been in transit with him at the International
Seamen's Hostel, thought he had gone to the red-light district. A  trawl
of the girls there turned up nothing; and the arrival of his  ship, some
days later, produced no other evidence.

The man had not left with the ship, and he couldn't have left any other
way--for his passport, his papers, his belongings, all were still at
the hostel. These the police retained for three months in case he turned
up floating in a dock.

But when he didn't (and in the current crime wave there had been many
permanent disappearances), marine agents were advised that his
possessions could be sent, not at Murmansk's expense, to the ship's
owners at Nagasaki.

At Nagasaki the Suzaku Maru, after circumnavigating the globe, was
again in dock.

She had arrived, like her sister ship of the preceding year, on
Christmas Day, at roughly the time that Porter had crossed the Bering
Strait. At various points on his voyage home the captain had learned  he
would be facing a board of inquiry relating to some events at Otaru.
These events he and the mate now had in good order, and the two officers
appeared before the board and explained them.

Seaman Ushiba's illness had seemed just serious enough for an extra
hand to be shipped in order to spare the patient deck duties. This the
captain had set in hand, as Otaru radio station could confirm. At Otaru,
Ushiba's condition had necessitated sedation and prompt medical  care,
and he had ordered an ambulance.

Adverse weather reports had also impelled him to seek an early
departure, foregoing a lucrative cargo of tuna--a commercial loss but
necessary for the good of the ship and the voyage.

When, in the Arctic, the new hand, too, had become ill, he had stopped
off the mouth of the Kolyma for medical assistance. The man had been
removed to hospital, the ship allowed to proceed, and at Murmansk he had
signed bills for the man's expenses. This was all he knew. He had  acted
throughout with prudence and good sense. He hoped the board  would
recognize it.

This the board did, and another inquiry was completed.

With all of his bills signed, the Korean seaman was of no further
interest to the Tchersky Health Authority. However, a note at last
arrived from Murmansk acknowledging receipt of his discharge from the
Kolymsky region. It pointed out that since no application had yet been
made for the man to board a ship, it was presumed other arrangements had
been made and he had flown home. If this was the case Murmansk had  no
need to hold his papers and, unless specifically requested, would  not
do so.

At the medical center this bureaucratic confusion caused no surprise.
But since the man was unlikely to worry them again, it was decided his
papers need not clutter up Tchersky's either, and they were  destroyed.

No record now remained in the Kolymsky region of a sullen Korean seaman,
or any connection, if there had ever been one, with a cheerful  Chukchi
who had driven to Tchemy Vodi.

At Tchemy Vodi the new year was somber.

Before January was out a small coffin was taken for cremation (the last
of the ape program), and weeks later a larger one. The administrator  of
the Buro was advised that the director's personal effects and his  ashes
need not be sent, for there was no one to send them to. Under a  new
director the genetic and the optical programs would shortly resume,  for
Moscow still held all records.

In Oxford, Lazenby, without knowledge either of the Korean seaman or
the Chukchi driver, was thinking of a third character.

His mind had been led in that direction by Miss Sonntag, whose farewell
party he had just attended. Her departure had been planned for June (for
she was now nearing sixty-five) and a successor was already  chosen. But
her sister, Sonya, had fallen ill and needed attention,  and now, after
Easter, she would not be returning.

At the party they had reminisced a little and she had reminded him,
slightly flushed over her second glass of sherry, of the day they had
rummaged together through a bin and found only cigarette papers.

He thought of these papers on his solitary walk home, and of what had
come of them; and of an interrupted fishing trip on the Spey and what
had come of that.

A bewildering few days .. . and a bewildering individual met in the
course of them. He remembered very little of him. An austere staring
face; a face as austere as a totem pole. As at that village. The one
with the odd name--what was it, now ... ?

Kispiox; Easter.

And for Jean-Baptiste Porteur, one further journey. Anchorage had
released the body, after a certain period, with the coroner's verdict
amended from "unlawful killing" to "death by misadventure." For a
misadventure it was. The deceased had strayed in fog, and in the same
fog units involved in a military exercise had also strayed.

The Russians had made handsome apology, and offered handsome amends,
with only a simple condition. No compensation could be paid,  naturally,
until the identity of the deceased had been discovered. But  the
identity of the deceased had not been discovered.. .. These proceedings,
too, were reported in the Anchorage Times and the  Daily News.

For the journey to Kispiox, Walters had been in attendance. He had
flown with his burden to Hazelton, and then had sat silently in the long
somber vehicle on the slow drive to Kispiox. There he remained  for some
hours before returning to Langley, where he discussed the  matter with
the keeper of Lives.

"Well," W. Murray Hendricks said, gazing down at the file before him,
"it looks to me as if we got away with it."

"I'm sure we did," Walters said.

"Nobody special was there, and nobody has been there. No visitors of
any kind. They're in the dark totally."

Two months before, at a funeral in Anchorage, special visitors had been
present, visitors from the Russian consulate, to convey their
government's regret at the sad accident and to examine the other
mourners. But apart from the grave diggers and a Unitarian minister
there had been no other mourners, only two reporters to record the
burial of the unknown man; and Walters, watching from a window above the
chapel.

"How is he now?" asked Hendricks.

"Coming along. You can't see a lot of change."

"He's surely changed since you saw him in that hospital at  Anchorage!"

"Oh, since then " When Walters had seen him at the Providence Hospital
a glimpse only, in the private intensive-care room Porter had been
connected up to machines and swathed from head to foot in bandages. On
the flight from Seattle, Walters had not gone directly to Anchorage but
to Elmendorf Air Force Base, a few miles away. The air base also had a
hospital, without the full surgical facilities of the Providence; but it
had some other facilities, less orthodox. A corpse had been flown  in
there, of another non-Caucasian male, unknown, unclaimed, a
road-accident victim, a boon for Langley. For it had been decided that
Porter's body, dead or alive, should not remain in civilian
jurisdiction, but be removed to a more secure kind. From Elmendorf
certain security personnel, temporarily "medics," had visited to examine
the patient, and the order of his wrappings.

The switch had been arranged that same night, during a fire alarm that
had also been arranged. The new night shift at the hospital had never
before seen the badly injured patient, but were not surprised at the
brain death shown on the monitors, and no autopsy had been required for
the bandaged man only his removal to the hospital's morgue, where he
remained for two months until the coroner's final release. But the  man
in the morgue, so unceremoniously buried, was not Porter.

Porter himself had been swiftly transported, doctors in attendance, to
the air base, where he stayed on a life-support machine until he could
be flown farther south, to another military hospital, of Langley's
nomination.

"Is he able to receive proper care up in that Indian village?"
Hendricks asked.

"It's what he wanted. There's a health service there, and district
visitors.

He's sick of hospitals. They've got some sight back in that right eye
and it will improve, though he's got it covered now. His legs are  wired
up and there's a lot of new parts in his body. He'll be in that  chair
for some time. But he still has a lung--and a sense of humor. He  calls
himself Bionic Man."

"He's talking now, is he?"

"A little. He can write a bit, but of course he can't see and it's  just
a scrawl. There was a big stack of mail for him there. The  postmaster
will be answering for him--I told him what to write."

The letters were from colleagues and students at McGill and Victoria.
Both universities had been informed of the accident--of the nonstop
truck that had hit him as he stepped out of Quebec woods. From both
establishments he was now on sick leave.

"Another thing," Walters said. I met his mother up there. A strange  old
woman--wailing. She said she'd warned him years ago against going  to
college, that though he'd bring light to the world, he'd die in the
dark, and it would all end in tears."

"Well. He didn't die," Hendricks said.

"And as yet it hasn't ended--in tears or otherwise."

"The light, though ... a strange remark, wasn't it?"

"Sure. And about that she could be right."

"Was it any use, that disk of his?"

"Certainly. Harmonics theory is brand-new. And fiber optics is an
advancing field. The Russians always led in those fields--very
unconventional, their science. Our people have already cracked a lot  of
what he brought.. .. It's a damn shame he left that full data disk  up
in the eyrie, though."

"Well, he wasn't going to get caught with it--knowing it would be
destroyed if they tried to open it. And even here he has a solution.  He
thinks his Inuit friends will be able to get at it. Apparently they used
to picnic there, thirty or forty years ago--parties of them from  both
sides of the strait, Russian and Alaskan. Then the Soviets made a  base
there and put a stop to it. Pretty soon now he thinks they'll be
picnicking again--demilitarization, America and Russia both needing each
other. But he's sure as hell the Russian military will never release
their own data--never, ever, till the end of time. He knows  precisely
where the eyrie is--and that our guys on Diomede took  telephoto
pictures of it. He's certain the disk will be recovered and  that his
journey wasn't wasted. He got it out. A cure for blindness  ..." For
some moments the two men looked at each other, silently.

"Yes," Hendricks said at last.

"He did an incredible job." And there had been another, smaller, job
Porter had been concerned about. He wanted an addition made to a
forthcoming book. It had been edited for him by a young woman in  Prince
George. He had spelled out the addition and Walters had passed  it on.
This he mentioned now.

"That other young woman, eh?" Hendricks smiled.

"Well, he had no shortage of them. He was very attractive to women. He
was married to an Indian girl once, you know--she was blind."

"I didn't know," Walters said, staring.

"I didn't know that at all. We were together for weeks in camp, and
talked a lot. I never understood that."

"No. Well. There's a lot not understood about him. I doubt if  anybody
understood him. He never married again," Hendricks said, and  closed the
file.

"He had no real attachments, you know."

But there had been an attachment.

Medical Officer Komarova was now sick of the Kolymsky region.

From the chief of militia she heard that the villain was likely dead.
Not certain--Irkutsk hadn't yet deigned to tell him--but there were
rumors, and it was likely.

Through the winter she had observed her mother failing. And from the
Evenks she knew that Tchemy Vodi's director (so a grieving Stepanka
said) had failed: her beloved Misha-Bisha. Soon only unhappy memories
would remain in this place, and she thought it well to look for another.

In June, barely spring at Tchersky, she flew west and found summer. The
Karelia region needed a medical officer, district of Lake Ladoga;
interview St.

Petersburg. She had trained in Petersburg, knew the remote area where
services were required, which had many attractions, chief among them
distance--six thousand kilometers of distance--from the Kolymsky region.

A room had been booked for her, and in it she took out her ring. She
hadn't worn it in Tchersky, and now she examined it again.

"Like our love the circle has no end."

She tried it on her third finger, but it was too small, and she slipped
it on the little one and slept with it. In the morning she was out
early, before seven, restless in the big  city. Her interview wasn't
until eleven, and she walked for hours.

In the Nevsky Prospekt, still only a quarter past ten, she looked into
a bookshop and wandered around it and was in the foreign section; and
suddenly, almost fainting, she saw him. Saw his face. On the back of  a
book. She picked it up.

J. B. PORTER. The Inuit: Life and Legend.

The book was new; there were three copies, face down, somewhat dusty
from unpacking, and an irritable assistant snatched the one from her
hand, and penciled a price inside, and in the other two, and wiped them,
and left them right way up.

There was nowhere to sit and she could hardly stand. She leaned  against
a wall and looked at the book again. The flyleaf said it was  the
author's latest and most significant contribution to a field  already
illuminated by his powerful ..

The English words blurred before her eyes, but she read on.

In his completion of earlier studies. Dr. Porter had provided the
definitive account... his text supplying in particular all known
versions of the reverse-narrative technique of this supposedly
unsophisticated people .. .

And not only the text, she saw, turning a page. There was a one line
dedication:

to ahsib-ahsim and aynapaynat.

She stopped twisting her ring and wiped her eyes, and tried it again.
Right to left. Yes. Yes. But the price of the book, ruble-penciled,  was
astronomically beyond her and she left, stumbling out into  daylight.

And three months later, her mother at last laid to rest in the small
cemetery at Panarovka, she left the Kolymsky region for good, her new
posting noted by all relevant medical authorities--and also by  Langley.

Three months more, settled but melancholy in the Karelia region, she
returned one day from a trip and looked briefly through the mail that
lay open on her desk. One envelope was not opened, and she paused over
it. A long business envelope, the address handwritten. And unopened,
evidently, because it was marked "Private." The postmark read St.
Petersburg. She knew few people in Petersburg and didn't recognize  this
hand at all. She opened the envelope and at first could make no  sense
of the contents. A slim sheaf, bearing the logo "Aeroflot." A  flight
ticket. She had booked no flight ticket. A mistake, obviously.  But
stapled to the cover of the ticket, an official slip approving an  exit
visa; and on the slip her name and passport number, all correct. Inside,
the ticket was undated, an open flight; the destination,  Montreal. No
note came with the ticket, no explanation at all. She  opened the
envelope wider, and at the bottom saw it, a tiny slip of  paper, a
cigarette paper. A single line of writing was on it. somewhat irregular,
but the Russian quite legible: "Like our love the circle has  no end."

All year, with its many losses, she had remained on the whole dry eyed
But now, the slip of paper shaking in her hand, she stared about her and
found her face in a wall mirror, and saw it begin to disintegrate there.
For now they came. In the end, tears. In such streams, such  floods,
that it was hard to tell, in the distorted image, if the face  was
laughing or crying; and to the assistant who hurried into the room,
alarmed at the noise, it seemed, weirdly, that the medical officer was
doing both.