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(Macmillan's Best of Soviet science fiction) I. Strugatskii, Boris Natanovich. II. Title. III. Series.

Introduction

Prologue

Mirza-Charle. A Russian Boy

Mirza-Charle. The Hotel, Room 306

Mars. Astronomers

Mars. The Old Base

The Takhmasib. The Inspector General and Others

Mars. The Roundup

The Takhmasib. The Benefit of Instructions

Einomia. The Death Planeters

112

Bamberga. The Poor in Spirit

131

10.

The Takhmasib. A Gigantic Fluctuation

151

11.

Dione. On All Fours

171

12.

Ring-1. The Ballad of the One-Legged Alien

192

13.

Ring-2. He Must Be Alive

213

Epilogue

229

Among the most readable of authors in this or any other world, the brothers Strugatsky stand high indeed.

The components of this quality of readability are, in broad terms, what is said and how it is said: matter and manner. What is said becomes readable when it reverberates with what the reader already knows, or evokes interest in what he does not know. "Manner" has to do with such technicalities as pace, placement of crises and climaxes, that elusive quality in prose called "grace," and those almost untranslatable factors (which Antonina Bouis so admirably translates) of cadence and texture. Matter and manner are synergistic when they blend in characterization; there is no better way to say something in fiction than to have it emanate from a memorable, dimensional, believable character.

This short course on the mechanics of narrative is the result of a feeling which has not yet failed to materialize in the undersigned every time he finishes a Strugatsky read. It's expressed in much the same astonished phrase which, I'm sure, escapes you when a magician performs the impossible before your very eyes: "How'd he do that?" This time I had to anatomize an answer.

almost independent narratives of varying lengths which serve as episodes in a single great adventure. The adventure in this case is the story of the ship Takhmasib on an inspection tour of the planets and satellite stations throughout the solar system. Most of it is seen through the eyes, or at least from the point of view, of the cadet Yura Borodin. Yura, a teenager, factory trained to be an expert vacuum welder, is assigned to a station on the Saturnian satellite Rhea and, having "missed the boat," almost accidentally finds himself aboard the Takhmasib. Both intelligent and naive, Yura is the perfect vehicle for reader-identification. He is as wonderstruck as you and I might be in his circumstances; he asks many of the questions you and I might ask, and thereby gives the authors all the elbowroom they need for their fascinating expositions of science and humanity. These, of course, plus the quality of sheer entertainment, are what one reads the Strugatskys for.

There are, naturally, cavils, if one looks for nits to pick. During the recent Voyager encounter with Saturn, it took nearly 90 minutes for commands to reach the vehicle, and the same interval for its pictures to return, a limitation which the authors overlook at their own convenience, presenting us with instantaneous communication to anywhere from anywhere. And the same can be said of speed of the ship itself, as it drops in on stations on Mars and on the systems of Jupiter and Saturn with the ease of a campaigning politician making whistle-stops. One must have doubts, too, that an interplanetary vessel can drop in unexpectedly on one base or another—a narrative necessity for the kind of voyage the inspector general is making—without weeks of advance knowledge and rather extensive preparation for the landings. And then...regrettably, Mars is what Mars is, and not what science fiction writers have been saying it is. One must be quick to add, however, that for the time it was written, this book's conjectures are truly remarkable, especially the description of a close inspection of the Saturnian ring system.

There must be two cautions in making such criticisms. One is that quantum leaps in technology occur all the time, and flat

disbelief in the possibilities suggested by science fiction writers might well turn out to be as quaint as a document displayed in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, in which a journalist predicts no future for commerce by air, for "there would be no maritime industry if the vessels required their engines not only to propel them, but to keep them afloat." And another, earlier one from England which, with exquisite logic, points out that a circle tangent to a line touches it at a mathematical point, which has no area; therefore no appreciable area of a locomotive's drive wheel can rest on the track, and therefore railroads are impossible. Early science fiction was full of vacuum tubes, most of which are "quaint" in today's circuitry, and by the time this is in print it will doubtless be known that a meld of the laser with fiber optics will do the same thing to the semiconductor as the transistor did to the vacuum tube. It might well be that the Strugatskys' instantaneous transmission over planetary and stellar distances may be in common use by the time their spaceship is ready; and that I am prepared to believe.

The second caution lies in an unnamed writer's remark: "I never let the facts interfere with a good story." This attitude, because of the above caution, is a bit more permissible in a science fiction writer than it might be, say, in a witness under oath.

The real meat in a Strugatsky novel, however, lies not in projected science nor in its exciting adventure, but in the human element. Everything they write is really about the human animal, that marvel of sensitivities and convictions, of contradictions and complexities. They write more about the nature of friendship than others do about romantic love. They write about the purity and goodness of work for its own sake, and of learning as the highest aspiration of all. And they do it without preachment and often with high humor—high and deep.

Are these sharp tools ever turned into ideological weapons? The answer has to be yes, but only occasionally, as in the chapter concerning Bamberga, a miners' colony run along

capitalistic lines, where the miners work for very high wages and expose themselves to radiation hazards that doom them, on their return to Earth, to father deformed children and to face a certain early and painful death. The inspector general firmly, if not violently, reorganizes the place for the miners' own benefit, and the conclusion seems to be that only the ideation of the collective can counter such a horror. One tends to doubt that the majority of the miners would risk so much, however money-hungry, or that the Marxist approach could, by its very nature, eliminate it. There is very little else in the book of this nature.

What there is, however, as declaimed above, is a parade of truly remarkable characters: the captain and the inspector general, old cronies from way back, deeply attached to one another and at times deeply disapproving of each other's foibles; the flight engineer Ivan, humorous and wise; and the likeable, even lovable, Yura Borodin, the cadet, the youngster coming of age, the vehicle through whom the principals and the colorful supporting cast can speak to us all.

I'd like to leave you with a beautifully phrased passage about knowledge, about teaching. It doesn't matter one bit what part of the political spectrum this comes from, in what language it was written, where or under what circumstances it is spoken; it bespeaks a higher aim than most inspirationals I've encountered.

...Zhilin again sensed the torment of a split personality that had been plaguing him for several years. Every time he left on a flight, something important, invaluable for mankind, more important than the rest of the universe, more important than the most magnificent things created by human hands, was left behind on earth.

People, young people, children were left behind on earth. Millions and millions of Yuras were left behind, and Zhilin sensed that he could really help them, at least some of them. It didn't matter where. In a boarding school. In a factory club. Or a house of pioneers. He could help them enter life, find themselves, determine their place in

the world. He could teach them to want many things simultaneously, and to want to work at full speed.

Teach them not to bow to authority, but to study it and compare its teaching to life.

Teach them to treat the experiences of people with caution, because life changes with startling speed.

Teach them that skepticism and cynicism in life are cheap, that it's a lot easier and more boring than being continually surprised and pleased by life.

Teach them that it's better to be wrong about a person twenty times than to treat everyone with suspicion.

Teach them that it's not how others influence you, but how you influence others.

He watched from under lowered brows as the passengers got unhurriedly on the bus. There were about one hundred of them.

Dauge glanced at him and looked away. He didn't feel like looking at Yurkovsky—at his confident, mottled face with the protruding wet lower lip, the heavy monogrammed briefcase, the expensive suit of the rarest stereosynthetic. It was better to look at the high, transparent sky, clean, blue, without a single cloud, even without birds. They had been chased away from the airport area by ultrasound sirens.

Bykov Junior was buttoning up his collar under the attentive eye of Bykov senior.

Yurkovsky said lazily, "On board the stratoplane, I'll ask for a bottle of mineral water and have it..."

"Why liver?" Yurkovsky asked. "I'm simply hot. And you should know by now that mineral water doesn't help in an attack."

They all looked at Dauge. He looked away and said through his teeth, "So don't forget, Vladimir. You have to give Arnautov the package as soon as you land on Syrt."

"Yes, it's time," Bykov said with a sigh. He went over to Dauge and embraced him. "Don't be said, Johannovich," he said softly. "Goodbye. Don't be sad."

He shook Yurkovsky's hand. Yurkovsky blinked rapidly, wanted to say something, but he merely licked his lips. He bent over, picked up his marvelous briefcase, turned it around in his hands, and set it down on the lawn again. Dauge wasn't looking at him. Yurkovsky picked up the briefcase again.

He turned and wandered toward the terminal. Yurkovsky watched him go. Dauge was small, bent, and very old.

"Goodbye, little one," responded Yurkovsky as he watched Dauge's back recede. "Drop in on him, I guess... you know, drop by for a cup of tea. He loves you, I know that..."

Grisha nodded. Yurkovsky offered his cheek for a kiss, patted the boy on the shoulder, and followed Bykov onto the bus. He hauled himself up the steps, sat on the seat next to Bykov, and said, "Wouldn't it be good if they canceled the flight?"

"Yes, ours. It would be easier for Dauge. Or if the doctors had rejected all of us."

When the bus started, Yurkovsky said, "He didn't even want to embrace me. And he was right. We shouldn't be going without him. It's not right. It's dishonest."

Dauge climbed up the granite steps of the terminal and looked back. The little red spot that was the bus crawled along near the horizon. There in the pink haze towered the conic silhouettes of the vertical flight liners.

I don't feel like going anywhere, he thought. No place at all. I feel so bad... I never thought it would hurt this much. After all, nothing terribly new or unexpected happened. It was planned and known a long time. And I suffered privately ahead of time, for who wants to appear weak? And basically, it's all fair and honest. Fifty-two years old. Four radiation strokes. A worn-out heart. Nerves shot. Not even my own blood. That's why they reject me, they won't take me anywhere. But they take Volodya

Yurkovsky. And for you, Grigori Johannovich, eat what they give you and sleep where they put you. It's time for you, Grigori Johannovich, to teach the young. And what can I teach them? Dauge glanced at Grisha. Look how big and healthy he is. Shall I teach him courage? Or health? When you get down to it, you don't need anything else. And here you are alone. With a hundred articles that are out of date. And a couple of books that are quickly becoming dated. And fame, which is becoming dated even faster.

He turned and entered the cool, echo-filled lobby. Grisha Bykov, his shirt unbuttoned, was walking behind him. The lobby was full of low conversations and rustling newspapers. A movie was showing on a large screen that took up half the wall; a few people deep in their armchairs were watching, holding glittering phonodemonstrators to their ears. A fat foreigner, eastern looking, was by the automated snack bar.

Dauge stopped at the entrance to the bar. "Let's have a drink, namesake," he said.

Grisha looked at him in surprise and with pity. "Why, Uncle Grisha?" he asked. "Why? Don't."

Dauge, tilting his head, squinted and looked at him. "Are you thinking," he asked sarcastically, "that I'm depressed because I've been taken out of circulation? That I can't live without the mysterious abysses and expanses? Sorry, brother! I don't give a damn about them! But I've been left alone...Understand? Alone! For the first time in my life!"

Grisha looked around uncomfortably. The fat foreigner was looking at them. Dauge spoke quietly, but Grisha was sure the entire place heard him.

"Why was I left alone? What for? Why me...why must I be alone? I'm not the oldest, namesake. Mikhail is older and so is your father..."

"Yes," Dauge agreed. "Our Misha is getting old...Well, let's go have that drink."

They went into the bar. It was empty except for a good-looking woman sitting at a window table, her glass empty and her chin nestled on her laced fingers. She was staring out on the empty concrete field of the airport.

Dauge stopped and leaned heavily on the nearest table. He hadn't seen her in twenty years but he recognized her immediately. His throat was dry and bitter.

The woman raised her head. Her eyes widened. She leaned slowly back in the chair. "You didn't...take off?" she asked.

She kept looking at him with wide eyes. She was wearing a lot of mascara and there were many wrinkles under her eyes and on her neck.

He held on to the back of a chair. "May we join you?" he asked. "This is Grisha Bykov, Bykov's son."

"My name is Maria Sergeyevna," she said, looking Grisha over. "I'm the sister of Vladimir Sergeyevich Yurkovsky."

"I know your father," she went on. She stopped smiling. "I owe him a lot, Grigori... Alexeyevich."

Grisha said nothing. He was uncomfortable, he didn't understand what was going on.

"Isn't that very strong?" Dauge asked. "Well, what difference does it make. Grisha, please bring over two jamos."

Dauge looked at her—at her smooth, tanned arms; her naked, smooth, tanned shoulders; her light dress cut just a bit too low. She looked amazingly good for her age. Even her braids were just the same—heavy, thick braids that no one wore anymore, bronze colored without a single gray hair, worn around her head. He laughed, unbuttoned his tight, warm coat slowly, and pulled off his tight, warm helmet with earflaps. Her face quivered when she saw his bald head and the thin, silvery hair around his ears. He laughed again.

His heart stopped. "Me?" he asked. Grisha came over and set the two icy glasses on the table.

"Eighteen? How sweet! You know, he doesn't look like Bykov at all. He's not even redheaded."

She looked up at him sharply. "True, you don't look well. Tell me..." She stopped. "Will Bykov stop flying soon, too?"

"I don't like Volodya going on a flight without Bykov," she said, looking out the window. She was silent again. "I worry about him. You know him."

"It's safe with Bykov," she said simply. "Well, and how are things with you, Grigori? It's strange... you and not flying."

Dauge laughed nervously. "Don't attack me," he said. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"I always see Volodya off," she said. "I have friends at administration, and I always know when you are taking off, and from where. And I always see him off.

She took the straw out of her drink, crumpled it, and threw it into the ashtray. "He is the only person I'm close to in your crazy world. He can't stand me, but he's still the only close person." She raised her glass and took a few sips. "A crazy world. Stupid times," she said tiredly. "People have forgotten how to live. Work, work, work...only work has meaning. Everybody's looking for something all the time. Building some-

thing. What for? I understand that it was necessary before, when we lacked everything. When we had the economic struggle. When we had to prove that we could live even better than they. We proved it. But the struggle continues, subtle, invisible. I don't understand it. Perhaps you do, Grigori?" "I do," Dauge said.

"You always understood. You always understood the world in which you live. You, and Volodya, and that boring Bykov. Sometimes I think that you are all very limited people. You're simply incapable of asking why."

She took another sip. "You know I recently met a schoolteacher. He teaches children horrible things. He teaches them that work is much more interesting than play. And they believe him. You understand? That's horrible! I spoke with his pupils. I felt they despised me. What for? Because I want to live the one and only life I have the way I want?"

Dauge could imagine that conversation between Maria Yurkovskyaya and the fifteen-year-old boys and girls from the local school. How can you understand it? he thought. How can you understand the weeks, the months of desperate banging against blank walls, the mountains of papers you write, the dozens of kilometers you pace in your room or out in the desert, when it seems that there is no answer and that you are a brainless blind worm and you don't believe that it had been like this many times before? And then that wondrous moment comes when you finally open the gate in that wall, and one more blank wall is behind you and you are a god again, and the Universe is in the palm of your hand again. But you can't understand it. You have to feel it.

He said, "They want to live their lives the way they want, too. They just want something else." She countered sharply, "What if I'm right?" "No," Dauge said. "They're right. They don't ask why." "Maybe they just don't have the breadth of vision?" Dauge chuckled. What do you know about breadth of vision? he thought.

"You drink cold water on a hot day," he said patiently, "and you don't ask why; you drink and you feel good..."

She interrupted, "Yes, I feel good. So let me drink my cold water and they can drink theirs!"

"Fine," Dauge said. With surprise and pleasure he realized that his nagging depression was disappearing. "We're not talking about that. You want to know who's right. So, man is not an animal. Nature gave him intelligence. That intelligence must inevitably develop. And you are extinguishing your intelligence... artificially. You've devoted your whole life to it. There are many other people on the planet who are extinguishing their intelligence. They're called philistines."

"I didn't want to insult you," Dauge said, "but I had the feeling that you wanted to insult us. Breadth of vision...what breadth can you possibly have?"

She finished her drink. "You're very eloquent today," she noted, laughing grimly, "explaining everything to me so sweetly. Please be kind enough to explain one more thing. You've worked all your life. You've developed your intelligence all your life, bypassing simple earthly pleasures."

"I never bypassed earthly pleasures," Dauge said. "I enjoyed them too much, I fear."

"Let's not argue," she said. "From my point of view, you did. And I spent my life extinguishing my intelligence. I spent my whole life nurturing my base instincts. And which of us is happier now?"

She looked him over frankly and laughed. "No," she said. "I am! At best we are both equally unhappy. The silly grasshopper—I think that's what Volodya calls me—and the hardworking ant end up experiencing the same things—old age, loneliness, emptiness. I haven't acquired anything, and you've lost it all. What's the difference?"

they'll say. No, I want to know what you'll say! And not now, in the sunshine with all these people around, but at night, when you can't sleep and all there is is your boring pedantry, and unneeded rocks from unneeded planets, and the telephone that never rings, and nothing, nothing ahead."

He suddenly pictured it all—the telephone that never rings and nothing ahead—but instead of the pedantry and rocks, there were jars of cosmetics, the dead glint of jewelry, and the ruthless mirror. I'm a pig, he thought with repentance. A self-confident, indifferent pig. She's asking for help!

Dauge moved his untouched glass and also stood. She took his arm and they went out into the lobby. Dauge tried as hard as he could not to limp.

"Where?" she asked. "Somewhere. I'm not fifty yet and the world still belongs to me."

He slowly pulled on his helmet, checking that no air blew in his ears, and buttoned his coat.

"Goodbye," he said smiling gently. "Forgive me, if I was cruel ...You helped me very much today."

She looked at him uncomprehendingly, shrugged, smiled, and went to her car. Dauge watched her walk, hips swaying and body amazingly lithe, proud, and pathetic. She had a marvelous walk, and she was still attractive, very attractive. People watched her. Dauge thought with bitterness: There, that's her whole life, stuffing her flesh into beautiful and expensive things and attracting stares. And there are a lot of these women, and they're long-lived.

When he reached the car, he saw that Grisha Bykov was inside, knees leaning on the steering wheel, reading a fat book. The radio was on full blast: Grisha liked loud sounds.

Dauge got in, turned off the radio, and sat in silence for a moment. Grisha put away the book and started the engine.

Dauge spoke, staring straight ahead, "Life gives man three joys, namesake. Friendship, love, and work. Each of them is worth a lot. But think how rarely they all come together."

Dauge glanced at him. "Yes, you can," he agreed. "But that means you'll be missing one joy, and there are only three of them."

Grisha said nothing. He didn't think it was fair to get into an argument that was hopeless for his opponent.

The clerk in charge of passenger flights felt very sorry for Yura Borodin. She couldn't help him at all. There was no scheduled flight to the Saturn system. They didn't even have scheduled freight connections. Automated freight ships were sent there two or three times a year, and piloted ships went even more infrequently. The clerk questioned the computer twice, leafed through a thick manual, called several places, but it was all in vain. Yura must have had a very pathetic look about him because in parting she said with pity, "Don't be sad, honey. It's a very distant planet. What do you need to go so far for?"

"I've fallen behind," Yura said, crestfallen. "Thank you very much. I'm going. Maybe somewhere else..."

He turned and headed for the exit, head lowered, gazing at the worn plastic floor under his feet.

"Wait, honey," the clerk called. Yura hurried back. "You see, honey," she said uncertainly, "sometimes there are special flights."

out about it. Maybe from the head of the rocketdrome?" She gave Yura a questioning look.

He left the office and looked around. To the right, under the green trees, the white hotel building rose toward the hot, whitish sky. To the left, a huge glass dome glistened in the sun. Yura had seen the dome from the airport. The only things. visible from the airport were the dome and the gold spire of the hotel. Yura, of course, asked what it was and was told curtly, "SECD." Yura didn't know what SECD was.

A broad road, sprinkled with red sand, passed directly in front of the administration building. The sand showed many footprints and the textured marks of protectors. Concrete irrigation ditches stretched along both sides of the road, and acacias grew thickly near the ditches. Some twenty feet from the entrance of the administration building, in the shade of the acacias, stood a small, square, white atomcar. Two motionless light blue helmets, with the white lettering "International Police. Mirza-Charle," stuck out over the top of the windshield.

Yura stood bewildered for two minutes. There was no one on the road. Then, from somewhere to the right, a tall, sunburned man in a white suit appeared, taking large steps. He approached Yura, stopped, pulled off his huge white beret, and fanned his face. Yura looked at him curiously.

"It's hhhhot!" the man in the white suit said. "How about you?" he asked in a thick accent.

The man in the white suit pulled the beret back on his sunbleached hair and took a glass flask from his pocket.

"Neither do I," the man in the white suit announced, and he put the flask back in his pocket. "But I always have some whiskey in case someone else does."

"It's hot," the man said again. "It's a great problem. Go to the international rocketdrome in Greenland, I freeze there. And at the International Rocketdrome in Mirza-Charle, I'm all wet and sweaty. Hah?"

"Oh-ho!" the man said. "So young and going to Saturn! That means we'll keep running into each other!"

He nodded significantly at Yura and went on. When he reached the police car, he straightened up and placed his index finger at his temple in a salute. The light blue helmets protruding over the windshield bobbed simultaneously and slowly, and then grew motionless again.

Yura sighed and slowly headed for the hotel. He had to find the administrator of the rocketdrome. The road was empty; there was no one to ask. He could have asked the policemen, but he didn't want to talk to them. He didn't like the way they sat without moving. For a fleeting second, Yura was sorry that he hadn't asked the man in the white suit, and then he remembered that the nice clerk must know everything about Mirza-Charle. He even stopped for a second, but went on. After all, he couldn't take up so much of her time. It was all right, he thought, I'll find out somehow, and he went on faster.

He was walking along the edge of the ditch, trying to keep out of the light from the sun, past the brightly colored machines with soda and juice, past the empty benches and lounge chairs, past the small white houses hiding in the shade of the acacias, past the broad cement lots filled with parked atomcars. One of the lots didn't have a canopy and shimmering hot air rose from the gleaming cars. It was painful to look at the poor cars spending long hours in the merciless sunlight. He continued past the huge billboards promising in three languages the

strength of Hercules to anyone who drank Golden Horich, vitamin-enriched goat's milk, past some very strange, raggedy people sleeping in the grass with their packs and suitcases under their heads, past sanitation trucks stopped on the side of the road, past tanned children splashing in the ditch. Several buses passed him. He walked under a banner stretched over the road which read: "Mirza-Charle Welcomes Disciplined Drivers." The sign was in English. He passed the light blue traffic control booth, turned right, and came out on Peace Prospect, Mirza-Charle's main street.

The prospect was also empty. The stores, movie theaters, bars, and cafes were shut. Siesta, Yura thought. It was unbearably hot on the street. Yura stopped by a vending machine and had a glass of hot orange juice. Raising his eyebrows, he went over to the next one and had a glass of hot mineral water. Hm, he thought. Siesta. Fd like to climb into a refrigerator.

The sun blazed down on the prospect—white, as though covered in fog. There was no shade. At the end of the prospect, in the hot haze, the hotel showed pink and blue. Yura started for it, feeling the hot pavement through his shoes. At first he walked fast, but that was impossible—he lost his breath and the sweat rolled down his face, leaving itchy trails.

A low-slung car with spread fins pulled over to the curb. The driver, wearing huge sunglasses, opened the door.

"I could tell right away that you're a tourist, like me," the driver said. He drove very slowly. "All the locals are in the shade. I was warned to come toward evening, but I'm that kind of a guy...I didn't want to wait. Looks like I hurried for nothing. Kingdom of the sleeping."

"I think this is a very quaint town," Yura said. "I've never been in an international city before. It's all mixed up in an amusing way. Deserts and the international police. Did you see them, in the blue helmets?"

"Yes, I did," the driver said gruffly. "There are about thirty of them back on the high way... truck collision."

"No, why robots," the driver grumbled. "Those...Varangian guests. They finally did it...the lousy drunks."

He stopped the car in front of the hotel and said, "Here we are. I need to take the first turn to the right."

Yura went into the lobby and approached the administrator. She was on the phone. Yura sat in a chair and looked at the paintings. Everything here was an amusing mix as well. Next to the traditional Shishkin bears hung a large canvas with fluorescent paints, not depicting anything in particular. Yura compared the two paintings for some time with quiet joy. It was very amusing.

Yura laughed. "You see, I'm not a monsieur," he said. "I'm a plain Soviet comrade."

The administrator also laughed. "To tell the truth, I thought so. But I didn't want to risk it. We get foreigners here who get very upset when they're called comrades."

"You see," Yura said, "I absolutely have to get to the chief of the rocketdrome. Could you give me some advice?"

"What advice?" the administrator asked in surprise. She picked up the phone and dialed. "Valya?" she said. "Oh, it's Zoya? Hi, Zoya, this is Kruglova. When is your boss seeing people today? Aha?...I see...No, it's just that there's a young man...Yes...Well, all right, I'm sorry, please forgive me."

The videophone screen had remained dark during the conversation and Yura took this as a bad omen. No good, he thought.

"So, this is the way things stand," the administrator said. "The director is very busy, and you won't be able to see him until after six. Ill write down the address and phone number for you..." She wrote quickly on hotel stationery. "Here. Call around six or just drop by. It's right near here."

"You see," Yura said, "I'm not staying anywhere yet. I hope I won't have to. I have to leave today."

"Ah," the administrator said. "Well, bon voyage. Happy plasma, as our interplanetary travelers say."

In a shady side street not far from the hotel, he found a cafe where the siesta had ended or had not yet begun. Under the broad flowered awning, in the grass, stood tables and chairs, and there was the smell of roast pork. A sign over the awning read: "Your Old Mickey Mouse," and it had a drawing of the famous Disney character. Yura entered meekly.

Of course, cafes like this are found only in international cities. Behind a long metal bar in front of the rows of brightly labeled bottles reigned a bald, ruddy bartender wearing a white jacket with rolled-up sleeves. His large hairy fists lay lazily amid the silver-covered plates of free hors-d'oeuvres. To the left of the bartender towered a mysterious silver machine emitting streams of aromatic steam. To the right, under a glass case, lay a variety of sandwiches on paper plates. Over the bartender's head hung two posters. One, in English, announced: "The first drink is free, the second 24 cents, and the rest, 18 cents apiece." The second sign, in Russian, read: "Your Old Mickey Mouse Is Battling for the Title of Excellent Service Cafe."

There were only two customers in the cafe. One was asleep at the corner table, his hand resting in his unkempt hair. Next to him on the grass lay a wrinkled, greasy backpack. The other customer, a sturdy man in a checked shirt, was relishing a

ragout and talking to the bartender across two rows of tables. The conversation was in Russian.

When Yura walked in, the bartender was saying, "I'm not talking about photon rocket and atom reactors. I want to talk about cafes and bars. I know something about that. Look at the situation here in Mirza-Charle, your Soviet cafes and our Western cafes. I know the turnover of every establishment in the city. Who goes to your Soviet cafes? And, more important, what for? Women go to your Soviet cafes to eat ice cream and dance in the evening with nondrinking pilots..."

"Here's a boy," he said. "This is a Russian boy. He came to the Mickey Mouse in the daytime. That means he's a tourist. He wants to eat."

"Hello," Yura said to the bartender. "I do want to eat. How do you people go about it here?"

The bartender laughed loudly. "Exactly the way you go about it,"he said. "Quickly, deliciously, and politely. What would you like to eat, young man?"

The man in the checked shirt said, "Give him some vichyssoise and a pork chop, Joyce. And you, comrade, come sit by me. First of all, there's a breeze here for some reason, and secondly, it will be easier for us to continue the ideological struggle with old Joyce here."

The bartender laughed again and disappeared behind the counter. Yura, smiling shyly, sat next to the man in the checked shirt.

"I'm waging an ideological battle with the Mickey Mouse," the man explained. "I've been trying to convince him for the last five years that there are other things in the solar system besides drinking establishments."

The bartender reappeared from the counter, carrying a deep bowl of soup and bread on a tray.

"I'm not even offering you a drink," he said and deftly placed the tray on the table. "I saw right away that you were Russian.

You all have a certain look about you. I can't say that I like it particularly, Ivan, because one look at you people and one's thirst goes away. And one wants to struggle for some title or other, even to the detriment of the establishment.^,,

"The free enterpriser's conscience is awakening," Ivan said. "A year ago I managed to convince him that giving liquor to innocent people was immoral."

"Especially if you do it for free," the bartender added and laughed. He must have been referring to the first drink being free.

Yura listened, enjoying his cold, unbelievably delicious soup. English letters floated around the rim, and Yura translated them to read: "Eat up, there's a surprise on the bottom."

"It's not even that because of your customers we have to maintain the international police here in Mirza-Charle," Ivan said indolently. "And I'm not even mentioning the fact that it is the qualities of Western cafes as opposed to Soviet ones that give people the opportunity to lose their human aspect too easily. It's just such a shame to see you like this, Joyce, an energetic man, with golden hairy arms, not a fool in the least. And what do you do? You hang around a counter like an old robot vendor and every evening, licking your thumbs, count filthy bills."

"You can't understand it, Ivan," the bartender said majestically. "The concept of honor and popularity of an establishment are alien to you. Who hasn't heard of the Mickey Mouse and Joyce? They know my bar in every corner of the universe! Where do our pilots go when they come back from Jupiter? To the Mickey Mouse! Where do our recruited wanderers spend their last day on Earth? At the Mickey Mouse! Here, at this very counter! Where do they go to drown their sorrows or baptize their joys? To me! And where do you go to dine, Ivan?" He laughed. "You come to old Joyce! Of course, you never drop in during the evening, only in the course of duty on patrol. And I know that in your heart of hearts you prefer your Soviet cafes. But why do you still come here, to the Mickey Mouse or to old

Joyce? Something around here pleases you, right? That's why I'm so proud of this place."

The bartender caught his breath and raised his index finger. "And one more thing," he said. "Those filthy bills you spoke of. In your crazy country everyone knows that money is dirt. But in my country everyone knows that unfortunately dirt isn't money. You have to earn money! That's why our pilots fly and our workers volunteer. I'm an old man and that's probably why I can't figure out how you measure success and well-being. Everything is upside down in your country. But everything is clear and understandable with us. Where is the conqueror of Ganymede, Captain Upton, now? He's the director of Minerals Limited. And what is Cyrus Campbell, famous navigator? Owner of two important restaurants in New York. Of course, once upon a time everyone knew them, and now they are in the shadows, but before they were servants and went where they were sent, and now they have servants and send them on errands. I don't want to be a servant either. I want to be a boss, too."

Ivan said thoughtfully, "Well, you're getting there, Joyce. You don't want to be a servant. Now you have to achieve a trifle. Stop wanting to be a master.

Yura finished his soup and saw the surprise. There was a sign on the bottom of the bowl: "This dish was prepared by the electronic chef Orpheus, made by Cybernetics Ltd."

Yura pushed away the plate and announced, "I think it would be awfully boring to stand behind a counter all day."

The bartender adjusted the sign with the English warning: "Bearing firearms in Mirza-Charle is punishable by death" and said, "What do you mean boring? What's boring work and what's fun work? Work is work."

"What do you mean what for?" Yura asked, amazed. "If your work is not interesting, you must...you have to...Who needs

The bartender rose heavily and announced, "That's not fair. You're recruiting allies, Ivan. And I'm all alone."

The bartender looked, shook his head, and picking up the dirty dishes, went behind the counter.

"A hard nut to crack," Ivan said in a low voice. "You like that about the honor of the establishment? You should have a little debate with him. You wouldn't understand each other at all. I keep searching for a common language with him. After all, he's a fine fellow!"

"No," he said. "He's not fine at all. He's smug and dumb. And I feel sorry for him. I mean, what is he living for? So he'll save up some money and go home. And then what?"

He reappeared and set down a plate containing a pork chop and a bottle of grape juice. He was beaded with sweat.

"Listen, Joyce," Ivan said. "The Russian boy wants to know what you're going to do once you're rich?"

"All right," he said. "I know what answer the boy is waiting for. Therefore I'll ask him. The boy will grow up and become an adult man. He'll spend his whole life on his...what did you call it...his interesting work. And then he'll grow old and won't be able to work. Then what will he do, that boy?"

Ivan leaned back in his chair and looked at the bartender with pleasure. It was written all over Joyce's face: "What a tough nut, hah?" Yura felt his ears get red. He put down his fork and

said in confusion, "I...don't know, I've never thought about it..." He stopped. The bartender was staring at him seriously and sadly. The awful minutes crawled by. Yura said desperately, "I'll try to die before I can't work anymore..."

Completely confused, Yura finished with: "And in general, I feel that the most important thing in life is to die beautifully."

The bartender rose silently, patted Yura on the back with his huge hand, and went behind the counter.

Ivan said, "Well, thanks a lot. You did me a real favor. At this rate you'll destroy all my ideological work."

"But why?" Yura muttered. "Old age...unable to work... man must struggle his whole life! Isn't that so?"

"That's right," the bartender said. "For instance, I'm struggling with taxes all my life."

"Ah, I'm not talking about that," Yura said, waving his hand and staring at his plate.

Ivan had some grape juice on the house and said slowly, "Incidentally, Joyce, here's a very interesting detail. Even though my ally, because of his extreme youth, is unable to say anything wise, you must note that he would rather die than live your old age. It simply hasn't occurred to him to think about what he will do when he is old. But you, Joyce, you've been thinking about it all your life, and spending your whole life getting ready for it. That's how it is, old Joyce."

The bartender thought, scratched his bald spot again, and, without saying a word, went through the door behind the counter.

"Well," Ivan said in satisfaction. "Today I got him. By the ' way, where are you from, wonderful child?"

"From Vyazma," Yura said sadly. He was still getting over his feeling of inadequacy.

"I need to get to Rhea." He looked at Ivan and explained, "Rhea is one of Saturn's satellites."

"There's a new construction project there. And I'm a vacuum welder. There were eleven of us and I missed my group because ...well, family matters. Now I don't know how to get there. I have an appointment with the director of the rocketdrome at six."

"N-no," Yura said. "I mean, I don't know his name. I'm going to see the director."

"Here's the thing, Yura Borodin," Ivan said and then shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid you'll have to die a beautiful death. You see, Comrade Maikov, director of the rocketdrome whom I know well, left for Moscow..." he looked at his watch, "twelve minutes ago."

It was a terrible blow. Yura was crestfallen. "How can that be..." he muttered. "They told me..."

"Now, now," Ivan said. "Don't be sad. Old age isn't here yet. Every director, upon leaving for Moscow, leaves a deputy behind."

"That's right!" Yura said, and he jumped up. "Excuse me, I have to call immediately."

When Yura returned, Ivan was standing on the path outside the cafe. "Well?" he asked.

"No luck," Yura said dejectedly. "The director has left all right, but his deputy can't see me until tomorrow evening."

Ivan stared thoughtfully at the acacias. "Evening," he repeated. "That's too late."

"Ill have to stay at the hotel after all," Yura said with a sigh. "I'll go get a room."

A fat little man, well dressed and wearing a pith helmet, made his roly-poly way along the path. His face was puffy, his eyes were swollen, and under his left eye was a big bruise covered with makeup. Stopping ten paces from Ivan, the man pulled off his helmet and, bending his body almost in half, hurriedly dashed into the cafe. Ivan bowed politely.

Ivan looked back at the cafe. "That little brown nose is my good friend," he said. "The pride and joy of the international port of Mirza-Charle."

Yura looked back too. "The pride and joy" had already clambered up on a high bar stool.

Ivan continued, "King of the stinkers...underground recruiter ... the most flourishing louse in the city. Two days ago he was as drunk as a pig, bothering some girl on the street. I beat him up a little. Now he's extremely polite with me."

They walked slowly down the shady side street. It had cooled off. The steady hubbub of cars came from Peace Prospect.

"Our factory recommended us," Yura said. "What kind of workers? Do you mean our people volunteer?"

"Why do you think our people would? Guys from the West. All kinds of poor souls who think about old age from childhood and dream of being boss someday. There are still a lot of them there. Listen, Yura," he said. "What if you don't get to Rhea? Then what?"

"Don't say that," Yura said. Til definitely get to Rhea. It wouldn't be very fair to my friends if I didn't. There were one hundred fifty volunteers, and only eleven were chosen. How could I not get there? I have to."

"Then they're put on ships and sent to the asteroids. Recruiters are paid by the head, for every one in the hold. That's why they hang around Mirza-Charle, pretending to be commercial agents. They hang around the other international rocketdromes too."

They came out on Peace Prospect and turned toward the hotel. Ivan stopped at the large white house.

"Goodbye," Yura said. "Thank you very much. And please forgive me for the nonsense I spouted back at the cafe."

"About Rhea," Ivan said. He stopped again and looked off to the side. Yura waited. "About Rhea. Why don't you drop by room 306 in the hotel tonight around nine."

"I don't know what will come of it," Ivan said. "In that room you will see a man who is very fierce looking. Try to convince him that you must get to Rhea."

"Goodbye," Ivan said. "Don't forget: room 306, after nine." He turned and disappeared into the white building. A black plastic sign on the entrance bore the white letters: "Headquarters of the Order Patrol. Mirza-Charle." "Room 306," Yura repeated. "After nine."

Yura was killing time. He had traversed almost the entire city in a few hours. He loved walking around strange cities and learning what was in them. Mirza-Charle had SECD. You couldn't get under the gigantic transparent dome, but now Yura knew that SECD was the System of Electronic Control and Direction, the computer brain of the rocketdrome. If you went north from SECD, you reached a large park with an open-air movie theater, which had two tiers, a large stadium, a "Man in a Rocket" sideshow, music booths, swings, and dance floors, and a large transparent lake with araucarias and pyramidal poplars encircling it, and in which Yura had a lovely swim.

At the southern tip of the city Yura discovered a low red building, behind which began the desert. A few square atom-cars stood next to the building, and a policeman dressed in blue and carrying a pistol patroled the area. The policeman told Yura that the red building was a prison and that the Russian lad did not need to walk around there.

To the west of SECD were residential areas. There were many houses, large and small, beautiful and not so beautiful. The streets were narrow and unpaved. Life there must have been very nice—cool, shady, and not far from midtown. Yura liked the public library but didn't drop in. At the western boundary

of the city were administrative buildings, and beyond them was a large area of warehouses.

The warehouses were infinitely long and gray, made of corrugated plastic, and had huge white numbers painted on the walls. Yura found more trucks and freight helicopters than he had seen in his entire life. The constant roar of the engines clogged his ears. He had taken no more than ten steps when a hideous siren went off behind him, and he jumped to one side, toward a wall, but the wall suddenly opened and through a gate as large as a triumphal arch a monstrous red and white machine on wheels twice the height of a man came straight at Yura and the driver shouted soundlessly at Yura from the cabin two stories up. The monstrous truck turned around slowly in the narrow space between the warehouses, and from the black bowels another truck followed, and then a third. Yura made his way carefully toward the walls that radiated heat. He was deafened by the roar, rumble, and heavy screech of unfamiliar machines.

Then he saw a low platform on which familiar cylinder tanks with gases for vacuum welding were being loaded. He came closer and, smiling happily, stood next to the man directing the loading through a portable control board around his neck. He stood and watched for a while as the winches neatly pulled the crates of tanks on top of one another.

The man took his hands off the control board and stared at Yura. The winch had stopped and the crate swayed gently in the air.

The man shrugged and took up the control board again. Yura watched pointedly the unloading of the rejected tank, thanked the man politely, and went on. He discovered very quickly that he was lost. The warehouse section was a town in itself, and its streets and alleys were remarkably similar. Several times he walked down side streets that led straight into the desert. At the end of these streets stood huge billboards bearing signs: "Go back!" Dangerous Radiation Zone!"

It was getting dark quickly; street lights went on over the warehouses. Yura followed a convoy of vehicles on broad, elastic caterpillar treads and unexpectedly found himself on the highway. He knew the city had to be to the right, but to the left, in the direction that the convoy took, blinked multicolored lights, not far in the distance, and he turned left. The desert lay on either side of the highway. There were no trees, no irrigation ditches, only the black, level horizon. The sun had set long ago, but the air was still hot and dry.

The multicolored lights were blinking over a barrier, next to which stood a small mushroomlike house. Near the house, on a bench under a lamp, sat a policeman, his light blue helmet on his lap. Another policeman strolled in front of the barrier. When he saw Yura he stopped and started toward him. Yura's heart sank. The policeman came up to him and extended his hand.

Oh-oh, Yura thought. If they detain me here...while I try to explain. Why did I have to come this way?...He reached quickly into his pocket. The policeman was waiting with outstretched hand. The second policeman put on his helmet and stood up.

"Wait a minute," Yura muttered in English. Then he continued in Russian, "Wait... just a minute... Damn it, where is it..."

"Yes," Yura said. "Just a minute...You see, I only have a recommendation from my factory...the Vyazma Factory of Metal Construction..." He finally pulled it out.

The second policeman came over and asked, "What's the matter? The chap hasn't got his papers?"

"It's the rocketdrome," the policeman said readily. "Over there," he said, pointing to the barrier. "But you can't go there..."

"You can look," the policeman said. He went over to the barrier. Yura followed. "That's the rocketdrome," the policeman said once more.

Under the bright Middle-Asian sky the flat, glassy plain glowed slightly. Far ahead, in the direction of the highway, flashes of lightning and projector beams intersected, capturing gigantic foggy silhouettes from the darkness. Once in a while a distant rumble rolled over the plain.

"Spaceships," Yura thought with pleasure. Of course he knew that Mirza-Charle, like all other rocketdromes on Earth, served only for local travel and that the real planet fliers, like the photon rockets Khius, John Brown, and Yantze, were too large and too powerful to eject from Earth, but those dark silhouettes beyond the horizon looked impressive enough.

"Rockets, rockets," the policeman said slowly. "So many people fly off into there," he said, lifting his light-blue glowing club to the black sky. "Each one with his own hopes. And how many come back in sealed iron caskets! Right here, by the barrier, we hold the funeral watch. Their persistence takes my breath away. Yet still, there must be something up there..." he lifted his club again, "...someone who doesn't like that persistence very much."

The horizon was lit up by a blinding explosion. A long fiery streak struck the sky and fell apart into a cascade of sparks. The concrete under their feet shook.

The policeman raised his watch to his face. "Twenty twelve," he said. "The evening moon flight."

"On foot," the policeman replied. "At the turn to the warehouses you'll get a ride."

When Yura got back to the hotel at 9:30 p.m., he looked rather umkempt and dazed. Mirza-Charle at night was nothing like Mirza-Charle in the daytime. A steady flow of cars moved along the streets, intersected by harsh, black shadows. Neon lights illuminated the crowds on the sidewalks. The doors of all the cafes and bars were flung wide open. Inside, music played loudly and the air was blue from cigarette smoke. Drunken foreigners wandered along the sidewalk, arm in arm, three and four abreast, howling unfamiliar songs.

Every twenty or thirty feet there were policemen with stony faces under low helmets. Calmly and slowly trios of sturdy young men with red armbands made their way through the crowd. They were the order patrols. Yura watched one patrol enter a bar, creating instant silence. Even the music stopped. The patrolmen had bored, disgusted faces. At another bar, not far from the hotel, two men with small mustaches threw some poor fellow out onto the street and started kicking him. The man shouted in French, "Patrol! Help! Murder!" Yura, gritting his teeth in disgust, was already taking aim at the ears of one of the mustached men when he was pushed aside and a long sinewy arm with a red band grabbed one of the men by the collar. The other mustached one dove into the bar. The patrolman tossed his catch carelessly into the arms of the just-arrived policeman, who twisted the man's arms behind his back and rushed him into a nearby alley. Yura saw that one of the policemen, looking guiltily at the patrolmen, hit the mugger

hard on the head with his glowing club. Too bad that I didn't have a shot at him, Yura thought. For a minute he didn't even want to go to Rhea anymore. He wanted to don a red armband and join those sturdy, confident young men.

"Well, some goings-on you have here!" Yura said excitedly to the administrator when he returned to the hotel. "A nest of bedbugs!"

Yura regained his composure. "On the streets, you know," he said. "It's a jungle!"

"An international port, for now we have to put up with it," she said with a smile. "Well, and how are things with you?"

He got off on three and immediately found the door to 306. He stopped in front of the door and for the first time thought about what he was going to say, and more important, to whom. He recalled Ivan's warning about the man looking fierce. He smoothed his hair carefully, then knocked.

Two elderly men were sitting at a round table adorned with a white tablecloth. Yura was stunned: he recognized them both and was so surprised that for an instant he thought he had entered the wrong room. Facing him and staring at him with his tiny mean eyes was the famous Bykov, captain of the celebrated Takhmasib, grumpy and red-haired, just as he was on the stereophoto that Yura's brother kept on his desk. The face of the other man, who lounged casually in the wicker chair, was aristocratic, long, and had a disdainful line near full lips; he also was extraordinarily familiar. Yura couldn't remember his name, but he was absolutely certain that he had seen him somewhere and maybe more than once. A tall, dark bottle and one glass stood on the table.

"Yes, yes," the man with the well-bred face replied in a velvety-rich voice. "Whom do you wish to see, young man?"

It's Yurkovsky, Yura realized. The planetologist from Venus. There's a movie about them...

"I...I don't know..." he muttered. "You see, I need to get to Rhea... Today a comrade..."

For the second time in the last two hours (and in his entire life) Yura reached for his documents. Bykov watched him and waited. Yurkovsky reached lazily for the bottle and poured himself some wine.

"Here you are," Yura said. He placed the recommendation on the table and stepped back again.

Bykov removed enormous old-fashioned glasses from his breast pocket and, holding them up to his eyes, read the document very carefully, twice Yura thought, and then passed it to Yurkovsky.

"Details, young man," Yurkovsky said. He was reading the recommendation, holding it in his outstretched hand, and sipping the wine.

"You see, my mother grew ill," Yura said. "Appendicitis. You see, I couldn't leave. My brother is on an expedition...My father is at the pole now...I couldn't..."

Yurkovsky folded the recommendation neatly and set it on the edge of the table. "Tell me, young man," he asked, "why didn't they... uhm... replace you?"

"I begged them," he said softly. "And everyone thought I'd catch up with them. I only missed them by twenty-four hours..."

There was silence and he could hear the Varangian guests shouting out on Peace Prospect. They had either drowned their sorrows or baptized their joys... perhaps at old Joyce's place.

"No," said Yura. "I just arrived today. I only met a comrade in a cafe. His name is Ivan and he..."

Bykov and Yurkovsky exchanged a look. Yura thought that Yurkovsky shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Yurkovsky said unexpectedly sharply, "I can't understand what we need a passenger for."

"Honestly, I won't get in the way," Yura said convincingly. "And I'm prepared for anything."

"I really need to get to Rhea," he said. He had suddenly realized with great clarity that this was his last chance and that he couldn't count on tomorrow's talk with the deputy director of the rocketdrome.

"Hm?" Bykov said and looked at Yurkovsky. Yurkovsky shrugged and, raising his glass to the lamp, looked through it.

when he saw how huge and heavy Bykov was—and, scuffling in his slippers, headed for the corner where his worn leather jacket hung on the chair back. He took a flat metal radiophone from the pocket. Yura, holding his breath, watched Bykov's back.

"Charles?" Bykov asked. He pressed the flexible wire with the metal ball on the end to his ear. "This is Bykov. Do you still have the Takhmasib register? Add onto the crew list for special flight 17...yes, Fm taking an apprentice...yes, the head of the expedition has no objections." (Yurkovsky frowned, but said nothing.) "What? Just a minute."

Bykov turned to Yura, extended his hand, and snapped his fingers impatiently. Yura rushed to the table and grabbed the recommendation.

"All right...here...from the collective of The Vyazma Factory of Metal Construction.. .My God, Charles, it's none of your business! After all, this is a special flight!...Yes. Here it is: Borodin, Yuri Mikhailovich... eighteen years old. Yes, eighteen. Vacuum welder...cadet...listed on my orders from yesterday's date. I'm asking you, Charles, to please prepare his papers immediately. No, not him, I'll come for them myself... tomorrow morning. Goodbye, Charles, thank you."

Bykov slowly wound up the wire and put the radiophone back into his jacket pocket.

Bykov returned to the table and sat down. "If you only knew, Vladimir," Bykov said, "how many laws I can do without in space. And how many laws we'll have to do without on this flight. Cadet, you may be seated," he said to Yura. Yura hurriedly sat down, very uncomfortably.

Bykov picked up the phone. "Zhilin, come to my room." He hung up. "Take your documents, cadet. You will report directly to me. Your duties will be explained to you by Flight Engineer Zhilin, who will be here in a minute."

"Alexei," Yurkovsky said majestically. "Our...uhm...apprentice doesn't know yet with whom he is dealing."

Yura didn't have a chance to answer. The door opened, and on the doorstep stood Ivan in the same checked shirt.

"Here's your godson," Bykov growled. "This is our apprentice. I'm assigning him to you. Note that in the log. And now take him to your room and don't let him out of your sight until takeoff."

"Yes sir," Zhilin said. Then he helped Yura from his chair and led him out into the corridor.

Yura slowly realized what was going on. "You're Zhilin," he asked "the flight engineer?"

Zhilin didn't reply. He stood Yura in front of him, stepped back one step, and asked in a horrible voice, "Do you drink vodka?"

"A true interplanetary soul!" Zhilin said in satisfaction. "When we get on the Takhmasib I'll let you kiss the starter key."

Matty, shielding his eyes from the light of the sun, was looking at the dunes. The crawler wasn't in sight. A large cloud of reddish dust hung over the dunes, and the weak wind blew it slowly to the side. It was quiet; only the rustling of the anemometer twirler five yards up could be heard. Then Matty heard the shots—"pok, pok, pok, pok"—four shots in a row.

This observatory stood on a steep, flat hill. In the summer the air was always very translucent and from the top of the hill could be seen the white domes and parallelepipeds of Warm Syrt five kilometers to the south, and the gray ruins of the Old Base on another steep, flat hill three kilometers to the west. But now the Old Base was covered by the cloud of dust. "Pok, pok, pok" sounded again from there.

"Sharpshooters," Matty said bitterly. He examined the observation platform. "What a scoundrel," he said.

The wide-angle camera was knocked down. The meteobooth was sagging. The wall of the telescope pavilion was stained with some disgusting yellow stuff. A fresh hole made by an exploding bullet gaped over the pavilion door. The bulb over the entrance was broken.

Matty went up to the pavilion and felt the edges of the hole with his fur-gloved fingers. He thought about what an exploding bullet could do within the pavilion and felt sick. Inside the pavilion was a very fine telescope with a wonderfully corrected lens, a shimmer register, and an automated blinker—a rare, delicate, and complicated apparatus. The blinkers were afraid of even dust; they had to be covered with hermetic slipcovers. And what can a slipcover do against an exploding bullet?

Matty didn't go into the pavilion. Let them look, he thought. They did the shooting, let them look. He was afraid to go in. He put his carbine on the sand and, straining, lifted the camera. One leg of the tripod was bent and the camera was sagging.

"Scoundrel!" Matty said with hatred. He did meteor photography and the camera was his only instrument. He crossed the platform to the meteobooth. The dust on the platform was dug up and Matty angrily trampled the characteristic rounded holes, the mark of the "flying leech."

Why does it keep climbing up on the platform? he thought. Why doesn't it crawl around the house or break into the garage. No, it has to climb up on the platform. I guess it smells of human flesh here.

The door of the meteobooth was bent and wouldn't open. Matty waved his hand hopelessly and returned to his camera. He unscrewed the camera from the tripod, removed the camera with difficulty, and, grunting, placed it on the canvas he had spread out. Then he took the tripod and brought it inside the house. He left it in the workshop and peeked into the dining room. Natasha was sitting by the radio.

"You know, I think I'll pack it in," she said angrily. "I mean it, it would be easier to just run over there."

Natasha twisted the sound knob. A low, tired voice was heard: "Seven, seven, this is Syrt. Why aren't you giving coordinates? Do you hear me, seven? Give me coordinates!" Seven muttered numbers.

"Some extraordinary event," Matty countered. "We have one like that every night."

"You know, Matty," she said. "This was the first time that the leech came in the daytime."

Matty slapped himself in the face. It was true. Before, the leeches always came either late at night or just before dawn.

"That's the way I see it, too," Natasha agreed. "How are things on the platform?"

"Go see for yourself," Matty said. "My camera is ruined. I won't be making observations today."

Matty was flustered. "Well, yes, around," Matty said and waved his hand in an indefinite direction.

He suddenly imagined what Natasha would say when she saw the bullet hole over the pavilion door.

Natasha turned back to the radio and Matty shut the door behind him quietly. He went outside and saw the crawler. It was flying at top speed, leaping jauntily from dune to dune. A solid wall of dust rose from the crawler up to the stars, and the reddish yellow background made Penkov, standing up with the carbine at his side, look smashing. Of course, Sergei was driving. He aimed it at Matty and stopped dead five feet away. A thick cloud of dust covered the observation platform.

Matty came up to him and took him by the sleeve of his fur jacket. "Come with me," he said.

Penkov, with a thoughtful air, felt the edges of the hole. "You can't fix it right away," he said.

A month ago, Penkov, while shooting at the leeches at night, blew a hole in the meteobooth. That time he went into Syrt and got a spare one somehow. He hid the shot-up booth in the garage.

"And my tripod was crushed," Matty said. "And the meteobooth is so damaged that we'll need another new one."

Penkov quickly looked at the booth and then went back to staring at the gaping hole. Sergei stood next to him and also looked at the hole.

Penkov made a move as if to hide somewhere, but he only ducked his head. Sergei started talking fast. "There's a small hole in here, Natasha, but it's nothing; we'll quickly fix it today, and inside everything is all right..."

Now they all wanted to hide somewhere, even Matty, who wasn't at all to blame and had been the last to come out onto the platform, when everything was over. Natasha went into the pavilion and turned on the light. They could see how she took the covers off the blink-automats. Penkov emitted a long, sad sigh.

No one replied. He got into the crawler and started the engine. Matty went back to his camera in silence and, bending over, dragged it to the house. Only Penkov's dreary, bulky body remained in front of the pavilion.

Matty dragged the camera into the workshop, took off his oxygen mask and hood, and spent a long time unbuttoning his fur coat. Then, without removing his flight boots, he sat on the table next to the camera. Through the window he could see the crawler making its way to the garage, unusually slowly, almost on tiptoe.

Natasha came out of the pavilion and shut the door firmly behind her. Then she crossed the platform and stopped in front of the equipment. Penkov tagged behind her and sighed deeply and sadly. The clouds of dust had settled, and the small reddish sun hung over the black, gnawed ruins of the Old Base, overgrown with the prickly Martian saxaul. Matty looked at the low sun and the rapidly darkening sky, remembered that it was his turn tonight, and hurried to the kitchen.

At dinner, Sergei said, "Our Natasha is very serious today," and then he looked pleadingly at Natasha.

"I've had it with you," Natasha said. She ate without looking at anyone, very angry and upset.

"Really, what is this," Natasha scolded. "After all, we agreed not to shoot on the platform. It's not a shooting range. There's equipment there...If you had broken the blinks today, what would you have done? Where would you go for more?"

"Natasha!" Sergei cried, "we'll bring another pavilion! Penkov will run to Syrt and get it. He's strong enough!"

Penkov brightened. "When else can you shoot at it...it's best when it's on the platform," he began, but Matty stepped on his foot under the table, and he shut up.

"You, Volodya, are unbelievably clumsy," Natasha said. "The thing is a monster the size of a closet and you haven't been able to hit it in a month's time."

"I'm surprised at that myself," Penkov said honestly and scratched his head. "Maybe the sight is off?"

"Never mind, boys, it's goodbye to all those games," Natasha said. They all looked at her. "I spoke with Syrt. Today the leeches attached Azizbekov's group, the geologists, us, and the construction site—all in broad daylight."

"Yes, you're right," Natasha said. "I hadn't thought of that. Well, anyway, a roundup has been decided on."

"There will be a conference tomorrow morning, all the group leaders have been called. I'll go, and you will be in charge, Sergei. Yes, one more thing. No observations tonight, boys. The administration has banned all night work."

Matty said, "I don't care, my camera is broken. But Penkov's whole program will be off if he misses a few nights."

"And it's getting late," Matty added. "It's almost midnight, and Rybkin isn't here..."

"Ho!" Matty said and raised his finger. The door slammed in the vestibule. "It's him!" Sergei whispered triumphantly.

There was a knock at the dining room door. Sergei, Matty, and Penkov put their fingers to their lips at the same time and looked meaningfully at Natasha.

"Well, what's the matter with you?" Natasha said in a whisper. "Say something, one of you..."

Rybkin came in, neat and fresh as usual, in a clean jumpsuit, a snowy collared shirt, and flawlessly shaved. His face, like that of all Pathfinders, made a strange impression: the cheeks and forehead were tanned almost black, and the areas around the eyes and the lower part of the face were white, where the skin was protected by glasses and oxygen masks.

"You were awfully late today," straightforward Penkov said as he poured Rybkin a cup of coffee.

Sergei made a horrible face, and Matty kicked Penkov under the table. Rybkin took the cup calmly.

"I got here a half-hour ago," he said, "and walked around the house. I see you had a leech today, too."

"No one," he said. He glanced over at Natasha. "It's a funny story; the boom of the excavator fell off and crushed it. Someone must have hit the cable."

"We can do that too," Matty said. "On the move, at thirty paces, right into the bulb over the door."

"You know, fellows," Sergei said, "I have the feeling that all the carbines on Mars have bent varrels."

"No," said Felix. "Later they discovered that six bullets had hit the leech at Azizbekov's."

"Well, there'll be a roundup soon," Penkov said, "and we'll show them what's what!"

"I'm not at all crazy about that roundup," Matty said. "It's always like that: first bam-bam, we shoot all the living creatures around, and then we set up preserves for them."

"Everything's in our way," Matty said. "Not enough oxygen, too much oxygen, too many trees, chop them down...Who are we anyway, that everything is in our way?"

"Don't start, Penkov, don't start," Sergei said. "He just wants to start a general conversation, to get our Natasha to speak up."

Felix looked at Natasha attentively. He had large light eyes, and he blinked very rarely. Matty laughed.

"I offer this working hypothesis," Matty said. "The flying leeches are the indigenous intelligent inhabitants of Mars, even though they are still at a low level of development. We have captured the areas with water and they are determined to get rid of us."

"Everything supports my hypothesis," Matty continued. "They live in underground cities. They always attack from the right because that's one of their taboos. And...uh...they always carry off their wounded..."

Felix said, "That hypothesis has been proposed before." (Matty's eyebrows went up.) "Long ago, before the first leech had been killed. Now they are proposing more interesting theories."

"Up till now no one has explained why the leeches attack people. It is not ruled out that it is an ancient custom for them. The question arises, is a race of erect bipeds living on Mars?"

For a while everyone was silent. Matty was looking at Felix enviously. He always envied people who had such tasks facing them. Following the flying leeches was a fascinating occupation in itself, but if you add the possibility of following another race as well...

Matty reviewed all the interesting problems he had resolved during the last five years. The most interesting was the construction of a discrete seeker and hunter on chemostaders. The patrol camera became a huge, curious eye that followed the appearance and movement of "extraneous" light spots in the night sky. Matty ran along the nocturnal dunes, blinking his flashlight from time to time, and the camera turned silently and terrifyingly after him, following every move...well, thought Matty, that was interesting, too.

Sergei suddenly spoke with sadness, "Think how little we know!" (Penkov stopped slurping his coffee and glanced at him.) "And how little we want to learn! Day after day, week after week we wander up to our necks in boring minutiae. We dig around in electronics, break summators, fix summators, plot graphs, write articles and reports...it's disgusting!" He grabbed his cheeks and rubbed his face hard. "Right outside the fence there is a completely alien, unknown world stretching for thousands of kilometers. And I want to drop all this and go where my eyes take me across the desert to find real work... We ought to be ashamed, friends. It's stupid and shameful to sit on Mars and see nothing twenty-four hours a day except for the blink-register tapes and Penkov's silly mug."

Penkov spoke softly, "So drop it, Sergei. And go. Ask to join the constructors or join up with Felix." He turned to Felix. "Will you take him, huh?"

"No, Penkov, my old pal, that won't help." Sergei pursed his lips and shook his head. "You have to be able to do something. And what do I know how to do? Repair the blinks... count up to

two and integrate on a small calculator. I can drive a crawler, and not even professionally. What else can I do?"

"You whine professionally," Matty said. He was embarrassed for Sergei complaining in front of Felix.

"I'm not whining; I'm angry. We're so smug and so limited! Where does it come from? Why is it considered more important to find a spot for an observatory than to traverse the planet along the meridian, from pole to pole? Why is it more important to look for oil than for mysteries? Don't we have enough oil?"

"Don't you have enough mysteries?" Matty said. "Why don't you sit down and solve a limited T-problem?"

"I don't want to solve it! It's boring, my poor Matty! I'm a healthy, strong man. I can bend nails with my bare hands... Why should I pore over paperwork?"

Sergei stopped talking. The silence was heavy, and Matty thought it would be a good idea to change the subject, but he didn't know how.

Natasha said, "Basically I don't agree with Sergei, but it's true—we have gotten too bogged down in ordinary work. I get so depressed sometimes...Well, if not us, at least let someone deal with Mars as a new land. After all, it's not an island, not a continent—terra incognita—it's a planet! We've been here quietly for thirty years, like cowards, huddling by the water and the rocketdromes. And we're a laughably small number. That's really a shame. There's somebody back there in charge, some white-haired old man with a military past, and he keeps spluttering, Too soon, too soon.'"

Hearing the words "too soon," Penkov shuddered and looked at his watch. "Oh goodness," he muttered, getting up from the table. "I've sat through two stars with you already." Then he looked at Natasha, opened his mouth, and sat down quickly. His face was so funny that everyone, even Sergei, laughed.

Matty jumped up and went over to the window. "What a beautiful night!" he said. "The quality of image tonight must be astounding." He looked over his shoulder at Natasha.

Felix brightened. "Natasha," he said, "if it's necessary, 111 stay on guard while you work."

"But how will you...It's time for you to go..." Natasha blushed. "I mean, you usually leave at this time."

"Why guard us?" Matty said. "I can be on guard myself. My camera's broken anyway."

Penkov was gone. Sergei also rose and left without looking at anyone. Matty started clearing the table.

"What's there to help?" Matty said. "Five cups, five plates..." He looked at Felix's arms in amazement. "What's that for?" he asked. Felix had two pairs of watches on each wrist.

The receiver in the corner suddenly hissed and clicked, and a thick tired voice said, "One, this is Syrt. Syrt calling one."

Matty called, "Natasha, Syrt calling." He went to the microphone and said, "One listening!"

Natasha ran in wearing an unbuttoned fur jacket, her oxygen mask dangling from her neck.

"Repeating the orders once more," the voice said. "Night work is forbidden. Warm Syrt is surrounded by leeches. I repeat..."

Matty listened and dried the dishes. Penkov and Sergei came in. Matty watched with interest as their faces fell.

"I read you fine," Natasha repeated disappointedly. "Syrt is surrounded by leeches and night work is forbidden."

They all turned. He was in the doorway—small, sturdy, with a disproportionately large carbine at his side.

"I did," Felix said. "But I am not subordinate to the commandant at Syrt. I'm a Pathfinder." He pulled on his mask, lowered his glasses, waved a gloved hand, and left. They all stared, dumbfounded, at the door.

Natasha ran after them. Matty grabbed her arm. "Where are you going?" he asked calmly. "Sergei made the right decision."

They felt the floor tremble. Sergei was bringing the crawler out. Natasha sank into a chair, fists clenched.

"Leeches have never attacked a car before," Matty said. "Anyway, Sergei would be only too happy if they did..."

They sat and waited. Matty suddenly remembered that when Felix Rybkin had visited them at the observatory before, he had

left this late at least a dozen times. And the leeches were out around Syrt every night. That Felix is brave, thought Matty, and strange. Well, not that strange. Matty looked at Natasha. His courting method is strange though, a weak assault.

Matty looked out the window. In the black emptiness there were only sharp unblinking stars.

Penkov came in carrying a pile of papers and said without looking at anyone, "Well, who'll help plot graphs?"

Penkov sat down and arranged himself noisily at the table. Natasha sat tensely, listening.

Penkov spread out the papers and spoke animatedly, "A fascinating thing is happening, folks! Do you remember Degas's Law?"

"There is no two-thirds sequence on Mars!" Penkov said triumphantly. "Natasha, look at this...Natasha!"

Sergei came in, pulling off a frost-covered mask. "Boy it's cold!" he said merrily.

"Good for you," Natasha said. "You're wonderful, Sergei! Now I can sleep soundly."

The smile disappeared from Sergei's face. He went up to the table, sat down, and moved the papers.

"Listen, guys," he said in a low voice. "I didn't find Rybkin. I went as far as Syrt, beeping and flashing my lights. He wasn't anywhere. It was as though the earth had swallowed him up."

They were all silent. Matty went back to the window. He thought that he saw a weak light moving around the area of the Old Base, slowly, as though someone were walking around with a flashlight.

At 7:00 a.m. the leaders of the groups and districts of the Warm Syrt system met in the office of System Director Alexander Filippovich Lyamin. There were about twenty-five people in all, and they were sitting around a long, low conference table. The ventilators and ozonators were on full power. Natasha was the only woman in the room. She was rarely invited to general meetings, and many of the people there did not know her. They looked at her with kind curiosity. Natasha heard someone say, "If I had known, I would have shaved."

Lyamin, remaining seated, said, "The first question, comrades, is off the agenda. Has everyone had breakfast? I can call for canned food and cocoa."

"Do you have anything tasty, Alexander Filippovich?" a fat, rosy-cheeked man with bandaged hands inquired.

"There's nothing tasty," Lyamin answered, and then he shook his head sadly. "Unless, of course, the canned chicken..."

Voices cried out, "Right, Alexander Filippovich! Bring it on! We haven't eaten!"

"It will be here right away," he said and rose. "Is everyone here?" He looked around the gathering. "Azizbekov...Gorin... [52]

Barabanov ... Nakamura ... Malumian ... Natasha ... Van ... I don't see Jefferson...Ah, I'm sorry...And where is Opana-senko? Is there anyone here from the Pathfinders?"

"Opanasenko is on a raid," a quiet voice replied, and Natasha saw Rybkin. She saw him unshaven for the first time.

"On a raid?" Lyamin said. "All right, let's begin without Opanasenko. Comrades, as you know, in the last few weeks the flying leeches have become active. The day before yesterday a totally intolerable situation arose. The leeches began attacking in daylight. Luckily, there have been no casualties, but several heads of groups and districts have demanded decisive measures. I want to stress, comrades, the problem of the leeches is an old one. We're all tired of them. We discuss them an abnormal amount of time; sometimes we even argue about them. These creatures apparently interfere greatly with the field groups, and, in general, it's obviously time to make a decision about them, the leeches, that is. In short, we have two opinions on the matter. First, immediate roundup and extermination of the leeches. Second, a continuation of the policy of passive defense as a palliative up to the moment when the colony is strong enough. Comrades," he said, and pressed his hands to his chest, "I invite you to comment freely. But please try to manage without excessive attacks. We have no need of that. I know that we are all tired, irritated and upset by something or other, but I beg you to forget everything except the matter at hand." His eyes narrowed. "I will throw out exceptionally heated speakers without any regard to rank."

He sat down. A tall, very thin man with a tan-patterned face, unshaven and swollen-eyed, stood up immediately. This was the deputy director of construction, Victor Kirillovich Gaidadymov.

"I don't know," he began, "how long your roundup will last— ten days, a month, perhaps six months. I don't know how many people you'll take for the roundup, apparently the best people, perhaps even everyone. Finally, I don't know if anything will come from your roundup. But here is what I definitely do know and what I consider my duty to tell you. First of all, the

roundup will force us to stop construction of housing. Incidentally, in two months we will have new arrivals and the housing crisis is felt even now. I can't even give rooms to married couples in Warm Syrt. By the way, not to insult our foreign friends, but they worry too much about their privacy. Second, the roundup will interrupt the construction of the building materials factory. You must realize for yourselves what that factory means to us here. I'm not even going to mention the greenhouses we won't have this summer also because of the roundup. Third, and most important, the roundup will ruin the construction of the regeneration plant. In a month the autumn storms will begin and we'll have to put an end to that construction project."

He clenched his teeth, shut his eyes, then opened them. "You know, comrades, that we are all hanging by a thread here. Perhaps I am revealing administrative secrets, but damn them after all! We are all adults and experienced people here! The water reserves under Warm Syrt are drying up. They are dried up in fact. Even now we transport water on sand tanks from twenty-six kilometers away."

People stirred and gasped around the table. Someone shouted, "What were you thinking about before?"

"If we do not finish the regeneration plant by the end of the month," Gaidadymov continued, "we will be on short rations by fall and in the winter we will have to move Warm Syrt two hundred kilometers from here. I'm through."

He sat down and drank his cup of cooled cocoa in one gulp. After a minute's pause, Lyamin said, "Who's next?"

"I am," someone said. A small bearded man in dark glasses rose. It was Zakhar Iosifovich Puchko, head of the repair shops. "I fully concur with Victor Kirillovich," he said, removing his glasses and looking around the table myopically. "It all seems very childish somehow—a roundup, bang-bang, you're dead...I ask you, what are you planning to chase the leeches on? Perhaps broomsticks, hm? Victor Kirillovich just explained

that our sand tanks are hauling water. And what kind of tanks are they? Hardly tanks at all. A quarter of our motor pool is in my repair shops, and there's no one to work on them. The ones who know how to fix them don't break them, and the ones who know how to break them can't fix them. People treat tanks like pens—throw them away and buy new ones. Natasha, I looked over your crawler. How can you turn a machine into that? Reduce it to that state?! You might think that you go through walls with it..."

"I just want to say this. I know these roundups, I do. Half the cars will stay in the desert, and the other half will probably make it back to me, and they'll say "Fix them." And what am I supposed to fix them with? My feet? I don't have enough hands. And then it will start. Tuchko is a so-and-so.' Tuchko thinks that the repair shops aren't for Warm Syrt, but that Warm Syrt exists for his repair shops.' I'll ask Comrade Azizbekov for people, and he won't give them to me. I'll ask Comrade Nakamura, excuse me, Mr. Nakamura, for men, and he won't give them to me, saying that his schedule is ruined as it is..."

"The point will come when we don't have a single vehicle left. Then we'll carry products and water on our backs for a hundred kilometers, and then they will ask, Tuchko, where were you when they were doing the roundup?'"

Natasha was stunned. What kind of leader am I, she thought. I didn't know any of this, I didn't even imagine it, and I even blamed them, pig that I am, these old men, accused them of bureaucratism..."

"Livanov, chief areologist [a specialist in the geology of Mars] of the system," Lyamin said.

was also covered with the spotty tan. "The objections to the roundup given here," he said, "appear extremely important and significant to me." (Natasha looked over to Gaidadymov. Gaidadymov was asleep, his head dropping helplessly.) "Nevertheless, the roundup must be done. Here are a few statistics. In the thirty years that man has been on Mars, the flying leeches have made more than fifteen hundred recorded attacks on people. Three men were killed, twelve mutilated. The population of the Warm Syrt system is twelve hundred, of which eight hundred work continually in the field and are therefore in constant danger of attack. A fourth of the scientists are forced to take guard duty to the detriment of the state and personal scientific plans. Besides that, the flying leeches incur not only moral damage, but great material damage. In just the last few weeks and only in the areological group they have irreparably ruined five unique apparatuses and have broken twenty-eight expensive pieces of equipment. It seems obvious that this cannot continue. The leeches are threatening all our scientific work in the Warm Syrt system. I certainly do not intend to belittle in the slightest the objections voiced by comrades Gaidadymov and Puchko. These objections were taken into consideration when the plan was made, and I would like to present them in the name of the areologists and Pathfinders."

Everyone shifted position. Gaidadymov shuddered and opened his eyes. Livanov continued in modulated tones:

"Observation has shown that the apex [center] of the distribution of the leeches in the area of Warm Syrt is in the land of the Old Base, number 211 on the map. The operation will begin an hour before sunrise. A group of forty well-trained sharpshooters on four sand tanks equipped with food supplies for three days will take the Old Base. Two groups of beaters—approximately two hundred men in each group—in tanks and crawlers will spread out from two directions. The first group will cover a hundred kilometers to the west of Syrt, the other a hundred kilometers to the north of Syrt. At 0100 both groups

will begin a slow movement to the northwest and to the south, making as much noise as possible and destroying any leeches that try to break through the lines. Moving slowly and methodically, both groups will join flanks, pushing the leeches to the Old Base. Thus, the entire mass of leeches found in the roundup zone will be concentrated in the Old Base area, and destroyed. That is part one of the plan. I would like to hear any questions or objections."

"Slowly and methodically is fine," Puchko said. "But how many vehicles will you need?"

"Fifty vehicles, four hundred fifty men, and no more than three days," Livanov responded.

"We know very little about the leeches," Livanov said. "For now we can depend on only two methods—poisoned bullets and flamethrowers."

"It's not hard to poison the ammunition we have, and as for the flamethrowers, we are preparing them out of pulpomonitors."

Gaidadymov rose. "I have no objections to a plan like that," he said. "But try not to take my construction workers. And excuse me now."

People were talking around the table. "A wonderful plan, obviously!" "Where will you get the sharpshooters?" "They'll find them. They don't have enough builders, but there are plenty of sharpshooters!" "Oh, won't we have a good shoot!"

"I haven't finished, comrades," Livanov said. "There is a part two. Apparently the territory of the old Base is full of cracks and caverns through which the leeches come up to the surface. And naturally there are many underground rooms. When the

ring closes and we kill the leeches, we can either cement over the caverns, cracks, and tunnels, or continue the attack underground. In either case, we absolutely must have a map of the Old Base."

"There can be no question of continuing underground," someone said. "That's too dangerous."

"It would be interesting, though," said the rosy fat man with bandaged hands.

"Comrades, we will decide after the roundup," Livanov said. "Now we need a map of the Old Base. We tried the archives, but for some reason they didn't have a map. Perhaps one of the old timers has a map?"

"I don't understand," said a bony, elderly areologist angrily. "What map are you talking about?"

"The Old Base was built fifteen years ago, before my eyes. It was a concrete dome, and there were no caverns or tunnels. Of course, I went back to Earth...maybe they built them without me."

Another areologist said, "Incidentally, the Old Base isn't on plot 211, it's on 205."

"Why 205?" said Natasha. "It's on 211! It's to the west of the observatory."

"What does the observatory have to do with it?" asked the bony areologist, who was very angry by now. "The Old Base is eleven kilometers to the south of Warm Syrt..."

"Wait a minute, wait!" shouted Livanov. "We are talking about Old Base, located on plot 211, three kilometers to the west of the observatory."

"Ah!" said the bony areologist. "Then you mean the Gray Ruins, the remains of the first settlement. By the way, I think Norton tried to settle there."

"Quiet, quiet!" Lyamin said, and he slapped his hand on the table. "Stop arguing. We must clear up who knows something about the Old Base or the Gray Ruins, whichever...in a word, about sector 211."

No one spoke. No one liked going to the ruins of old settlements, and no one had time anyway.

"I can give some information," said the director's secretary, who was also the deputy director and the archivist. "There's some sort of nonsense about the Old Base. The base is not marked on Norton's reports, then it appears on 211, and two years later in Velmyaminov's report, which asked for permission to explore the ruins of the Old Base. The director of the expedition, Yurkovsky, deigned to write in his own hand..." The secretary raised a yellowed sheet of paper over his head and read: "I don't understand a thing. Learn how to read a map correctly. The site is not 211 but 205. You have permission. Yurkovsky.'"

"A suggestion," Rybkin said softly. Everyone turned to him. "We could go to sector 211 immediately and make a sketch map of the Old Base."

"Good idea," Lyamin said. "Whoever has time, go on. Comrade Livanov will be in charge. We will recess until eleven."

It was six kilometers as the crow flies from Warm Syrt to the Old Base. The volunteers set out for it in two sand tanks. Their numbers were many more than there had been participants in the meeting, and they included Natasha, who decided to go in her crawler. The tanks roared and creaked toward the outskirts of Syrt. To stay out of their dust, Natasha made a round-about trip. When she got to the Central Meteotower, she saw Rybkin.

The small Pathfinder was walking with his usual fast stride, his hands on the long carbine hanging from his neck. Natasha braked.

He stopped, then came up to the crawler. "I decided to walk," he said, gazing up at her calmly. "There wasn't room for me."

"Get in," Natasha said. She unexpectedly felt comfortable with Felix, not at all the way she did on the evenings in the observatory. Felix swung easily into the seat next to her, took the carbine from his neck, and set it between his feet. The crawler took off.

"I was so worried about you last night when you left alone," Natasha confessed. "Did Sergei catch up with you right away?"

They were silent. The tanks were moving a half-kilometer away, leaving a thick immobile wall of dust on the desert behind them.

"Very interesting," Rybkin said. "And something strange is happening with the Old Base."

"I've been there with the boys," Natasha said, "back when they were building our observatory. It's nothing special— cement slabs and everything is cracked with haloxylon growing through. Do you also think that the leeches crawl out of there?"

"I'm sure of it," Rybkin said. "There's an enormous nest of leeches there, Natasha. There's a huge cavern under the hill. And it probably connects with other spaces under the ground. But I haven't found them yet.

Natasha looked at him with horror. The crawler swerved. She could see the observatory to the right, behind the dunes. Straight and tall, Matty stood on the platform and waved. Felix politely waved back. The domes and buildings of Warm Syrt disappeared behind the near horizon.

"I'm afraid," Felix said. "Sometimes, Natasha, the fear is nauseating. You should see how big their jaws are. But they're even more cowardly."

"You know, Felix," Natasha said, staring straight ahead, "Matty said that you are a strange man. I think so, too."

Felix laughed. "You flatter me," he said. "Naturally it seems strange to you that I always come to the observatory late at night just for a cup of coffee. But I can't come during the day; I'm busy during the day, and usually at night, too. But when I have the free time, I come to see you."

Natasha felt herself blushing. But the crawler was at the foot of the hill, the one depicted on the areographic maps as a crooked oven with the number 211. At the top of the hill, among the uneven gray mounds, people were moving.

Natasha parked the crawler away from the sand tanks and turned off the motor. Felix stood below, giving her a serious look, offering her his arm.

They walked amid the ruins of the Old Base. The ruins were strange: there was no way of telling from them what the original structures had looked like or even what the design had been. There were broken domes or six-legged supports, dilapidated balconies, and piles of cracked cement blocks. The base was thickly overgrown with Martian thornbushes and drowning in dust and sand. Dark abysses gaped here and there through the gray vaults. Some led far off into the deep, invisible darkness.

He suddenly stopped, crouched, and began examining something. "There," he said. "Look, Natasha."

Natasha bent down. A thick stalk with a tiny flower on the end pushed up from a crack in the cement.

"How lovely," she said. "I didn't know that the thornbushes bloomed. It's so pretty...red and blue..."

"It flowers very rarely," Felix said slowly. "We know that it blooms once every five Martian years."

Felix continued, "Each time the flower loses its petals, a new runner shoot starts and a shiny ring remains where the flower had been. Like that, see?"

"Very interesting," Natasha said. "That means you can calculate how old the plant is...One...two...three...four..." She stopped and looked at Felix. "There are eight rings here," she said uncertainly.

"Yes," said Felix. "Eight. The flower is the ninth. This crack in the cement is eighty Earth years old."

"I don't understand," Natasha said, and then suddenly, she understood. "You mean this isn't our base?" she whispered.

"Yes, we knew about it," Felix said. "This building was not built by humans. This is not cement. This is not simply a hill. And the leeches don't attack erect bipeds for nothing."

Natasha stared at him for a few seconds, then turned and shouted as loud as she could, "Comrades! Come here! Quickly! Everybody! Come look! Look what's here! Here!

The office of the director of Warm Syrt system was overflowing with people. The director was wiping his bald spot with a handkerchief and shaking his head. Areologist Livanov, running out of patience and politeness, was shouting, straining to overcome the noise, "I just can't believe this! Warm Syrt has been here for six years. In six years we haven't figured out what is ours here and what isn't. No one even thought of being interested in the Old Base."

"What is there to be interested in!" Azizbekov shouted. "I've driven past it twenty times. Just ruins. It's not as if the first settlers didn't leave any other ruins behind."

"I was there two years ago! I saw that a rusty tread from a crawler was there. I saw it and drove on."

"What is there to talk about. In the middle of the base since time immemorial stands a trigonometrical sign. Did the Martians put it there, too?"

Opanasenko, a huge, broad, chuckling man, head of the Pathfinder's group, had arrived a few minutes before. He was fanning himself with a folded map and saying something to the director. The director was shaking his head.

Puchko was making his way to the table, stepping on everyone's feet. His beard was rumpled and he carried his glasses high over his head. "Because there is quiet bedlam in the system!" he shouted in a high falsetto. "Soon Martians will be coming to me and asking me to fix their tanks or crawlers, and I'll fix them! I've had incidents when strangers come and ask for repairs! Because I see that strangers are walking around the city! I don't know where they come from or where they go to! Maybe they come from the Old Base and go back to the Old Base!"

"Maybe you want an example...here you are! One such citizen is sitting here with us just this morning! Fm talking about you, comrade!" Puchko pointed his glasses at Felix Rybkin. The office exploded with laughter.

"So what that he's Rybkin!" Puchko shouted. "How am I supposed to know he's Rybkin? That's what I mean, we must know everyone..." He waved his hand and started crawling back to his seat.

The director rose and banged loudly on the table. "All right, all right, comrades," he said severely. "We've had our fun, and that's enough. The discovery made by the Pathfinders is extremely interesting, but we are not gathered here for that. We now have a map of the Old Base. We will begin the roundup in three days. The order for the roundup will be given tonight. I announce in advance that the head of the groups will be Opanasenko and his deputy, Livanov. And now I must ask all of you, except my deputies, to leave my office and get back to your stations."

There was only one door the the hall from the office and the office emptied slowly. A traffic jam developed in the hallway.

The folded sheet of paper floated overhead. The director, arguing about something with Opanasenko, took it and opened it. Natasha saw him turn white, then red.

"Fm going to lose my mind," the director said desperately. "Yurkovsky is arriving tomorrow."

"He's Volodya to some," the director said with quiet desperation, "and to others he's the Inspector General of the International Administration of Cosmic Communications."

The soft whistle of the alarm clock woke Yura at exactly eight in the morning, ship time. He propped himself on his elbow and looked angrily at the clock. A minute later the clock whistled again. Yura groaned and sat up on the berth. No, I won't stay up reading all night any more, he thought. Why is it that you don't feel like sleeping at night and then suffer so in the morning?

It was cool in the cabin, even cold. Yura slapped his bare shoulders and his teeth chattered. Then he lowered his feet to the floor, squeezed between the bed and the wall, and went out into the hall. It was even colder in the hall, but at least Zhilin was there—powerful, muscular, and in his shorts. Zhilin was doing his exercises. For a while Yura stood and watched, hugging his shoulders. Zhilin had a ten-kilo barbell in each hand; he was shadowboxing. Things were bad for the shadow, A breeze raced along the corridor from Zhilin's heavy blows.

Zhilin turned instantly and glided over toward Yura, his body swaying rhythmically. His face was serious and concentrated. Yura took the fighting position. Then Zhilin put down the barbells and threw himself into the match. Yura raced at [66]

him, and in a few seconds he felt hot. Zhilin was beating him painfully with a half-opened fist. Yura hit him in the forehead three times, and each time a pleased smile spread across Zhilin's face. When Yura was soaked with sweat, Zhilin shouted, "Break!" and they stopped.

The shower room was small for one person, and standing next to it was Yurkovsky, wearing a disdainful smile and dressed in a luxurious red and gold robe, a huge fluffy towel flung over his shoulder. He was talking through the door:

"In any case...uhm...1 remember distinctly that Krayukhin refused to confirm the project then...What?"

Through the door came a faint sound of water running, splashes, and an indistinct thin tenon

"I can't hear a thing," Yurkovsky said angrily. He raised his voice. "I say that Krayukhin turned down the project, and if you write that it was a historic mistake, you'll be right... What?"

The shower door opened and, still drying himself, out came ruddy and jolly Mikhail Antonovich Krutikov, the Takhmasib's navigator.

"You were saying something, Volodya," he said merrily. "But I didn't hear anything; the water's too loud."

Yurkovsky looked at him sorrowfully, went into the shower, and shut the door.

"Boys, was he angry?" Mikhail Antonovich asked anxiously. "I thought he looked upset."

Mikhail Antonovich suddenly shouted, "Oh, oh! The porridge will boil over!" and he ran down the corridor to the galley.

"That's the rumor," Zhilin said. "Of course, there's a ship with an unfurled pirate flag thirty-thirty on our course, but I

think we'll get by." He suddenly stopped and listened closely. Yura listened too. The water was running in the shower room. Zhilin twitched his short nose. "I smell it," he said.

"No," Zhilin said. "The undoubled phasocycler is acting up. It's a terrible troublemaker, that undoubled phasocycler. I smell trouble... .I'll have to regulate it today."

Yura looked at him doubtfully. It could have been a joke, it could have been the truth. Zhilin had astounding sensitivity for problems.

Yurkovsky came out of the shower. He looked majestically at Zhilin and even more majestically at Yura.

"Hah?" Zhilin said. "A Zeus, a hurler of thunderbolts, isn't he? Hah? Go wash up."

"Then let's go together. Why should you hang around out here alone? We'll fit somehow."

They showered, then dressed and went to the lounge. Everyone was already at the table, and Mikhail Antonovich was doling out the oatmeal. Seeing Yura, Bykov looked at his watch, then back at Yura. He did that every morning.

Yura took his place—next to Zhilin and opposite the captain—and Mikhail Antonovich, looking at him tenderly, gave him oatmeal. Yurkovsky ate the porridge with visible revulsion and read a thick typewritten report, leaning it on the bread basket in front of him.

"Ivan," said Bykov, "the undoubled phasocycler is going out of tune. Take care of it."

Til take care of it, Alexei Petrovich," Ivan said. "That's all I've been doing during the last few flights. We either have to change the circuit or put in a doubler."

"The circuit has to be changed, Alyosha," said Mikhail Antonovich. "Everything's obsolete—the phasocyclers, the vertical scanner, and the teletactors. Now I remember, when we went to Uranus on a Khius-8 in 2001..."

"It wasn't 2001, it was '99," Yurkovsky said without looking up from the report. "Some memoirist..."

"Don't listen to him, Mikhail," Bykov said. "Who cares when it was? The important thing is who went, on what, and how they went."

Yura shifted quietly in his seat. The traditional morning conversation was starting. The warriors were recalling past glories. Mikhail Antonovich, preparing to retire, was writing his memoirs.

"What do you mean?" Yurkovsky said, looking up from the manuscript. "What about priority?"

Yurkovsky thought. "To tell the truth, I don't know," he said. "It just feels good."

Yurkovsky, smiling condescendingly, wagged his index finger in the air. "Is that so, Alexei?"

"Perhaps it isn't so bad to be first," Bykov said, "but to kill yourself in order to be first is not a modest endeavor, at least for a scientist."

the report. "In any case, Mikhail must stick to the historical truth. In '99 the expeditionary group of Dauge and Yurkovsky for the first time in history discovered and explored the so-called amorphous field in the north pole of Uranus. The next explorations were done a year later."

"I don't remember," Yurkovsky said distractedly. "I think Lecrois. Mikhail, could you... uhm... free the table? I have to work."

It was time for Yurkovsky's sacred work period. Yurkovsky always worked in the lounge. He was used to it, Mikhail Antonovich and Zhilin went to the bridge. Yura wanted to follow them—it would be very interesting to see how they tune up an undoubled phasocycler—but Yurkovsky stopped him.

"Uh...cadet," he said, "do me a favor and please bring me the blotting pad from my cabin. It's on the bunk."

Yura went to get the blotter. When he returned, Yurkovsky was calculating something on the portable electric machine, the fingers of his left hand flying carelessly over the keyboard. Bykov was in his customary spot, his very own armchair; next to him on the table rose a huge pile of newspapers and magazines. Large old-fashioned glasses perched on his nose.

At first Yura was astounded whenever he looked at Bykov. Everyone on the ship worked—Zhilin went over the engine and control systems daily; Mikhail Antonovich computed and recomputed the course, entered additional commands into the cyberpilot, finished up a large textbook, and still found time for his memoirs; Yurkovsky read thick reports until late at night, received and sent endless radiograms, and deciphered and ciphered something on his electric machine. But the ship's captain, Alexei Petrovich Bykov, read newspapers and magazines. Of course, once every twenty-four hours he stood watch. But he spent the rest of the time in his cabin or in the lounge. This shocked Yura. By the third day he couldn't stand it any more and asked Zhilin why the ship had a captain.

instance." Yura's face fell. Zhilin laughed and said, "The captain is responsible for the entire organization of the flight. He doesn't have a single free moment before the flight. Have you noticed what he's reading? Those are the papers and magazines of the last two months."

"What about during the flight?" Yura asked. They were standing in the corridor and didn't see Yurkovsky come up.

"During the flight the captain is needed only if there is a catastrophe," Yurkovsky said with a strange smile. "And then he is needed more than anyone else."

Yura, walking on tiptoe, placed the blotter next to Yurkovsky. The blotter was expensive and luxurious, like everything of Yurkovsky's. In the corner there was a gold plate with the inscription: "IV International Congress of Planetologists. 20. XII. 02 Conakry."

"Thank you, cadet," Yurkovsky said, leaning back in his chair and looking at Yura thoughtfully. "Why don't you sit down and chat with an old man," he said softly. "In ten minutes they'll be bringing my radiograms and I'll be busy all day." Yura sat down. He was immeasurably happy. "Just now I was speaking of priority and I think grew a bit heated. Really, what does one name mean in the sea of humanity's striving, in the storms of human thought, in the grand ebb and flow of human intelligence? Just think, Yura, hundreds of people in various parts of the universe gathered the necessary information for us—the man on duty in Spupyat, tired, with sleepless red-rimmed eyes, received and coded it, other men programmed translation centers, and then someone else pushed the start button. The gigantic reflectors turned, seeking our ship in space, and the powerful quantum, filled with information, tore itself away from the tip of the antenna and rushed into space after us..."

"Captain Bykov, indubitably, is right. One's own name on a map should not mean too much for a real man. One must take

pleasure in one's successes modestly, alone with oneself. With one's friends one must share only the joy of striving, the joy of the chase and of deadly combat. Do you know how many people there are on Earth, Yura? Four billion! And each one of them works. Or strives. Or seeks. Or fights to the death. Sometimes I try to imagine all four billion at the same time.

"Captain Fred Dupittle flies a passenger liner, and a hundred megameters before the end of the flight, the feed reactor goes on the blink, and Fred Dupittle's hair turns white in five minutes, but he puts on a large black beret and goes to the lounge and jokes with the passengers, who will never know the danger they were in and who will leave the rocketdrome the next day and forget the name of Fred Dupittle forever.

"Professor Kanayama devotes his life to the creation of stereosynthetics, and one hot muggy morning he was found dead in his chair by his lab table, and who of the hundreds of millions who will wear the extraordinarily beautiful and sturdy clothing made of stereosynthetics will remember Professor Kanayama's name?

"And Yura Borodin will erect residential domes under extremely difficult conditions on tiny, rocky Rhea, and I can swear that not one of the future inhabitants of those domes will ever hear the name of Yuri Borodin. And you know, Yura, that's very fair. For Fred Dupittle has already forgotten the names of his passengers and yet they are going to face the mortally dangerous storms of an alien planet. And Professor Kanayama never saw the people who will wear clothes made from his fabric, yet those people fed and clothed him while he worked. And you, Yura, will probably never learn of the heroism of the scientists who will move into the houses you will build. That's the way the world is. A very good world."

Yurkovsky finished speaking and looked at Yura with an expression that seemed to expect Yura to change for the better, then and there. Yura was silent. This was called "having a chat with an old man." They both loved these chats. There was, of course, nothing particularly new in them for Yura, but he was

always left with the impression of something immense and shining. It probably had to do with the great planetologist himself—he was all red and gold somehow.

Zhilin came into the company room and placed reels of radiograms before Yurkovsky. "The morning mail," he said.

"Thank you, Vanya," Yurkovsky said in a relaxed voice. He picked a reel at random, put it in the machine, and turned on the decoder. The machine began typing crazily.

"There," Yurkovsky said in the same relaxed voice, taking a sheet of paper out of the typewriter. "They haven't completed the program on Ceres again."

Zhilin took Yura firmly by the sleeve and led him to the bridge. Behind them rang Yurkovsky's strengthened voice:

"Remove him, damn it all, and transfer him to Earth, let him be a museum guard..."

Yura stood behind Zhilin and watched the workers fixing the phasocycler. I don't understand a thing, he thought glumly. The phasocycler was a part of the control of the reflector and served to measure the flow of reaction in the reflector's field. The tuning of the phasocycler was watched through two screens. Bluish sparks and wriggly lines lit up and slowly faded on the screens. Sometimes they blended into a single glowing cloud, and then Yura thought that everything was lost and they would have to start again, but Zhilin would say, "Wonderful, and now another half-degree." And everything would start again.

Two steps up, on a higher level behind Yura, Mikhail Antonovich sat at the control panel of the navigation computer and wrote his memoirs. The sweat rolled from his brow. Yura already knew that the archives division of the International Administration of Cosmic Communications had ordered Mikhail Antonovich to write his memoirs. Mikhail Antonovich scratched with his pen industriously, lifted his eyes, counted on his fingers, and from time to time tried to sing jolly songs in a sad voice. He was as kind as they come. The very first day, he gave Yura a chocolate bar and asked him to read what he had

written so far. He took the straight-hearted cirticism of youth painfully, but from then on he considered Yura the infallible authority on memoirs.

"I met Captain Stepan Afanasiyevich Varshavsky on the sunny azure shores of Tahiti. Bright stars glimmered over the boundless Great, or Pacific, Ocean. He came up to me and asked for a smoke, explaining that he had left his pipe in the hotel. Unfortunately, I did not smoke, but that did not hinder our conversation, and we learned about each other. He was the sweetest, most wonderful man. He was very kind, wise, and with a broad range of interests. I was astounded by the spectrum of his knowledge. The gentleness with which he treated people sometimes seemed extraordinary to me..."

"Not bad," said Zhilin when Mikhail Antonovich finished reading and looked at them shyly.

"I was simply trying to give a picture of that wonderful man," Mikhail Antonovich said.

"Not bad," Zhilin repeated, watching the screens closely. "I liked the part about 'The bright stars glimmered over the sunny azure shores/ Very original."

"Where? Where?" Mikhail Antonovich asked, flustered. "That's just a mistake, Vanya. Don't tease me like that."

Yura was trying hard to find something to criticize. He wanted to keep up his reputation.

"Now I've read your manuscript before, too, Mikhail Antonovich," he finally said. "I won't touch on the literary aspect now, but why are they all so sweet and wonderful? I'm sure they really are good people, but I can't tell them apart from your descriptions."

"Now that's true," Zhilin said. "I for one can tell Captain Varshavsky apart quite easily. What's his favorite expression? 'Dinosaurs, scoundrels, and miserable parasites!'"

dignity, "but he never said anything like that to me. He was the most polite and cultured man."

"Tell me, Mikhail Antonovich," Zhilin said, "what will you be writing about me?"

Mikhail Antonovich was confused. Zhilin turned from his equipment and looked at Mikhail Antonovich with interest.

"I hadn't been planning, Vanya..." Mikhail Antonovich grew animated. "But that's a good idea, boys! I will write a chapter. It will be the closing chapter. I'll call it 'My Last Flight.' No, not 'my,' that's too immodest somehow. Just 'The Last Flight.' And I'll write all about how we are flying together now, Alexei, and Vladimir, and you boys. Yes, that's a good idea...'The Last Flight.'"

Having successfully completed the last tune-up of the undoubted phasocycler, Zhilin invited Yura to go down to the engine bowels of the ship, to the base of the photonreactor, where it was very cold and creepy. Zhilin started on his daily checkup. Yura walked slowly behind him, hands stuffed into pockets, trying not to touch the frosty surfaces.

He was making a racket removing and then slamming covers, moving aside semitransparent sliding panels, behind which a tangle of printed circuits shimmered cabalistically, turning on tiny screens which immediately showed the bright points of impulses jumping on the coordinate network, lowering his agile strong fingers into something unbelievably complex, multicolored, and turbulent, and he did it all casually, easily, without thinking and at the same time so smoothly and with such savor that Yura immediately wanted to change professions and insouciantly run the mind-boggling gigantic organism of the photon miracle.

"Really," Yura insisted. "I don't know, I guess all this is the same old thing to you, maybe all of you are even tired of it, but it's still terrific. I like seeing a huge complex mechanism and one man next to it...the master. It's terrific when man is the master."

Zhilin licked something and a rainbow of six screens appeared on the rough gray wall.

"Man has been a master like that for a long time," he said as he watched the screens closely.

"I suppose," he said. "Happy, proud, and so on." He moved on along the frosty panels. "I've been a master for ten years now, Yura," he said, a strange tone in his voice.

"The important thing!" he suddenly said, "In every life, as in everything, the most important thing is to determine what's most important." He looked at Yura. "Let's not talk about it today, all right?"

Yura nodded silently. Oh boy, he thought, is Ivan really bored? That must be terrible when you spend ten years doing something and then you find out that you don't enjoy doing it any more. He must be sick! But Ivan doesn't seem sick of it, though..."

He looked around and said, to change the subject, "This place must be full of ghosts..."

"Shhhh!" Zhilin said fearfully and looked around. "It's chock full of them. Right there," he said pointing to a dark passage between two panels, "I found...but don't tell anyone ...a child's cap!"

"You ought to know," Zhilin continued, "that our Takhmasib is a very old ship. It's been on many planets, and local ghosts boarded at every stop... divisions of them. They drag around

the ship, moaning and groaning, getting in the equipment, breaking the phasocycler.. .They're depressed by the ghosts of the bacteria killed during disinfections... And there's no way to get rid of them."

"I have," Zhilin said, waving his hand in dismay. Then he opened a large hatch and leaned the top half of his body into it. "I tried everything," he echoed from the hatch. "Plain holy water, and double and triple strength. No effect. But I've figured out how to get rid of them." He climbed out of the hatch, slammed the lid, and looked at Yura with serious eyes. "The Takhmasib must zip through the sun. Do you understand? There has never been a case of a ghost surviving the temperatures of thermonuclear reaction. But joking aside, haven't you heard about my project for a transsolar ship?"

Yura shook his head. He never could tell exactly when Zhilin stopped joking and spoke seriously.

"Let's go," Zhilin said, taking his arm. "Let's go upstairs and I'll tell you in detail."

Yura sighed bitterly and looked at Zhilin. Zhilin spread his hands slightly in a gesture of defeat. Bykov led Yura to the lounge and sat him at the desk opposite Yurkovsky. The most unpleasant thing awaited him—two hours of oppressive study of the physics of metals. Bykov had decided that the apprentice must use the time of the flight wisely, and from the very first day, he assigned Yura theoretical questions of welding. To tell the truth, it wasn't all that uninteresting, but Yura was depressed by the thought that he, an experienced worker, was forced to study like a schoolboy. He didn't dare resist, but he studied with great aloofness. It was much more interesting to watch and listen to Yurkovsky work.

Bykov returned to his armchair, watched Yura listlessly turn pages in a book for a few minutes, then opened the next newspaper.

Yurkovsky suddenly stopped the clatter of his machine and turned to Bykov. "Have you heard anything about the statistics of outrages?"

"I'm referring to outrages... uhm... in space. The number of scandalous practices and illegal acts grows rapidly as the distance from Earth increases. It reaches a maximum in the asteroid belt and then falls again toward the boundaries of... uhm...the solar system."

"There's nothing surprising about that," Bykov grumbled without putting down the paper. "You allowed all kinds of disenfranchised types, like Space Pearl, to dig around the asteroids, so what do you expect now?"

"We allowed!" Yurkovsky grew angry. "We didn't, it was those London fools. And now they don't know what to do..."

Yurkovsky looked at Bykov's papers in silence. "I'll kill the bastards!" he suddenly said and resumed his work on the machine.

Yura already knew what special flight 17 was. Here and there in the huge network of space settlements, encompassing the entire solar system, things were going wrong, and the International Administration of Cosmic Communications had decided to put an end to it once and for all, if possible. Yurkovsky was inspector general of IACC and had, apparently, unlimited powers. He had the right to reduce rank, chew out, deride, fire, replace, appoint, and even, it seemed, use force, and it looked as though he intended to do it all. Moreover, Yurkovsky planned to strike the guilty like a bolt out of the blue, and therefore special flight 17 was completely secret.

From snatches of conversation and from what Yurkovsky had read aloud it followed that the photon planetship Takhmasib would make a brief stop on Mars, cross the asteroid belt, stop in the Saturn system, then come out toward Jupiter, and then back

through the asteroid belt to Earth. Yura didn't know exactly over which heavenly bodies the threatening shadow of the inspector general hovered. Zhilin only told Yura that the Takhmasib would let Yura off on Iapetus, where he would Doard a local planetship bound for Rhea.

Yurkovsky stopped the machine. "I'm very worried by the scientists near Saturn," he said.

"Just imagine, they still haven't gotten into the swing...uhm ...and started their program."

Yurkovsky spoke angrily, "Don't think, please, that I'm worried about the program because it's mine.. .1 think I'll have to give them a push."

Yura sensed that the entire conversation, including Yurkovsky's strange nervousness and Bykov's feigned indifference, had some other meaning. It looked as though the inspector general's unlimited powers did have some limits, and that Bykov and Yurkovsky knew just what they were.

Yurkovsky said, "But isn't it time for lunch? Cadet, could you vacuum-cook some lunch?"

At 4:00 a.m. Felix Rybkin said: "It's time," and everyone started getting ready. It was — 83° C outside. Yura pulled on two pairs of down-filled socks lent to him by Natasha, heavy fur trousers that Matty had given him, hung the battery belt on his trousers, and got into his flight boots. Felix's Pathfinders, sleepy and grumpy, were gulping down hot coffee. Natasha was running back and forth to the kitchen carrying sandwiches, hot coffee, and thermoses. Someone asked for broth; Natasha ran to the kitchen and brought broth. Rybkin and Zhilin were crouching in the corner of the room over a flat, open box, from which protruded the shining tails of rocket grenades. Yurkovsky had brought the rocket weapons to Warm Syrt. Matty was checking the electrical heating system of the jacket intended for Yura.

The Pathfinders had finished their coffee and silently made their way to the door, pulling on the oxygen masks with habitual gestures. Felix and Zhilin took the box of grenades and also headed for the door.

Matty helped him put on the jacket and plugged the heating system into the battery belt.

It was completely dark outside. Yura crossed the observation platform and went down to the tank. People were speaking softly and he could hear metal jangling on metal. Yura bumped into someone. A male voice suggested he put on his glasses. Yura suggested the man not stand around in the middle of the road.

Yura remembered the infrared glasses and put them on. They didn't make him see much better, but now he could distinguish silhouettes of people and the broad side of the tank, warmed by an atomic reactor. The people were loading weapons in the tank. First Yura helped lift them up, but then he thought there might not be enough room in the tank and that he would be left behind at the observatory. He walked quietly over to the tank and climbed up. Two men with hoods pulled down to their noses were receiving the boxes.

"Ah, the city slicker?" the other one said. "Go inside, pull the boxes under the seats."

Yura was dubbed "city slicker" by the local welders with whom he had helped prepare the tanks with ring mounts for rocket weapons and to whom he had demonstrated the latest methods of welding in rarefied atmospheres. Inside the tank, it was the same -83° C, and the heat glasses didn't help. Yura dragged the boxes and crates enthusiastically along the clattering floor and, feeling his way, shoved them under the seats, bumping into sharp corners sticking out everywhere. Then there was nothing left to drag. Silent Pathfinders climbed over the top of the seats and sat down, their carbines scraping the seats. Several people stepped painfully on Yura's feet, and someone pulled Yura's hood over his eyes. A horrible screech

came from the front of the tank—it must have been Felix trying out a gun mount.

Yura peeked carefully over the edge of the tank. He saw the gray observatory wall and the flashes from the headlights that slid over the observation platform. The three other tanks that made up the central group were approaching.

Finishing roll call (Yura and Zhilin were not mentioned for some reason), Felix said, "Let's go."

The Mimikrodon sand tank rumbled, lurched, and, dragging under the weight, immediately headed uphill. Yura looked up. He couldn't see any stars—they were hidden by the dust. There was absolutely nothing to look at. The tank was shaking them mercilessly. Yura flew off the hard seat every minute, bumping into those sharp corners again. Finally the Pathfinder next to him asked, "What are you jumping around like that for?"

He grabbed a pivot that was sticking out from the side of the tank, and he rode a little smoother. Once in a while the headlights illuminated the clouds of dust hanging over the tank, and then against that light background, Yura could see the black ring of the gun mount and the long barrel of the rocket rifle pointing at the sky. The Pathfinders were talking among themselves.

"Yes, it's only at first glance that the architecture seems strange, and then you begin to feel that you've seen it all somewhere before."

Yura was uncomfortable, bumpy, and lonely. No one paid any attention to him. The people seemed alien and indifferent. The bitter cold was burning his face. Showers of sand from the caterpillar tracks beat upon the floorboards. Zhilin was somewhere nearby, but Yura couldn't see or hear him. Yura even felt upset with him. He wanted the sun to come out soon so that it would be warm and light, and he wanted the bumpy ride to be over.

Bykov had very reluctantly allowed Yura to go to Mars and had made him Zhilin's personal responsibility. Bykov and Mikhail Antonovich remained on board ship and were orbiting with Phobos at a distance of nine thousand kilometers from Mars. Yura didn't know where Yurkovsky was. He was probably participating in the roundup, too.

I wish they'd at least give me a rifle, Yura thought glumly. After all, I welded their gun mounts for them.

Everyone else had a rifle and that's probably why they felt so comfortable and relaxed.

Man is ungrateful and indifferent by nature, Yura thought bitterly. And the older he gets, the worse he gets. If my friends were here now, everything would be just the opposite. I would have a rifle, I'd know where we were going and why, and I'd know what to do.

The tank suddenly stopped. The glare of the headlights on the clouds of dust made it seem quite light. Everyone inside grew silent, and Yura heard an unfamiliar voice:

"Rybkin, go out on the western slope. Kuzmin, the eastern one. Jefferson, stay on the southern slope."

The tank moved on. The light fell inside and Yura saw Felix holding a microphone in his hands.

The tank was riding at a sharp angle, and Yura leaned on his elbows to keep from sliding to the floor.

"All right, that's fine," Felix said. "A little more forward. It's flatter there."

The tank stopped again. Rybkin said into the mike, "Rybkin is in place, Comrade Livanov."

All the Pathfinders were standing up, looking over the sides. Yura also looked. Nothing was visible except the thick clouds of dust, settling slowly in the glare of the headlights.

"Attention!" said Livanov. This time he spoke into a megaphone, and his voice rolled like thunder over the plains. "The roundup will begin in a few minutes. There is an hour left before sunrise. The beaters will be here in a half-hour. In a half-hour turn on your howlers. You may shoot. That's all."

The Pathfinders stirred. The horrible screech of the mount came again. The sides of the tank bristled with rifles. The dust was settling and silhouettes of people melted gradually into the darkness of the night. The stars were visible once more.

There was an enormous number of crates in the tank. Where did they all come from? Yura thought. Zhilin's powerful hand caught him by the shoulder and pulled him under the mount.

Felix Rybkin said softly, "Here are the boxes with the grenades." He used his flashlight. "Take the grenades out one at a time, take the cap off the tail end, and pass them to me."

"For instance, I see a dome up there against the stars and that's what I'm aiming at."

Felix spoke over Yura's head, "Fellows, I'm watching the eastern side. Don't shoot for a while, I want to try out the gun."

Yura immediately took a grenade and removed the cap. There was deadly silence for a few minutes.

"What's the matter with Sergei? He's so sharp, it's not like him to pass up an opportunity."

"They all care for her. As friends. She's an extraordinarily sweet person, and smart. I knew her slightly back on Earth."

"I'll tell you. She was up all night working, then she made breakfast for us. And then you have to have broth..."

There was silence immediately. Then Felix said quietly, "Yura, do you want to see a leech? Look!"

Yura peered out immediately. At first all he could see were the black jagged shapes of the ruins. Then something moved noiselessly among them. A long flexible shadow rose over the towers and swayed slowly, blocking and revealing the bright stars. The gun mount squeaked again, and the shadow froze. Yura held his breath. Now, he thought. Now. The shadow bent, as though winding up, and just then the rocket rifle shot.

A long hissing cry, a shower of sparks, a fiery path stretched to the top of the hill, something burst with a thud, exploded with blinding light, and then the silence returned. Gravel rolled down the hill.

Shooting started on the western side. Yura twisted his neck, but saw nothing. A rocket hissed and burst over the ruins, shot from another tank. Felix shot again.

The shooting, with brief interruptions, lasted about twenty minutes. Yura didn't see a thing. He handed over grenade after

grenade and worked up a sweat. They shot from both sides. Felix turned the rifle in the gun mount, which produced great squeaks. Then they turned on the howlers. The depressing and strong howl carried over the desert. It made Yura's teeth ache and feet itch. The shooting had stopped, but it was impossible to talk.

Light was breaking. Yura could see the Pathfinders now. Almost all of them were seated, leaning against the sides, hunched over, hoods down. Open plastic boxes with scraps of colored cellophane stood on the floor, which was littered with used cartridges and empty shells. Zhilin sat on a crate, facing Yura, holding a carbine between his knees. Hoarfrost lay on his exposed face. Yura stood up and looked at the Old Base—gray corroded walls, scratchy briars, rocks. He was disappointed. He had expected to see smoking bodies. Only when he looked closer did he notice the yellowish scaly body stuck in a crack among the briars, and there was something unpleasantly whitish on one of the domes.

Yura turned and looked into the desert. The desert was gray under the deep violet sky, covered with the gray texture of sandhills, dead and boring. But high above the even horizon Yura saw a bright yellow streak, ragged and torn, extending across the entire western sky. The streak was growing wider, larger, suffused with light.

"The beaters are coming!" someone shouted, barely heard over the roar of the sirens.

Yura realized that the yellow streak over the horizon was a cloud of dust raised by the roundup. The sun was rising to meet the beaters and red splotches of light lay across the desert, then suddenly the huge yellow cloud enveloping the horizon was illuminated.

The entire horizon—right, left, and center—was covered with dark dots. The dots appeared, disappeared, and reappeared on the crest of the dunes. Even now they could see that the tanks and crawlers were going at top speed and each one was dragging a long, dusty mantle. Bright, quick flashes dotted the

entire horizon, and it was impossible to tell whether they were shots, or grenades exploding, or merely the sunlight playing on the windshields.

Yura was jabbed in the sides and he quickly sat down on the crates. Felix Rybkin twirled his rocket thrower on the gun mount. Several Pathfinders rushed to the left side. The beaters were coming steadily closer. They were only five or six kilometers away. The horizon was completely enveloped and they could see that a smoky band of gunfire was rolling ahead of the beaters.

The megaphone roared over the sirens, "All fire on the desert! All fire on the desert!"

They began shooting from the tank. Yura could see Zhilin's broad shoulders shuddering with every shot and the white explosions over the side, and he couldn't understand where they were shooting and at what. Felix hit him on the hood and Yura quickly handed up a grenade and removed the cap from the next one. The sirens howled stubbornly and resolutely, the shots roared, and everyone was very busy and there was no one to ask what was going on. Then Yura saw a long red stream of fire, as if it had been spit, extend from an approaching tank and drown in the smoky band before the chain of beaters. Then he understood. They were all shooting at the smoky band: the leeches were in there. And the band was moving closer.

Kuzmin's tank rolled slowly from behind the hill. The tank was still moving when the side opened and a huge black pipe extended from it. The pipe started lifting toward the sky and when it froze at a 45° angle, Kuzmin's Pathfinders came scattering over the sides and ran under the treads. Thick black smoke came pouring out from the tank and the pipe blew out a huge tongue of flames with a long hacking noise, then the tank was enveloped in smoke. For a moment the shooting stopped. On the crest of a sandhill some three hundred yards away, completely unexpectedly, rose a shaggy mushroom cloud of smoke and dust.

grenades, one after another, and looked back at Kuzmin's tank. Through the dust he could see the Pathfinders straining to haul the pipe out of the tank. It even seemed to Yura that he could hear their cursing through the noise of battle.

The smoky band, in which flashes of shots kept exploding, was moving closer. And, finally, Yura saw the leeches looking like grayish-yellow polliwogs. Lithe and extremely agile, despite their size and probably their weight as well, they leapt out of the dust cloud, hurled through the air for several dozen yards, and then returned to the dust. And behind them, almost at their heels, raced the broad, chunky tanks and small crawlers, bouncing on the dunes and flashing fire. Yura bent over the grenades, and by the time he straightened up, the leeches were very close, the flashes of fire were gone, the tanks were slowing down, and people were jumping out of the tanks and crawlers onto the roofs, waving their arms. Then suddenly, off to the left, circling Kuzmin's tank, a sand tank came hurtling at a crazy speed and drove on nonstop along the dusty wall, right through the crowd of leeches. The tank was empty. Then a second empty tank escaped from the dust, and then a third, and nothing more could be made out in the yellow, dense dust.

A long dark body flew over the tank. Felix straightened and sharply turned the rocket rifle in the direction of the Old Base. The sirens stopped suddenly and immediately they could hear the noise of dozens of engines, the clatter of the caterpillar treads, and the shouts. Felix wasn't shooting any more. He moved the rifle quietly to the right, then to the left, and the penetrating squeak of the mount seemed like heavenly music to Yura after the sounds of the sirens. Several people with carbines appeared out of the dust. They ran up to the tank and quickly scrambled aboard.

The roar of engines came closer, and two tanks moved by slowly and uncertainly. Something formless and clotted with dust was dragged by the treads of the second tank.

The dust settled slowly. They could see the bleak disk of the sun, the violet sun. Then Yura saw a dead leech, probably the one that jumped over the tank. It was lying on the slope of the hill, straight as a stick, long and covered with stiff red stubble. It grew wider from its tail to its head, like a funnel, and Yura looked at its jaws, feeling chills go up his spine. The mouth was completely round, half a yard in diameter, and filled with large, flat triangular teeth. It made him sick to look at it. Yura looked around and saw that the dust had settled almost completely and that there were lots of tanks and crawlers all around. People were jumping over the sides and walking slowly up the slope toward the ruins of the Old Base. The engines were off. A hubbub of voices rose over the hill and the scorched briars crackled.

He took the gun from the mount and climbed over. Yura wanted to follow, but Zhilin caught his sleeve.

They climbed out of the tank and started after Felix. Felix headed for the large group of people crowded about five yards away from the ruins. They had surrounded a cavern—a deep, black cave that descended steeply under the ruins. By the entrance, hands on hips, stood a man with a rifle around his neck.

"They just didn't want...uhm...to be restrained!" someone called from the crowd.

Yurkovsky said disdainfully, "You should have...uhm... restrained them!" He laid down his rifle. "I'll go look," he said.

No one had a chance to say a word before he bent over and dove into the darkness with amazing agility. Felix slipped in after him like a shadow. Yura didn't think anymore. "Excuse me, comrade," and took his neighbor's rifle. The astounded man did not resist.

"Where are you going?" Zhilin asked from the entrance of the cave. Yura stepped resolutely toward the cavern.

"Oh, no," Zhilin said quickly, "you can't go there." Yura, head lowered, went straight for him. "No, I said!" Zhilin barked and pushed him in the chest. Yura fell on his rear end, raising lots of dust. The crowd laughed. Pathfinders ran past into the cave.

Yura jumped up in a rage. "Let me go!" he shouted. He lunged forward and bounced off Zhilin as off a wall.

Yura gritted his teeth and walked away. He shoved the rifle silently into the hands of the beater, who had finally realized what had happened, and then Yura stopped in the middle of the crowd. He felt that everyone was looking at him. The shame, the shame of it all, he thought- At least Zhilin didn't box my ears. If only we had been alone—after all, Zhilin is Zhilin—but not in front of everybody...He recalled how ten years ago he had gotten into his big brother's room and drawn on his blueprints with colored pencils. He just wanted to make them prettier. And how his big brother had led him out into the street, pulling him by the ear, and how ashamed he had been!

"Don't be mad, Yura," Zhilin said. "It was an accident. I forgot mass is lower here."

"Don't worry," Zhilin said tenderly, rumpling Yura's hood. "Nothing will happen to him. Felix is with him down there, and the other Pathfinders too...At first I also thought that the old man would perish, and I rushed for the cave, but thanks to you, I came to my senses..."

Zhilin went on talking, but Yura didn't hear a word. I wish my ears had been boxed, he thought in desperation. I wish my face had been slapped in public. I'm a child, a greenhorn, a shameless egoist! Ivan was right to hit me, I should have been hit much harder. Yura's breath hissed through his teeth, he was so ashamed. Ivan was worried about me and Yurkovsky, and he doesn't doubt for a minute that I was worried about Yurkovsky and him... And me!... I just took Yurkovsky's leap into the cave as permission for heroic deeds. I didn't think for a second that Yurkovsky was in danger. I wanted to combat leeches and win glory, fool that I am...Luckily Ivan doesn't know that.

Yura moved away. A crawler scrambled through the crowd toward the cave, dragging a trailer loaded with a huge silvery tank. A metal hose with a strange long nozzle extended from the tank. A man in the front seat held the nozzle under his arm.

"Here?" the man asked in a businesslike way and, without waiting for an answer, pointed the nozzle in the direction of the cave. "Bring it closer," he said to the driver. "Well, people, move aside," he said to the crowd. "Back, back, back it up. Will you move it?" he said to Yura in exasperation.

He aimed the nozzle at the black hole, but one of the Pathfinders appeared at the cave entrance.

The man with the hose sat down. "My God," he said. "What are you doing in there?"

The man scratched his head under his hood. "You can't do that," he said. "You have to give us warning.^,,

There was wild shooting underground just then, and Yura thought that clumps came flying out of the cave.

Three other Pathfinders came out of the cave single file. One of them, recognizing the apparatus, said, "Now that's good. As soon as everyone comes out, we'll let them have it."

People kept coming out of the cave. The last ones to leave were Felix and Yurkovsky.

Yurkovsky was saying in a panting voice, "That means that this tower above us must be something like...uhm...a water tower. Very...uhm...possible! Good work, Felix." He saw the flamethrower and stopped. "Flamethrower, eh? Well...uhm... why not? You may proceed." He nodded benignly to the man.

The man grew animated, jumped down from his seat, and walked over to the entrance, pulling the hose after him. The crowd moved back. Only Yurkovsky, with hands on hips, remained by the man.

leeches are long...uhm...dead, and the dead ones...uhm... will be useful to the biologists. Isn't that so?" "Zeus," Zhilin said. Yura merely shrugged. He was ashamed.

Penkov gulped down the coffee in his cup, sighed, and said meditatively, "Should we have another cup of coffee, huh?"

Outside, the night was black and crystal clear, the kind that often comes in late summer before the autumn storms. In the corner of the dining room lay a disorderly pile of fur jackets, battery belts, boots, and carbines. The electric clock over the door to the workshop clicked quietly.

^Cc*rgei tore himself away from his book. "A communique from staff headquarters," he said. "Left on the battlefield were sixteen leeches, one tank, and three crawlers. Unconfirmed sources state that one more tank was stuck in the dunes at the very beginning of the roundup and they have been unable to remove it as yet."

"I know that," Matty announced. "What I want to know is can I go down to Warm Syrt at night now?"

"You may," Penkov said, sighing as he sipped the coffee. "But you should take a rifle," he added as an afterthought.

"Here's what," he said suggestively. "Let's say it's time for Comrade Sergei Alexandrovich Bely to go out on his observations. It's 3:00 a.m. and Comrade Bely, you see, isn't at the observatory. Then I go into Warm Syrt to the Central Meteosta-tion, go up to the second floor..."

"Why don't I know anything about this?" Natasha asked in a hurt voice. "Why doesn't anyone ever tell me anything?"

Rybkin came in, neat and precise, in clean overalls and a snowy shirt, and flawlessly shaven.

"We spoke primarily of the regeneration plant. Yurkovsky ordered a halt to all scientific work for two months. All scientists are being mobilized into the workshops and construction sites."

"There goes my plan," Penkov said glumly. "Why can't our administration organize things?"

Natasha said passionately, "Be quiet, Volodya! You don't know anything about it!"

"Yes," Sergei said. "I've heard that things are bad with water here. What else happened at the meeting?"

"Yurkovsky gave a long speech. He said that we don't see the forest for the trees. That we love our schedules too much, that

we adore our well-worn paths, and in thirty years have managed to create... how did he put it?... 'boring and complex traditions/ That the ridges in our brains that regulate scientific and scholarly curiosity have been worn smooth, which is the only explanation for the business with the Old Base. In general, he said pretty much what you did, Sergei, last week. Remember? About how there are mysteries all around, and we just dig around...It was a very heated speech and I think, extemporaneous. Then he praised us for the roundup, said that he had come to urge us to do it and was very happy that we decided on our own.. .Then Puchko took the floor and demanded the head of Livanov. He shouted that he would show him 'slowly and methodically/..."

"The tanks are badly damaged, and in two months our group will be transferred to the Old Base, so we'll be neighbors."

"To weld mounts," Matty replied. "They say he's planning a few more roundups on the asteroids."

"I had an incident with Yurkovsky," Sergei said. "Back at the Institute. I was taking a course in theoretical planetology and he threw me out in a very original manner. 'Comrade Bely,' he said, 'give me your notebook and open the door, please/ Surprised, I went and opened the door. He threw my book out into the corridor and said, 'Go and don't come back for a month/"

"Is it true that Yurkovsky was almost burned up by the flamethrower?" Natasha asked.

"And me with him," Felix said. "We were down in the cave and the flamethrowers didn't know that we were there. We'll start work on the cavern in two months. I think there are remains of an aqueduct down there, a very strong strange one— the pipes aren't round, but oval."

"I don't understand," Penkov said. "Just the contrary! If they're not here by the water, then they don't exist at all."

"No, no, no," Natasha said. "I think I understand. Back on Earth the Martians would look for people in the desert. That's natural. Away from the poisonous foliage, away from areas covered by clouds. They'd look for us somewhere in the Gobi Desert. Right, Felix? I mean, think so, too."

"You mean, we should look for the Martians in the deserts?" Penkov asked. "A fine thing! Then what do they need the aqueducts for?"

"Maybe they're not aqueducts," Felix said, "but something like drainage canals to get rid of the water."

"Now that's too farfetched," Sergei said. "They probably lived underground. Actually, I don't know why that's more probable, but it doesn't matter. What you propose is too daring ... abnormally daring."

Matty started clearing the dishes. Felix neatly rolled up his sleeves and started helping.

"I was testing a theory," Felix said softly, "about why the leeches always attack from the right. There was one instance when a leech attacked from the left, attacked Kreutzer, who was left-handed and wore his watch on his right hand."

"That's what I wanted to find out. I was never attacked, and yet I went into very dangerous places."

Natasha came into the dining room and asked merrily, "Felix, are you coming? Let's go together."

"Coming," said Felix, and he walked toward the entry, rolling down his sleeves as he went.

Zhilin was sitting at the table reading. His eyes skimmed the pages quickly, and occasionally glistened damply in the bluish light of the desk lamp. Yura had been watching him for a while and suddenly realized that he was admiring him. Ivan had a heavyish, brown face, as precise as an engraving, a truly masculine face of a real man.

Vanya Zhilin was a good man. You could come to him at any time and sit and gab about whatever was on your mind, and he never seemed bothered. He was always happy to see you. There are people like that in the world and that is wonderful. For example, Zhenka Segal. You could undertake anything with him, take any risk, and you knew for sure that you wouldn't have to spur him on, he could spur anyone on himself.

Yura pictured Zhenka on Rhea, how he and the other guys would weld slit constructions in the black emptiness. The white flames of the oxytane would be dancing on the silicete visor, and Zhenka would be shouting songs and, with his elbows, holding down the mixer cylinder that he always kept on his chest and not on his back, as the instructions demanded. He's comfortable that way, thought Yura, and hell never be convinced to do otherwise until someone with a cylinder on his back beats him on an inertia seam, a lengthwise joint, or

even a simple cross-strut without a cable. Then he might look and toss the cylinder onto his back, but that isn't definite.

Zhenka would laugh at the instructions: "Instructions are for those who don't know yet." But he has no ear. He sings terribly. And even that's good, because what kind of person is it that doesn't have anything one can pick on? A decent person should have a blank in his abilities, several would be better, and then he'll be truly pleasant. Then you know for sure that he's no pearl. Now all Zhenka has to do is sing, and you know that he's not a pearl but a fine guy.

"Come on now," Zhilin said without looking up from his book. "What do you take me for?"

Zhilin looked up, gazed at Yura for a few moments, and then said, "The Rules of Sanitary Discipline for Hussars of Her Imperial Majesty."

Yura snorted. It was clear that Ivan didn't want to tell him what he was reading. Well, there was nothing wrong with that...

"I finally finished The Physics of Metals Today," Yura said. "Boy, it's boring. How can they write books like that? Alexei Petrovich quizzed me," Yura said distastefully, "and kept picking on tiny points. Why does he pick on me all the time? Do you know, Vanya?"

"It just seems that way to you," he said. "Captain Bykov never picks. He only demands what ought to be demanded. He is a very fine person, our captain."

For a few minutes Yura pondered whether it would be all right and honorable to ask a certain question. He wouldn't risk saying it to Bykov's face. And it wasn't nice to talk behind his back. But he wanted to say it so badly..."Vanya, what kind of people do you like least?"

Zhilin replied immediately. "People who don't ask questions, you know, the confident kind..."

He squinted, looked at Yura, grabbed a pencil, and quickly drew his picture: Cadet Borodin, seated, reading his fat Physics of Metals Today book, a grimace on his face. It was a good resemblance.

"And I can't stand boring people," Yura announced as he looked over the picture. "May I keep this?" he asked, picking up the sketch. "Thank you...You see, Vanya, I really don't like boring people. They have such sickening lives. At work they write on papers or use adding machines they didn't invent, and they don't try to invent anything themselves. It doesn't even occur to them to invent something. They do everything 'like everyone else.' This is how they talk: 'These are beautiful and sturdy, and these aren't,' and 'They don't know how to make good furniture here in Vyazma, we'll have to get it from Moscow,' and 'This book should be read,' and 'Let's go mushroom hunting tomorrow, they say the mushrooms are plentiful this year'...Damn it, nothing in the world could make me go foi those mushrooms!"

Zhilin listened thoughtfully, carefully drawing a huge integral from zero to infinity on a sheet of paper.

"They always have loads of free time," Yura continued, "and no one knows how to spend it. They ride around in large groups in their cars, and it's disgusting to watch those idiots. First mushroom hunting, then to a cafe, and they eat only because they have nothing to do, and then they drive up and down the main roads, the ones that are safe and with the best facilities, such as repair robots and motels and whatever else they need. Then they get together at some summer house and don't do anything there, they don't even talk. They pick through their stupid mushrooms and argue about which one came from under a pine and which from under a fir. And if they do start talking about something serious, you'd better run for your life. They ask why is it that they're still not allowed up in space. But

try asking them why they want to go, they won't give you a good answer, they just mutter about their rights. They love to talk about their rights. But the most disgusting thing about them is all the free time they have and they kill it, Fm going crazy being on board the Takhmasib without work, but they would be like fish in water here..."

Yura lost his train of thought and stopped. Zhilin was still working on his integral and his face suddenly grew sad. Then he asked, "What does Captain Bykov have to do with it?"

Zhilin nodded. "That's what I thought," he said. "But you're wrong, my friend, if you're lumping them all together—Bykov and people who like safe highways."

"I understand you. But listen. One, Bykov loves his work. Two, he can't imagine himself doing anything else. And Alexei Petrovich works even when he's reading magazines or napping in his armchair. Haven't you ever thought about that?"

"Too bad. Do you know what Bykov's work is? To be prepared always. It's very difficult work—hard, exhausting. You have to be Bykov to stand it, to become accustomed to the constant tension, to the state of uninterrupted preparedness. Don't you see?"

"But it is really the case! He is a space soldier. He is to be envied, Yura, because he found what is most important to him in the whole world. He is needed, necessary, and hard to replace. Understand?"

Yura nodded uncertainly. The unbearable picture of the glorious captain in slippers and striped socks sitting like a burgher in his favorite armchair rose before him.

"I know your heart has been won by Vladimir Sergeyevich. I can understand that. On the one hand you have Yurkovsky,

who thinks that life is a boring hassle and that you must take every opportunity to explode in a glorious blaze. On the other hand there is Bykov, who finds real life in constant tension, who does not admit the existence of chance because he is prepared for every occasion and nothing will be unexpected for him...But there is a third side, as well, Yura. Just imagine, Yura," Zhilin said and placed his palms on the desk and leaned back in his chair, "a huge edifice of human culture: everything that man has created himself, extracted from nature, rethought, and made anew in a way that nature could never have done. A majestic edifice! It is being built by people who know their work and love it. People like Yurkovsky, Bykov.. .There are fewer people like that than others. The others are those on whom the building stands, the so-called little people, simply honest people who don't even know perhaps what they like and what they don't, who haven't had a chance to learn what they can do and what they can't. They just work honestly wherever life has set them down. And it is they who support the Palace of Thought and Spirit on their shoulders. They support it from nine to five, and then they go mushroom hunting..."

Zhilin paused. "Of course, you want very much for everyone to build and support at the same time. And one day that will be so, but it will take time, and energy. That situation will have to be created, too."

Yura was thinking. There was something valuable in Ivan's words, something unaccustomed. He still had to comprehend it.

Zhilin put his hands behind his head. "I remember a story," he said. He was looking straight at the lamp and his pupils had contracted to dots. "I had a friend, his name was Tolya. We were in school together. He was always colorless, always digging around in details, making little notebooks, gluing together tiny boxes. He loved rebinding old books. He was a kind soul, so kind that he didn't understand cruel jokes. He reacted to them strangely and wildly. If we put a salamander in his bed, he

would take it out, put it in the palm of his hand, and look at it for a long time. We all would be falling down laughing, and he still would be looking at it, and then he'd say 'poor thing,' and take it back to the pond. Then he grew up and became a statistician. Everyone knows it's quiet and inconspicuous work and we all thought that it served him right and that our Tolya wasn't good for anything else. He worked honestly, without any great passion, but conscientiously.

"We flew to Jupiter, raised the permafrost layer, built new factories, and he still sat in his office and added on a machine he hadn't invented. A model little person. You could wrap him in cellophane and exhibit him at a museum with the caption: 'Typical self-contained man of the late twentieth century.' Then he died. He neglected a minor disease because he was afraid of surgery, and died. This happens to little people, even though they don't write about it in the papers."

"This was in Karelia, on the shore of a forest lake. His bed stood in a huge glassed-in veranda, and I was sitting next to him and could see his unshaven dark face...his dead face... and a huge blue cloud hanging over the forest, on the other side of the lake. The doctor said, 'He's dead/ And just then a thunder clap of unbelievable force sounded and a storm began, the likes of which is rarely seen even in southern seas. The wind broke the trees and tossed them at the wet, pink cliffs, splintering them into shreds, but even their crashes could not be heard over the storm. The lake rose like a wall toward the shore, and bolts of lightning that did not belong in the north struck the wall. Roofs were torn from houses, clocks stopped everywhere. No one knows why. Animals died with burst lungs. It was a wild, beastly storm, as though the entire inanimate world had gone berserk. And he lay there, quiet, ordinary, and as usual, nothing affected him."

Zhilin stopped again. "I'm not a cowardly man, Yura, I'm even-tempered, but I was scared then. I suddenly thought, So that's what you were like, our little boring Tolya. You, without

knowing it, quietly and inconspicuously, held the balance of the world on your shoulders. You died and the balance collapsed, and the world went into a frenzy. If someone had shouted in my ear just then that the world had flown out of its orbit and was hurtling toward the sun, I would simply have nodded. And then I also thought..."

Zhilin paused. "I thought, why was he so boring and so small? He really was a very boring man, Yura. If that storm had happened before his eyes, he would have shouted, 'My slippers! My slippers are drying out on the balcony!' And we would have run to save them. But why, how had he become that way?"

"Not so. No one is ever at fault alone. People turn us into what we become. That's the problem... And we... how often we don't repay that debt... almost never. And yet there is nothing more important than that. That's the most important thing, especially now. Before, it was important to give man the freedom to become whatever he wanted. And now the important thing is to show him what he must become to be humanly happy. That's what is most important now." Zhilin was looking at Yura and suddenly he asked, "Right?"

"Probably," Yura said. It was all right, but foreign to him somehow. It didn't touch him. It seemed hopeless, or boring.

"Quiet!" Zhilin rose. "Strange," he said, still listening. Yura suddenly sensed how the floor shuddered under his feet, and just then a siren howled. He jumped up and ran to the door. Zhilin grabbed his shoulder.

Yura ran down the hall. He ran down the ring corridors into the vacuum compartment, where he was posted according to the emergency roster. He ran quickly, but held back to keep from sprinting. A cadet was supposed to be "calm, restrained, and always prepared," according to the instructions, but when a sad threatening wail is sounding throughout the ship, when the ship is convulsing, as if wounded and someone is digging around in the wound, when you don't really understand what you must do and certainly don't understand what is happening...

Red lights went on at the end of the corridor. Yura lost control and ran as fast as he could.

He leaned against a heavy door, opened it, and dashed into the gray room, its walls lined with glass cases holding vacuum-pressurized suits. He had to raise all the glass covers; check the suits, the pressure in the tanks, the energy sources; switch the suits to emergency position, and do something else.. .Then he had to put on his suit and, with the hood back, await further instructions.

Yura did it all rather quickly and, as it seemed to him, rather well, even though his fingers were trembling and he felt tension throughout his body, strong and unpleasant tension, resembling an extended cramp. The siren stopped and an evil silence ensued. A blue light glowed in the boxes, their covers raised, and the huge suits with their opened sleeves gleamed, looking like ugly headless statues. Yura pulled out his suit and put it on. It was a bit too big; it was still and uncomfortable, not flexible and cozy like a welder's suit. He got hot almost immediately. Yura turned on the perspiration remover, and then, moving his fat feet heavily, rubbing metal against metal, walked to the door.

The ship was still shuddering. It was quiet, and the red emergency signal lights were on in the hallway. Yura leaned against the door frame and pushed his foot against the side. He was barring the door, and the only way into the compartment was over his body. (It was strange reading that part in the

instructions about guarding the vacuum compartment during an emergency. From whom? Why?) The only one who could enter the compartment during an emergency was the person— passenger or crew member—who had a personal OK from the captain. A radiophone, constantly transmitting to the captain's personal receiver, was mounted in the door frame. Yura looked at the radiophone and remembered what he had not done yet. He quickly pushed the call button with his finger.

Yura looked at the radiophone angrily and said in a hoarse voice, "Good." Lump, he thought and made a face, sticking out his tongue. The ship shook, and he almost bit his tongue. He looked around in embarrassment, and then a thought popped into his head: what if the all-knowing and all-seeing Bykov had shaken the ship on purpose, just to bite the tongue of the obnoxious cadet? He could easily imagine Bykov doing it. He probably had a hard life, Yura thought. Life probably pressed him and mauled him until it wore off the shell of all emotions, making a man not a man, but a lump. Zhilin once said that with the years a person changes only in one way—he becomes more tolerant. This probably doesn't apply to Bykov...

The ship heaved again, and Yura braced himself. He didn't know what was happening. It didn't seem like a meteorite attack or a collision. Mishka Ushakov said that danger in space was like a sword blow—either you die from it right away or you don't die at all.. .That was Mishka Ushakov, who had been in space only for construction-welding experience and who judged even space in terms of novels about musketeers.

Yura's calf was cramping, so he shifted his weight. The red lights along the sides of the corridor were still on. Yura kept trying to remember what this reminded him of, but couldn't. It was not a pleasant memory; that he knew for sure. I wish

someone would come, he thought. I could ask what happened, what I should expect...He looked at the call button. Why doesn't he just ask Bykov himself, "Comrade Captain, please explain..." Then Yura suddenly pictured how many apprentices had stood here, sweaty with anxiety, their foot pressing against the door frame, suffering terribly, trying to comprehend what was happening and guessing: Will I have time to put on the hood or not? They were fine boys, with whom he could play back-up tag or ruminate about the meaning of life. Now they were all experienced and wise, they were all in the deckhouse, and they fly through space, and they still shake and quiver... These thoughts brought to mind Bykov, his face covered with sweat and tears, who with perfectly human, understandable despair was staring at something that he hadn't counted on and which was approaching inexorably...

Everything swam before Yura's eyes. He lost his balance and fell to the floor. There was clanging under the low ceiling. Yura, scraping his shoes on the metal floor, turned over on his stomach, stood up, and rushed to the door. He resumed his earlier position and braced himself as hard as he could.

Now the Takhmasib was vibrating steadily, as though it was scared too. Yura kept tensing, trying to stop the shivers. Why won't somebody come, just so I can understand what's going on? Why won't Bykov give me an order?...Mama will grieve horribly. How will they tell her? Who will be able to tell her? She could die, she just had surgery, her heart is no good. They can't tell her.. .Yura bit his lip and clenched his teeth. It hurt, but the shivering didn't stop. What was this really?...No, he had to go right now and look, stick his head in the bridge and calmly ask, "Much longer now?" and leave...What if they all had been killed? Yura looked in horror down the corridor, expecting Zhilin to appear, looking at him with glazed eyes and dropping his head to his stiff arms...

Yura lowered his leg, pushed away from the door frame, and took a few uncertain steps down the hallway. Along the

quivering floor, past the red lights and toward the elevator, toward whoever was crawling...He stopped and returned to the door. "Easy," he said and coughed to clear his throat. "The imagination likes to play tricks, but they are mean and dishonest tricks. The imagination is not your friend." He braced himself in the doorway again. So this is how it is, he thought. This is how it is to wait and always be ready, to wait in slippers and striped socks, reading last month's newspaper, so that no one notices, or questions, or thinks... Knowing nothing for sure and always being prepared...

The vibration was increasing, then decreasing, then increasing. Yura pictured the Takhmasib, a half-mile long, made of titanium alloys, resembling a huge glass. Now along its entire body, from the cargo hold to the edge of the reflector, the convulsion of the vibrations passed in waves... increasing, decreasing.. .Yura didn't have to be supersensitive to figure out what was happening. If his oxytane sensor was vibrating like that, it would be clear: regulate the compressor or at least change the extinguisher. Yura clearly sensed that the ship was listing; he could tell by the pressure on his foot. The Takhmasib was turning, smoothly at first, then in jerks. Each jerk shook his head and everything that was in it. What is this, thought Yura, bracing himself. What's going on there? Had gone on there?... And then in the horrible, echoey silence came footsteps— unhurried, confident, unfamiliar steps—or perhaps Yura simply didn't recognize them. He looked down the corridor. The steps kept coming closer, and then, around the turn, came Zhilin in his work suit, with a flat tester box on his chest. His face was serious and unhappy, his light forelock was in his eyes.

He wanted to get in the vacuum compartment. Yura opened and shut his mouth, but didn't move his leg. This was Zhilin, dear, sweet, long-awaited Zhilin, but Yura didn't move his foot

and instead asked, "What's going on there?" He wanted to ask casually, but he swallowed on the last syllable, and the effect was ruined.

"What could be going on?" Zhilin said reluctantly. "Let me by," he said. "I need to get something there..."

Yura's head was filled with mush, and within this mush, only the instructions were clear.

"Yura, what's the matter with you, buddy?" Zhilin said. "Let me by, I left something in my suit..."

"I can't," Yura said and licked his lips. "How can I? The captain will answer now and..."

"Why wouldn't he?" Yura stared at Zhilin with round eyes and then grabbed Zhilin's sleeve. "What happened?"

Yura shook his head desperately. "I can't, Vanya...You must understand that!" He was so emotional, he wanted to cry, and at the same time he felt good and calm and knew that he wouldn't let Zhilin through for anything. "You used to be an apprentice yourself."

"Yes-s-s..." Zhilin muttered vaguely, looking at Yura. "Obeying the letter and spirit of the instructions?"

"I don't know..." Yura muttered. He was embarrassed and yet he knew he wouldn't move his foot. He begged Zhilin mentally, If you really need to get in, don't just stand there, punch me in the jaw and take what you need...

"Alexei Petrovich," Zhilin said into the radiophone, "I want to pass into the vacuum compartment and the apprentice won't let me."

Bykov hung up. Yura moved his foot with great relief. He had only now noticed that the ship was no longer vibrating. Zhilin was looking at him tenderly and slapped him on the back.

"There, you see." Zhilin stopped in front of his suit. "That's what instructions are written for. A good thing, no?"

Zhilin looked glum again. "What could have happened?" he said through his teeth. "Artificial feeding, pills instead of pork chops. A practice emergency alert, Cadet Borodin, and nothing more. Routine, happens two or three times a flight, in order to check the knowledge of instructions. A great thing they are, instructions!" He pulled a white cylinder, the thickness of a finger, from his suit and slammed down the cover. "It's time for me to run from here, Yura. Run while I still can, before I'm bored."

Yura sighed deeply and looked down the hall. The red lights were off. The floor wasn't vibrating. Yura saw Yurkovsky come out of his berth, look at Yura, nod majestically, and slowly make the turn.

Zhilin grumbled, "Fish seek the deepest waters and men the worst places. Understand, Yura? Everything is fine here. Practice alerts, faked accidents. But it's worse in some places, much worse. That's where a man should go and not wait until he's led there...Are you listening to me, cadet? According to the instructions, you must listen to me."

Yura rose, shut his book, and after some hesitation, put it in the bookshelf. I won't read tonight, he thought. I have to get some sleep sometime.

Yurkovsky, not looking up from his papers, waved casually. When Yura left, he asked, "What do you think, Alexei, what else does he love?"

"Our cadet. I know that he loves to vacuum weld and he's good at it. I saw him on Mars. But what else does he love?"

"You might have guessed. At twenty, when leaving on a long journey, they all take photographs with them and then don't know what to do with them. Novels tell you that you must look at these photos surreptitiously and that your eyes must be filled with tears, or at least be damp. But there is never enough time [112]

for that, or enough of something else even more important. But let's get back to our cadet."

Bykov put down his newspaper and looked at Yurkovsky. "Did you finish your work for today/" he asked.

"No," Yurkovsky said in irritation. "I haven't and I don't wish to talk about it. That idiotic office is giving me a headache. I wish to refresh my mind. Will you answer my question?"

"Ivan would be the best one to answer it," Bykov said. "He's always spending time with him "

"Don't get so upset, Volodya, you'll have a liver attack. Our apprentice is still a child. Clever hands, but he doesn't love anything in particular because he doesn't know anything yet. He loves Alexei Tolstoy and H. G. Wells. Galsworthy bores him and so does The Road of Roads. He loves Zhilin and hates a bartender in Mirza-Charle. He's just a child, a bud."

"At his age," Yurkovsky said, "I loved writing poetry. I dreamed of becoming a writer. And then I read somewhere that writers are like corpses: they like people to speak well of them or not at all...yes. What was I talking about?"

"No, no, just a.. .Oh yes! I'm interested in the inner world of our apprentice."

"There are all kinds of apprentices," Yurkovsky countered. "You're also an apprentice and so am I. We are all apprentices of the future, old and young. We are each preparing our lives in our own way. And when we die, our descendants will evaluate our work and give our diplomas for eternal existence."

"Or don't hand them out," Bykov said thoughtfully, looking at the ceiling. "As a rule, unfortunately, they don't."

"Well, that's our fault, not our tragedy. Incidentally, do you know who always rates a diploma?"

"I suppose," said Bykov. "And here's what's interesting: these people, so unlike most, don't worry about the diploma at all..."

"And too bad. I've always been interested in the question: Are we getting better or worse with each generation? That's why I brought up the apprentice. The old men always say, 'Look at the young people today. We were much better!'"

"Krayukhin simply wasn't interested in theory. He took young men, threw them in the oven, and watched to see what happened. If they didn't burn, he pronounced them his equals."

"There, you answered your own question," Bykov said and picked up his paper. "Cadet Borodin is on his way to the oven, and he probably won't burn up in it, and ten years from now you'll meet him and he'll call you an old sandbag, and you, as an honest man, will agree with him."

"Wait a minute," Yurkovsky countered, "but we bear some responsibility too. We much teach the child!"

Mikhail Antonovich entered the lounge, wearing pajamas, slippers on bare feet, and carrying a large thermos.

"If we're having tea, I'll join in," said Yurkovsky and gathered up his paperwork.

The captain and the navigator set the table—Mikhail Antonovich put the jam into bowls and Bykov poured the tea.

"Fine," said Mikhail Antonovich. He took a sip, closed his eyes, and sighed. "Never ever agree to write your memoirs, boys. It's so difficult and so boring."

"The way they do in novels. The young Martian girl closed her eyes and brought her parted lips close to mine. I embraced her passionately.'"

"Look at the old goat blush," said Yurkovsky, "Did we hit upon a true story, Misha?"

"Pfui!" Mikhail Antonovich said. "Pfui on you!" He pondered and added, "Do you know what, boys? I'm dropping the memoirs! What can they do to me?"

"I think we are influencing him. He never leaves Vanya's side and he literally worships you, Volodya. He's already told me over twenty times how you went into the cave with the leeches."

"Ah, stories," Yurkovsky said, without a blink. "It was... uhm...long ago. Here's the question: How do we influence Yura? This is the boy's only opportunity to see the world of better people. Our part would be... uhm... simply... uhm..."

lad. He was brought up well in school. He has, what do you call it, the foundation of a good person. You must understand, Volodya, Yura will never confuse good with evil..."

"A real man," Yurkovsky pronounced weightily, "is distinguished by a broad scope."

"A real man is formed only by real people, workers, and only real life, full of blood and not easy."

"We must use this opportunity to show Yura real people in a real, not easy, life."

"Forgive me, Mikhail, but I haven't finished. Now tomorrow we'll be laughably close to Einomia. Do you know what Einomia is?"

"Of course," said Mikhail Antonovich, "an asteroid, with a large semiaxis—two plus sixty-four astronomical units, eccentricity..."

"That's not what I mean," Yurkovsky said impatiently. "Do you know that for the last three years Einomia has been the only physics station in the solar system for research on gravity?"

"People work there under extremely difficult conditions," Yurkovsky continued with inspiration. Bykov looked at him closely. "Twenty-five men, hard as diamonds, intelligent, brave ...I would even say recklessly brave! The cream of humanity! Here is a perfect opportunity to introduce the lad to real life!"

"And they are about to undertake an interesting experiment. They are studying the distribution of gravitational waves. Do you know what a death planet is? A rock fragment that at the right moment is transformed completely into radiation! An extremely edifying sight!"

"I think it would be very beneficial for our apprentice," said Yurkovsky and added in a lower tone, "Even I wouldn't refuse to watch. Fve been interested in the conditions of work of the death planeters myself."

"I assure you, Alexei!" Yurkovsky cried. "I think we should drop by there, don't you?"

"Fine," said Yurkovsky. He looked at Bykov and asked, "Is something bothering you, Alexei?"

"What's bothering me is this: My course includes Mars. My course includes Bamberga, with those lousy mines, and a few moons of Saturn, and the system of Jupiter, and a few other things. But one thing is not on my course, and that's Einomia."

"Hm, how shall I put it?..." Yurkovsky said, eyes lowered and fingers drumming on the desk. "Let's just look at it as the administration's oversight."

"Wait, wait, Alexei. Hm...after all, I am the inspector general, and I can give an order in...uhm...a change in the course."

"And that's what you should have started with instead of all that nonsense of edifying trips."

"Navigator," said Bykov, "the Inspector General orders us to change our course. Plot the course to Einomia."

"Yes sir," said Mikhail Antonovich and looked at Yurkovsky nervously. "You know, Volodya, we're low on fuel. Einomia takes us out of the way...We'll have to brake twice and speed up once. Why didn't you tell me a week ago?"

Yurkovsky drew himself up proudly. "Uhm... listen, Mikhail. Are there are any fuel stations nearby?"

"There will be fuel and there will be Einomia," Bykov said, rose, and went to his armchair. "Well, Misha and I set the table, and you, Inspector General, you clear."

"Voltairians," said Yurkovsky and started clearing. He was very pleased with his small victory. Bykov might not have obeyed. The captain of a ship carrying the inspector general also had great powers.

The physics observatory called Einomia orbited the sun approximately at the spot where the asteroid Einomia had once been. A gigantic cloud some two hundred kilometers in diameter had been destroyed almost completely in the last few years of experiments. All that was left of the asteroid was a thin swarm of comparatively small fragments and a seven-hundred kilometer cloud of cosmic dust, a huge silver sphere slightly distended by tide pull. The physics observatory differed little from the heavy artificial satellites of Earth: it was a system of cylinders and spheres connected by shining trusses, spinning around a central axis. Twenty-seven physicists and astrophysicists worked in the laboratory, "as hard as diamonds, wise and brave" and often "recklessly brave." The youngest was twenty-five and the oldest thirty-four.

The crew of the Einomia studied cosmic rays, experimental tests of the unified field theory, vacuum, superlow temperatures, and experimental cosmogony. All the small asteroids within a radius of twenty megameters of the Einomia were declared death planets: they were either already destroyed or about to be. Basically, this was the purview of the cosmogonists and the relativists. The small planets were destroyed in various ways. They were turned into either a swarm of gravel, a cloud of dust, a cloud of gasses, or an explosion of light. They were destroyed in natural conditions and in powerful magnetic fields, instantly or gradually, dragging the process out over weeks and months. This was the only cosmogonic test site in

the solar system, and when Earth observatories discovered a new star exploding with strange lines in its spectrum, the first J question asked was where was the Einomia at the moment and did the star explode near it? The International Administration of Cosmic Communications declared the Einomia zone out of bounds for all interplanetary flights.

The Takhmasib braked near the Einomia two hours before the start of the next experiment. The relativists had gathered to turn a rock fragment the size of Mount Everest into radiation. The death planet was moving around the periphery of the test site. Ten space bubbles had been sent there with observers and equipment and only two people—the director and the dispatcher on duty—remained in the observatory.

The dispatcher greeted Yurkovsky and Yura by the caisson. He was a long-limbed, very pale, freckled man, with calm, pale blue eyes.

Apparently, this was not the first time the pale-eyed man had met inspector generals. He calmly looked Yurkovsky over and said, "Well all right, come on in."

The man turned his back on Yurkovsky and walked down the corridor, his metal magnetic taps clicking.

Yurkovsky and Yura hurried after him. Yurkovsky muttered, "Strange, really, uhm...these manners. Amazing..."

Blue eyes opened a round hatch at the end of the corridor and climbed in. Yurkovsky and Yura heard him say, "Kostya, people to see you..."

They could hear someone shouting in a loud, merry voice, "Six! Sasha! Where are you going, you crazy man? Think of your children! Go back one hundred kilometers, it's dangerous there! Three! Three! I told you in plain Russian! Stay in contact with me! Six, don't grumble about the administration! The

Yurkovsky and Yura entered a small room filled with equipment. A thin, tanned man of thirty wearing blue creased pants and a white shirt with a blue tie sat in front of a convex screen.

Kostya turned his merry, handsome face with an aquiline nose to his visitors and examined them for a few seconds. He greeted them politely and turned back to the screen. Several brightly colored lights moved across the network on the screen.

"Nine, why did you stop? Have you lost your enthusiasm? Move forward a bit...Six, you're improving. Fm sick of you already. Did you fly home to Earth or something?"

Merry Kostya pulled a shiny ball from his right ear and turning to Yurkovsky asked, "Who are you, guests?"

"Which Yurkovsky?" Kostya asked merrily and impatiently. "I knew of one, he was Vladimir Sergeyevich."

Kostya was very glad. "Just in time!" he exclaimed. "Then go over to that control board there. Turn the fourth knob, the one with the arabic four, so that that little star doesn't go outside that little circle..."

"Don't tell me you didn't understand!" Kostya cried. "I'll become disillusioned with you."

Blue-eyes floated over to him and started whispering something. Kostya listened and then stuffed his ear with the shiny ball.

"It'll make it better for him," he said and started shouting again, "Observers, listen to me, Fm in command again! You are all in good position now, like the Zaporozhian cossacks in Repin's painting! Just don't touch the controls any more! I'm tuning out for two minutes." He pulled out the shiny ball again.

"And who is this young man? Is he also an inspector general? Ezra," he turned to the blue-eyed man, "Let Vladimir Sergeyevich hold the knob and give the boy something educational to play with. Maybe put him by the screen and let him watch..."

"Aha!" said Kostya. "You would have been better off wanting a wheel from a trolleybus. It would be best if you wanted to turn knob number four. Even I can't go on a cosmoscaphe. It's as filled up as a Blumberg concert. But by conscientiously turning the knob, you increase the accuracy of the experiment by 1.5 percent."

Yurkovsky shrugged majestically. "Well, all right," he said, "I see that I will have to. But why isn't it..uhm..automated here?"

Kostya was putting the shiny ball in his ear again. Lanky Ezra boomed in a deep voice, "The equipment. Garbage. Obsolete."

He turned on the large screen and beckoned to Yura. Yura went over to the screen and looked back at Yurkovsky.

Yurkovsky, with deeply furrowed brow, was holding the knob and looking at the screen where Yura stood. Yura started watching the screen as well. Several bright round spots glowed on the screen, resembling ink blots or burdock. Ezra pointed at one of the blots with a bony finger.

"Observers, have you fallen asleep yet? Why are things dragging out? Ah, there's time? You should be ashamed of yourself, Sasha, there's only three minutes left. T\ibs of time?

Oh, the photon tub? The inspector general came on it to visit us. Attention, Fm being serious now. Count down...thirty... twenty-nine... twenty-eight... twenty-seven..."

"... fifteen... fourteen.. .Vladimir Sergeyevich, hold the axis ...ten... nine..."

Yura stared for all he was worth. Ezra was also turning a knob and must have also been holding an axis.

A large white dot burst onto the center of the screen. Then the screen turned white, then blinding, then black. Somewhere overhead bells rang briefly and loudly. Red lights on the control panel near the screen blinked on and off, and the rounded spots reappeared on the screen, looking like burdock.

Kostya jumped down to the floor. "He doesn't need to hold the axis anymore," he said. "Get undressed, I'm starting my reception."

"Help yourselves," he said. "It's not chocolate, of course; it's better for you."

Ezra went over and, without speaking, took two pills. He offered one to Yura. Yura looked questioningly at Yurkovsky.

"Gamma-radiophage," Kostya explained. He turned to Yura. "Eat up, young man," he said. "You just received four roentgens, and you have to do something about it."

Yurkovsky reached for the box, took out two pills, and swallowed one. Yura took the other pill and put it in his mouth. It was very bitter.

"And how can we help the Inspector General?" Kostya inquired, putting the box back under the board.

"Basically, I wanted to...uhm...be present during the experiment," Yurkovsky said, "and at the same time clarify... uhm...the situation at the station...the needs of the staff... complaints...What? Well, I see that the laboratory is poorly shielded from radiation...It's crowded. Poor automation, obsolete equipment... well?"

Kostya said with a sigh. "Yes, that's true, the bitter truth, bitter as gamma-radiophage. But if you ask me what I have complaints about, I must tell you that I have no complaints. I mean there are problems. How can we live in this world with no complaints? But they are not our complaints, they are complaints about us. And you must agree that it would be silly of me to tell you, the inspector general, what the complaints against us are. By the way, are you hungry?"

"Fm glad you're not...Try finding something edible in our cellar.. .The nearest food tanker will arrive tonight or tomorrow, and that, believe me, is very sad because the physicists have gotten used to eating every day, and no mistakes in provisions are able to break their habit. Well, if you seriously want to know my opinion of complaints, I'll make it short and sweet, as if talking to a girlfriend. Those so-and-so's with degrees from our dear old IACC are always complaining about something. If we work fast they complain that we work fast and are wearing out their precious, and unique, equipment, that everything burns in our hands and they can't keep up. And if we work slowly... actually, what am I saying? There hasn't been an eccentric yet to complain that we were working slowly. By the way, Vladimir Sergeyevich, you were an excellent planetolo-gist; we all learned from your splendid books and all those reports! Why did you end up in IACC and as an inspector general, at that?"

Yurkovsky looked in astonishment at Kostya. Yura shrank into himself, waiting for the thunder to roll. Ezra stood by indifferently, blinking his yellow bovine eyelashes.

"I'll tell you why not," Kostya said, jabbing him in the chest. "You are a good scholar, you are the father of modern planetol-ogy! From childhood a fountain of ideas flowed from your head! That gigantic planets must have rings, that planets can condense without a central heavenly body, that Saturn's rings had an artificial origin. Ask Ezra who discovered all that? Ezra will tell you—Yurkovsky! And you gave all those best pieces to the mackerels to tear apart and became one of the so-and-so's!"

"Now, really," Yurkovsky said genially. "I'm merely...uhm ...a simple scientist..."

"You used to be! Now, forgive the expression, you're a simple inspector general. Tell me seriously, why did you come here? You can't ask any real questions or give any real advice, and I'm not even mentioning my being of any help. Well, let's say out of politeness I show you around the labs and we walk around like two lunatics and let each other pass before the other at the hatches. And we'll be politely silent because you don't know what to ask and I don't know what to answer. I would have to get all twenty-seven people together to explain what we're doing here at the station, and twenty-seven won't fit in here even out of respect for the inspector general, because it's too crowded, and one man lives in the elevator..."

"You're mistaken if you think this...uhm...amuses me," Yurkovsky interrupted him in an official voice. "I'm referring to the...uhm...overcrowding. As far as I know, the crew is supposed to have five gravitists. And if you, as director of the station, followed the regulations promulgated by IACC..."

"But Vladimir Sergeyevich!" cried merry Kostya. "People want to work, don't they? The gravitists want to work! Right? The relativists do, right? And I'm not even talking about the cosmogonists, who made their way in here over my dead body. And there are one hundred fifty people back on Earth trampling dirt waiting for their turn...Big deal, sleeping in the elevator! What should we do, wait until IACC completes construction of a new station? No, planetologist Yurkovsky would have thought completely differently. He wouldn't lee-

ture me on overcrowding, and he wouldn't expect me to explain everything to him, especially since he isn't Heisenberg and would only understand half of it. No, planetologist Yurkovsky would have said, 'Kostya! I need you to take my fantastic new idea and formulate an experiment for it. Let's work on it, Kostya!' Then I would give up my bed to you and sleep in the emergency elevator, and we would work together until everything became as clear as a spring morning. And you come here to gather complaints. What complaint can a man with interesting work have?"

Yura sighed with relief. The thunder hadn't come. Yurkovsky's face was becoming more and more pensive, and even wistful.

"Yes," he said. "You're right, I suppose...uhm...Kostya. I really shouldn't have come here in this... uhm... capacity. And I...uhm...envy you, Kostya. I would have loved to work with you. But there are... uhm... stations and there are stations. You can't imagine, Kostya, how much disorder there is in our system. And that's why Planetologist Yurkovsky had to ...uhm...become Inspector General Yurkovsky."

Something clanged and clattered in the corridor. The noisy clang of magnetic taps followed. Someone shouted, "Kostya-ya! There's a lead! Three milliseconds!"

"Oh!"Kostya said. "Here come my workers, they'll demand food now. Ezra," he said, "what's the best way to break the news that the tanker won't be here till tomorrow?"

"You're kidding!" Kostya was overjoyed. "You're a god. He who helps in time helps double. Consider that I owe you two crates of canned goods!"

Four men squeezed in after one another, and there was no space to move. Yura was pushed into a corner, and blocked by

the large backs of the men. The only thing he could see well was the skinny, scrawny neck of Ezra, someone's shaved skull, and the muscular neck of another. Besides that, Yura could see legs—they were raised over a head, and gigantic shoes with shiny worn taps carefully moved two inches from the shaved skull. Between the backs and necks Yura could sometimes catch a glimpse of Kostya's aquiline profile and the thickly bearded face of a worker. Yurkovsky was completely out of sight; he was probably pushed aside too. They were all talking at the same time.

"The spread of the points is very small. I added fast, but the three milliseconds are pretty sure..."

"That's not the point! The important thing is that it's beyond the limits of error!"

"Be thankful that we have at least that. Do you know what we had to do in the olden days?"

"That's true...Ezra, here it is, you're the calmest of the bunch, my hands are shaking with greed."

"The explosion was gorgeous today. I almost went blind. I love those annihilating blasts! You feel like a creator, a man of the future..."

"Listen, Kostya, what's this Pagawa tells me about having only nidus explosions now? What about us?"

"Oh, Fanas, don't start that old argument. Kostya is in charge. What's the director for? So that everything will be fair."

"Ah, I'm not good enough to be director now? Is this a rebellion? Where are my jackboots, lace cuffs, and dueling pistols?"

Yura couldn't wait and whispered in Ezra's ear, "What happened? Why is everyone so happy?"

Ezra, slightly turning his head, muttered, "They got a lead. Proved it. That gravitation spreads faster than light. Proved it the first time."

"Three and eight, boys," the man with the shaved head announced. "That means that we showed that so-and-so from Leningrad. What's his name?"

"A good beginning. Now if we could eat, beat up the cosmologists, and do this right."

"He maintains the lie that he has two cans. He's looking for them among his old papers. We'll have a feast—one camper group of every fourteen people."

listen! I can tell you that among us is an inspector general— Vladimir Sergeyevich Yurkovsky. He is donating a crate of cans from his own table!"

"Ah, why are we weightless here? We should carry this man and throw him up in the air!"

Another bearded face peered into the open hatch. "What are you shouting about?" the man said glumly. "We got the lead all right, but do you know that there's no grub? The tanker won't hobble in until tomorrow."

They all stared at the bearded man for a while. Then the man with the muscular neck said thoughtfully, "I recognize a cosmogonist by his refined vocabulary."

"Pavel, my friend," Kostya said, "you are going for cans now; go put on your space suit."

"Yura," Yurkovsky said, "lead this comrade to the Tak-hmasib. Wait, I'll go myself."

"Hello, Vladimir Sergeyevich," said the bearded man, smiling now. "How do you come to see us?"

"The program approval, all right. I'm just worried he'll cut back the staff. I'll go get my bed out of the elevator."

"Scientists, do not worry. I told him about everything. He's not like that. He's Yurkovsky, after all!"

They climbed out the hatch one by one. Then the man with the muscular neck went up to Kostya and said quietly, "Give me another pill, Kostya. I feel dizzy."

Einomia remained far behind. The Takhmasib was headed for the asteroid Bamberga, into the kingdom of the mysterious Space Pearl Limited.

Yura awoke in the middle of the night—the spot under his shoulder blade itched and hurt and he was very thirsty. He heard heavy, unsteady footsteps in the corridor, and even imagined he had heard a muffled groan. Ghosts, he thought sadly, that's all I need. Without getting out of his bunk, he opened the door and looked out. In the corridor, twisted up, stood Yurkovsky in his luxurious robe. His face was drawn and his eyes were closed. He was breathing hard and short through his twisted mouth.

Yurkovsky quickly opened his eyes and tried to straighten up, but the pain bent him over.

cabin. Yura moved over and let him in. Yurkovsky shut the door tight behind him and sat down carefully next to Yura.

"What's the matter with you, Vladimir Sergeyevich?" Yura muttered. "Are you sick?..."

"No, it's my liver." Yura looked in horror at Yurkovsky's stiffened hands clutching his side. "It always acts up, the damn thing, after radiation... But we didn't waste our trip to Einomia. What fine people they are, Yura! Workers...pure, real people! And no so-and-so's are going to interfere with them," he said, carefully leaning back against the wall as Yura pushed a pillow under him. "It's a funny word, so-and-so's, isn't it, Yura. And soon we'll see other people...completely different... rotten, lousy people.. .worse than the Martian leeches.. .you won't see them, of course, but I'll have to..."

He shut his eyes. "Yura, forgive me...I may fall...asleep here...I took...medicine...If I fall asleep here...go...sleep ...in my cabin..."

Bela Barabacs stepped over the coaming and shut the door firmly behind him. The plastic plaque on the door read: "Chief Manager of Bamberga Mines. Space Pearl Limited." The plaque was cracked. It had been whole just yesterday. A bullet had hit the left corner and the crack passed through the letter B. The louse, thought Bela. "I assure you, there are no firearms at the mines. Only you, Mr. Barabacs, and the police have them. Even I don't have one." The bastard, thought Bela.

The corridor was empty. Directly in front of the door hung a lively poster that read: "Remember, you are a shareholder. What's good for the company is good for you!"

Bela held his head, shut his eyes, and stood for a few minutes, swaying gently. My God, he thought, when will it all end? When will they get me out of here? What kind of commissar am I? I can't do anything. I don't have the strength. Do you understand? I don't have the strength. Take me away, please. I'm really ashamed and all that, but I can't take it any more...

A hatch nearby slammed shut. Bela lowered his hands and went down the corridor, past the boring pictures on the advertisements, past the locked cabins of the engineers, past the tall, narrow doorways of the police department. I wonder

whom they were shooting at on the administration floor? Of course, they won't tell me who was shooting, but maybe I'll be able to find out at whom they were shooting. Bela went into the police quarters. Sergeant Higgins, head of the police department and one of the three policemen of the Bamberga mines was sleeping with his head propped up on his arm. On the desk in front of Higgins stood a microphone, to the left of the radio, and to the right a magazine with a bright cover.

Higgins opened his eyes. "Good day, Mr. Barabacs." His voice was masculine, hoarse.

"The Geia was in," Higgins said. "Brought the mail. My wife writes that she misses me, as though I don't miss her. There were four packages for you. I had them taken to your office. I thought you were there."

"You see, Higgins," Barabacs said, "I was at the director's office just now. The manager assured me for the umpteenth time that only you, the police, have guns."

"I don't think so," Higgins said. "Tom was with me at the saloon, and Conrad...Why would Conrad shoot at an engineer?"

"I haven't seen any other gun, Mr. Barabacs. If I had seen it, I would have confiscated it, because guns are forbidden. But I haven't seen it."

Suddenly Bela didn't give a damn. "All right," he said wanly. "After all, maintaining law and order is your job, not mine. My job is keeping IACC informed of how you are handling your job."

Bela turned and left. He went down in the elevator to the second floor and passed through the saloon. There was no one in the saloon. The robot sellers blinked their yellow lights along the walls. Should I get drunk? thought Bela. Get stinking drunk like a pig, get into bed, sleep through the next two days, then get up, and get drunk again.

He walked through the saloon and down the long, wide corridor. The corridor was called Broadway and extended from the saloon to the bathrooms. There were posters here, too, reminding people that "the company's interest is your interest," film schedules, stock exchange bulletins, lottery tables, notes on baseball and basketball games played on Earth, and schedules of boxing and wrestling matches held here on Bamberga. The doors of both movie theaters and the door of the library opened into Broadway. The sports arena and the church were on the floor immediately below. At night you couldn't push your way through Broadway and your eyes were blinded by the meaningless advertisements. Actually, they weren't that meaningless—every night they reminded the workers what awaited them when they got back to their hearths with stuffed wallets.

Now Broadway was empty and half dark. Bela turned down one of the hallways. Identical doors stretched to the left and to the right. This was the dormitory. Tobacco and cologne wafted from the rooms. In one of the rooms, its door ajar, Bela saw a man lying on a bed and went in. The man's face was covered with pieces of plaster and a single eye, not shielded by the plaster, stared at the low ceiling.

"I'm lying here," Joshua said. "I should be in the mine, but I'm lying here, and I'm losing tons of money with every hour. I'm even afraid to add it up."

"How do I know?" Joshua replied. "I got so drunk last night that I can't remember a thing. Damn me... I was on the wagon for a month. And now I drank up a day's pay, and I'm lying here, and I'll lie here some more." He went back to staring at the ceiling.

Well, what can I do with him, Bela thought. Convince him that drinking is bad for him? He knows that himself. When he gets up, he'll stay in the mines fourteen hours a day to make up his losses, and when he gets back to Earth, he'll have black radiation paralysis and he'll never have children, or if he does, they'll be deformed.

"Do you know that working more than six hours in the mines is dangerous?" asked Bela.

"Go on," Joshua said. "It's none of your business. You don't have to do the work."

"Thank you, Mr. Commissar," Joshua grumbled. "You're worrying about the wrong things. Why don't you close down the saloon and find out who the moonshiners are."

Hah, he said to himself as he headed back to his office. If I did try to shut down the saloon, you'd be the first one to yell and scream at the meetings that all kinds of communists are sticking their noses in other people's business. There's no way out of this vicious circle, no way.

Bela went into his room and saw that Samuel Livingston, an engineer, was sitting there. The engineer was reading a newspaper and eating sandwiches. A chessboard with the pieces set lay on the table before him. Bela said hello and sat down wearily at the table.

Bela opened the packages. Three of them had books, the fourth a letter from his mother and several postcards of the New Budapest. There was also a pink envelope on the table. Bela knew what was in it but he opened it anyway. "Mister Com-

missar! Get the hell out of here. Don't make waves. While you're still in one piece. Well-wishers." Bela sighed and put the note aside.

In silence Bela played the Caro-Kann defense. The engineer had gained a slight positional advantage. Bela picked up a sandwich and chewed it thoughtfully, staring at the board.

"You know, Bela," the engineer said, "the first time I see you happy I'll admit that I've lost the ideological war."

"No," said the engineer. "You're doomed. Look around, see for yourself, you are doomed."

"Check," said the engineer. "You were told right. A lot had been underestimated, and therefore a lot that was said was nonsense. It was silly to say that you would lose military strength or the economic rivalry. Any strong government and any right-enough state cannot be conquered in a military or economic way. Yes, yes, communism as an economic system is winning, that's obvious. Where are they now, the famous empires of the Morgans, Rockefellers, Krupps, and Mitsui, and Mitsubishi? They all went broke and they're all forgotten. There are just a few remnants left, like our Space Pearl, a solid establishment producing luxurious mattresses for an elite clientele... and even they must mask themselves in slogans of general social consciousness. Check again. And several million stubborn hotel owners, real estate agents, and grim craftsmen, they're all doomed too. They're surviving only because both Americas still have currency. But here you are at a dead end.

There is a power that even you cannot overcome—I mean Philistinism, the obliqueness of the petty person. The middle-class type cannot be conquered with might because it would have to be exterminated physically to do so. And it can't be conquered by ideas, because the bourgeoisie is organically incapable of absorbing ideas."

"You're right, Sam. We still have them, too, for now, and you've noticed them. But you didn't notice that we have many fewer than you do, and that they have a low profile. We don't have rampant philistinism, Sam. In a generation or two, they'll be gone completely."

"You say in two generations? How about in twenty thousand generations? Take off your rose-colored glasses, Bela! They're all around you, these petty people. I'm not talking about the adventurers and the kids who are playing at it. Take people like Joshua, Smith, Blackwater. You know the ones you yourself call 'aware' or 'quiet,' depending on your mood. They have so few desires, there's nothing you can offer them. And what they do want they get without any communism. They'll become owners of bars, get a wife and have children, and live out their quiet lives to their satisfaction. What do they care about communism or capitalism? Capitalism is even better because it blesses that kind of life. Man is cattle by nature. Give him a filled food trough, no worse than his neighbor's, let him stuff his belly, and give him the opportunity to laugh once a day over some simple-minded show. You're going to say, 'We can offer him more.' But what does he need more for? He'll reply, 'Mind your own business/ A petty, small-minded, indifferent head of cattle."

"You're maligning mankind, Sam. Joshua and company seem like cattle to you only because you've worked very hard to make them seem that way. Who assured them from infancy that

money was the most important thing? Who taught them to envy millionaires, house owners, the neighborhood tavern owner? You filled their heads with stupid movies and stupid books and told them that they can't jump higher than God. And you beat it into their heads that life was God, a house, and business, and nothing else in the entire world. That's how you turn people into cattle. But a man isn't a head of cattle, Sam. Tell him from infancy that the most important thing in life is friendship and knowledge, that there is an enormous world out there besides his cradle, which he and his friends will have to conquer, and then you will have a real man.. .Now there, I missed the rook."

"You may pass," the engineer said. "I won't argue with you. Perhaps the role of environment is as important as you say. Although even with your system of upbringing, with the state frowning on bourgeois behavior and so on, there are still philistines growing up in your countries. And with all our upbringing there are still people growing up that you call real men. Of course, you do have many fewer philistines than we do .. .Check...Still, I don't know what you're planning to do with the two billion philistines from the capitalist world. We're not planning to reeducate them, you know. Yes, capitalism is a corpse, but it's a dangerous corpse. And you've opened all your borders. And while the borders are open, philistinism in all its manifestations will seep over them. Watch that you don't drown in it...Check again."

"It would be stupid to deny the danger of the bourgeoisie," Bela said. "One of your politicians put it correctly when he said that the ideology of a small businessman is a greater threat to communism than the now long-forgotten hydrogen bomb. But he addressed the threat incorrectly. It's not a threat to communism, but to all humanity. Because in all your thinking, Sam,

there is one mistake. The philistine is still a person and he always wants something more. But since he is a head of cattle at the same time, this striving for something greater takes on monstrous forms, for instance, the lust for power, the lust for adulation, the lust for popularity. When two such men clash, they tear each other apart like mad dogs. And when two such men agree, they tear apart everyone around them and create global problems like fascism, segregation, genocide. And that is primarily why we are waging a struggle against the bourgeoisie. And soon you will have to start that war, too, just so that you don't drown in your own manure. Remember the teachers' march on Washington last year?"

"I do," said Livingston. "But I just think that battling Philistinism is like cutting water with a knife.

"Engineer," laughed Bela, "that statement is as unsubstantiated as the apocalypse. You're simply a pessimist. How does it go? The criminals will rise above the heroes, the wise men will be silent, and the fools will speak; nothing of what people think will come to pass.'"

"Well, so what," said Livingston. "The times were like that. And of course I'm a pessimist. What is there to be optimistic about? For that matter, for you people, too?"

"I'm not a pessimist," said Bela. "I'm simply a poor worker. But the time of the poor in spirit is over, Sam. It passed long ago, just as it said in the apocalypse."

The door flew open and on the doorstep stood a tall man, balding and pale, with a black face. Bela was frozen, looking at him. After a second he recognized him. Well here it is, he thought with sadness and relief. Here's the end. The man looked past the engineer and came into the room. Now he was looking only at Bela.

Bela rose. The engineer also stood up respectfully. A huge tanned man in a baggy jumpsuit came in behind Yurkovsky. His glance skimmed Bela and rested on the engineer.

"Please excuse me," the engineer said and left. The door shut behind him. After taking a few steps down the corridor, the engineer stopped and whistled thoughtfully. Then he took out a cigarette and lit it. So, he thought, the ideological battle on Bamberga is entering a new phase. Well have to take measures immediately.

Thinking, he walked down the corridor, speeding up as he went. He almost ran into the elevator. He went up to the top floor and headed for the radio room. The dispatcher looked at him in surprise.

"I've received bad news from home," he panted. "When is the next session with Earth?"

Livingston sat at the table, pulled a sheet of paper from a pad, and quickly wrote a radiogram.

"Send it quickly, Mike," he said, handing the man the paper. "This is very important."

"Why are you doing this?" he asked. "Who sells Space Pearl stock at the end of the year?"

Yurkovsky sat down and pushed the chess board aside with his elbow. Zhilin sat in a corner.

"In the past year the company has sent four transport ships with pressed cellulose to Bamberga. What work on Bamberga requires so much cellulose?"

"Neither do I. They distill alcohol from the cellulose, Comrade Barabacs. Any hedgehog can see that."

Bela squeezed his hands. "I've talked to that bastard twenty times. He doesn't listen. He sees nothing, hears nothing, and understands nothing. He's very sorry that I have poor sources of information. You know what, Vladimir Sergeyevich, either you get me the hell out of here or you give me permission to shoot the vipers. I can't do a thing. I've convinced, I've begged, I've threatened. It's like talking to a wall. A commissar from IACC is just a red scarecrow for the workers. No one wants to talk to me. 'I don't know nothing and it's not any damn business of yours/ They don't give a damn about international labor laws. I can't go on like this. Have you seen the posters on the walls?"

Yurkovsky was looking at him thoughtfully, twisting the white bishop in his hand.

"There's no one to lean on here," Bela continued. "They're all bandits, or quiet lowlifes who dream of filling their pockets, and they don't care if they drop dead after that or not. The real people don't come here. It's the rejects, the losers, the lumpen. My hands shake at night after all this. I can't sleep. Yesterday I was called in to sign a report about an accident. I refused, it was obvious that the man's space suit had been torn open with an acetylene torch. Then that bastard, the secretary of the union, said that he would lodge a complaint against me. A month ago three girls appeared on Bamberga and disappeared the same morning. I went to the director, and that son of a bitch tells me to my face, 'You're having hallucinations, Mr. Commissar, it's time for you to get back to your wife if you're imagining girls/

Finally, I was shot at three times. Yes, yes, I know that not one of them tried to hit me, but that doesn't make it any easier for me. And to think that I was sent here to safeguard the liv r and health of those idiots. They can all go..."

"Allow me to leave," Bela said. "That comrade there," he said pointing to Zhilin, "must be the new commissar..."

"That's not the new commissar," Yurkovsky said. "Let me introduce you two. This is Flight Engineer Zhilin of the Takhmasib.

"My ship," Yurkovsky explained. "Here's what we will do now. We'll go to the director and I will have a few words with him. Then we will talk with the workers." He rose. "Don't worry, Bela, don't get depressed. You're not the first. I've had this Bamberga up to here."

Bela said anxiously, "But we should take some of our men with us. There could be a fight. The director has been feeding a whole gang of gangster here."

"What men of ours?" Yurkovsky asked. "You just said that you can't depend on anyone here."

He unlocked his safe and took out a gun. His face was pale and determined. The first bullet goes in the bastard, he thought happily. I don't care who's shooting at me, Mr. Richardson gets the first bullet, right in his fat, smooth sneaky face.

Yurkovsky looked at Bela closely. "You know, Bela," he said perspicaciously, "if I were you, I'd leave the gun behind or give it to Comrade Zhilin. I'm afraid you won't be able to control yourself."

Yurkovsky opened the door and stopped. Brave Sergeant Higgins, dressed in a fresh parade uniform and light blue helmet, stopped before him. Higgins saluted smartly.

"Sir," he said, "Chief of Police of the Bamberga Mines Sergeant Higgins at your command."

The four men went down a short corridor and came out on Broadway. It wasn't even 6:00 p.m., but Broadway was flooded with bright lights and crowded with workers, their anxious voices humming.

Yurkovsky walked slowly, smiling pleasantly and looking carefully into the workers' faces. He could see their faces clearly in the even illumination of the daylight lamps—haggard, with an unhealthy claylike pallor and circles under the eyes, apathetically indifferent, angry, curious, vicious, hostile. The workers made way for the visitors, then moved together again behind Higgins's back, and followed.

Sergeant Higgins shouted, "Make way for the Inspector General! Don't push, boys! Make way for the Inspector General!"

Thus the men reached the elevator and went up to the administration floor. The crowd was even larger here, but they didn't make way. Among the tired faces of the workers were some obnoxious merry faces.

Now Sergeant Higgins walked in front, pushing aside the men with his stick. "Make way," he would say softly, "move over...make way..." The back of his neck between his collar and helmet turned red and sweaty.

Zhilin brought up the rear. The obnoxious faces pushed their way to the front of the crowd and called out:

Someone tried to trip Zhilin. He didn't turn around, but he did start looking at his feet. Seeing another foot clad in soft suede sticking out, he stepped on it carefully, putting his entire weight on it. He had on extremely heavy boots with textured magnetized taps. Someone howled.

Zhilin looked at the twisted white face with its tiny mustache and said, "Do forgive me, I'm so clumsy!"

Sergeant Higgins, sopping wet, finally got to the door with the cracked plaque and opened it for Yurkovsky.

Yurkovsky and Bela went in. Zhilin stepped over the coaming and looked back. He saw a multitude of obnoxious faces, and then, behind them, in the tobacco smoke, he saw the grim and hostile faces of the workers. Higgins also crossed the coaming and shut the door.

The office of Mr. Richardson, director of the mines, was large. There were easy chairs and, along the walls, display cases with ore samples and replicas of the largest "space pearls" found on Bamberga. A well-heeled and pleasant-looking man in black rose from behind his desk to greet Yurkovsky.

"Oh, Mr. Yurkovsky," he warbled and, arms outstretched, walked around the desk toward Yurkovsky. "Fm so glad..."

"Don't bother," said Yurkovsky, coming around the other side of the desk. "I won't shake hands with you anyway."

The director stopped, smiling pleasantly. Yurkovsky sat at the desk and turned to Bela.

"Yes!" said Bela with pleasure. "This is the director of the mines, Mr. Richardson."

"Oh, Mr. Barabacs," he said reproachfully, "do I owe Mr. Inspector's coldness to you?"

"Please," the director said with great politeness. He crossed the room unhurriedly, unlocked a large wall safe, took out a large brown leather case, and removed a thick sheet of paper edged in gold. "Please," he repeated and placed the paper in front of Yurkovsky.

Sergeant Higgins took the key with a stone face. Yurkovsky examined the patent, folded it into fourths, and placed it in his pocket. Mr. Richardson continued smiling pleasantly. Zhilin thought that he had never seen a man with such a charming appearance. Yurkovsky put his elbows on the desk and thoughtfully gazed at Richardson.

Richardson muttered, "I would be very happy to learn what all these strange actions mean, Mr. Yurkovsky."

"You are charged with a number of crimes against international law," Yurkovsky said casually. Mr. Richardson, astounded, spread his arms. "You are charged with overstepping the legal bounds of cosmic areas." There was no limit to Mr. Richardson's amazement. "You are charged with the murder— as yet unpremeditated—of sixteen workers and three visiting women."

"Among other crimes," Yurkovsky said. "I am removing you from all positions of authority and you will be arrested and sent to Earth where you will face an international tribunal. But for now, you are free."

"And you are right to do so," Yurkovsky said. "Be here in an hour to turn your affairs over to your replacement."

Richardson turned sharply, went to the door and opened it wide. "My friends!" he said loudly. "These people have arrested me! They don't like your high wages! They want you to work six hours and remain paupers!"

Yurkovsky watched him with curiosity. Higgins, unbuttoning his holster, backed toward the desk. Richardson was pushed aside. Young bucks rushed the room, and they were pushed aside too. The office was quickly filled with workers. A solid wall of gray coveralls and angry, grim faces stopped in front of the desk. Yurkovsky looked around and saw that Zhilin was on his right, hands in his pockets, and Bela, hunched over, hands tight on the back of a chair, was not letting Mr. Richardson out of his sight. His face was much more vicious than that of any of the angry workers. The director is going to get it, thought Yurkovsky.

Sergeant Higgins, gun in hand, was pushing his nightstick into the chest of one of the workers and muttering, "No illegal actions, boys, calm down, boys, calm down..."

Joshua, covered with bandages, pushed his way through the crowd. "We don't want to fight with anyone, Mr. Inspector General," he said hoarsely, fixing his hostile eyes on Yurkovsky. "But we won't let you get away with your tricks here."

"And I tell you it's none of your business!" Joshua shouted. He turned to the crowd and asked, "Right, boys?"

The bullet whizzed behind Yurkovsky and shattered a display case. Bela moaned, lifted the chair, and brought it down on Mr. Richardson's head, who was standing in the first row, his

hands clasped in prayer. Zhilin took his hands out of his pockets and prepared to jump on someone. Joshua leaped back in fright.

Yurkovsky stood and said angrily, "Who's the fool shooting over there? He almost hit me. Sergeant, what are you standing around for? Take that idiot's gun away from him!"

Higgins obediently plunged into the crowd. Zhilin put his hands back into his pockets and sat down on the edge of the desk. He looked over at Bela and laughed. Bela's face was radiant with bliss. He was watching Richardson, who was being picked up by two thugs, staring in anger and confusion at Bela, Yurkovsky, and the workers. Richardson's eyes were shut and a dark stream of blood was spreading on his smooth white brow.

"By the way," Yurkovsky said, "all of you are to turn in whatever weapons are here. I'm talking to you, you shitheads! From this moment on, anyone found with a weapon will be shot on the spot. I invest Commissar Barabacs with that right!"

Zhilin walked calmly around the desk, took out his gun, and handed it to Barabacs. Barabacs, staring fixedly at the nearest gangster, slowly cocked the trigger. It clicked loudly in the ensuing silence. An empty space formed around the gangster. He turned pale, took a gun out of his back pocket, and threw it on the floor. Bela kicked it into a corner and turned to the bully still holding up Richardson.

The thug let go of Richardson and, with a crooked grin, shook his head. "I don't have any," he said.

"Good," Yurkovsky said. "Sergeant, help these people disarm. Let's return to our conversation. We were interrupted," he said, turning to Joshua. "You were saying something about my keeping out of your affairs, yes?"

"Yes," said Joshua. "We are free men, and we came here on our own to earn money. And don't get in our way. We don't bother you, you don't bother us."

"We'll leave the question of who's bothering whom aside for now," Yurkovsky said. "But I would like to tell you something." He took out several glittering stones from his pocket and set them on the desk. "Here's the so-called space pearls," he said. "You all know them well. They are ordinary precious and semiprecious stones which for a long time were subjected here on Bamberga to cosmic radiation and low temperatures. They have no special qualities aside from the very pretty shine. Rich ladies pay ridiculously high amounts for them, and your company has grown rich on their silliness. Using the demand for these stones, the company is getting rich."

"And so are you," Yurkovsky agreed. "But here's the point. In the eight years that the company has existed on Bamberga, close to two thousand men have completed three-year work contracts. Do you know how many of the ones who returned are still alive? Less than five hundred. The average life span of a returned worker is under two years. You bust your guts here on Bamberga for three years so that you can rot alive on Earth for two. And that happens primarily because Bamberga does not follow the regulations of the International Commission which forbid working more than six hours in your mines. On earth you take cures and suffer because you can't have children or because your children are deformed. These are crimes of the company, but I'm not talking about the company now."

"Wait," said Joshua and raised his hand. "Let me talk, too. We've heard all that before. Mister Commissar has drilled our ears with that stuff. I don't know about the others, but I don't care about those who have died. I'm a healthy man and I have no intention of dying."

"It's my business whether or not I have children. And I'm the one who has to take the cure, not you. Thank God, I'm of age and have been answering for my actions for many years. I don't want to hear any speeches. You've taken away the guns from

the gangsters and I say good, find the moonshiners and shut down the saloon. Right?" he turned to the crowd. The crowd muttered vaguely. "What are you mumbling about? I'm right. Who's ever heard of two-dollar drinks? And take care of the bribe takers. That would be right, too. But don't interfere in my work. I came here to earn money and that's what I'm going to do. I've decided to open my own business and I will. And your speeches are not necessary. You can't buy a house with words..."

"No, he's not right," Yurkovsky said. His face reddened and he shouted, "What do you think, you idiots, we're just going to let you die? This isn't the twelfth century, you know! It's your business, your business," he said in a normal voice again. "There are maybe four hundred of you fools here. And there are four billion of us. And we don't want you to die, and you won't. All right, I won't talk about your spiritual poverty any more. I see you can't understand that. Only your children will, if you ever have any. I will talk to you in your language, in the language of the law. Humanity has passed a law forbidding you to work yourself to the grave. It's a law, understand? The law! The company will answer to the law, but you remember this: Humanity does not need your mines. The mines on Bamberga can be shut down at any moment, and then everyone will sigh with relief. And keep this in mind: If the IACC commissar reports one more instance of disorders of any kind—overtime, bribery, alcohol, shooting—the mines will be shut down and Bamberga will be turned into cosmic dust. That's the law and I'm telling you this in the name of humanity."

The crowd grew angry. Someone shouted, "So, you shut down the mines and kick us out on the streets?"

Yurkovsky stood up. "Don't talk nonsense," he said. "Where did you get such a ridiculous picture of life? There is so much work to be done on Earth and in space—real, truly important work, that everyone needs, understand—not a handful of rich

ladies, but everyone! Incidentally, I have an offer for you from IACC—anyone who wants to may quit the company in the next month and change over to construction and technical work on other asteroids and satellites of large planets. Now, if all of you voted to close down these stinking mines, I could do it today. There will always be more work than can be done."

"Naturally, about five times less than here," Yurkovsky said. "But you will have work for the rest of your lives, and good friends, real people who will turn you into real people too! And you'll be healthy and be part of the most important work in the world."

"Businessmen!" Yurkovsky said with inexpressible revulsion. "Well, it's time to finish up. Remember that I have arrested this man," he said pointing at Richardson, "and he will be tried. You will now elect a temporary director and tell me who it is. I will be in Commissar Barabacs's room."

Joshua said glumly to Yurkovsky, "That law is wrong, Mr. Inspector General. How can you not let workers make money? You Communists are always bragging that you're for the workers."

"My friend," Yurkovsky said softly, "the Communists are for completely different workers. We're for workers, not small businessmen."

Bela laughed. "Well, you'll never see them again," he said. "Someone's going to become a small businessman."

"The hell with them," Yurkovsky said. "But Bela, I must say your nerves... uhm... are really shot."

Yurkovsky spoke disdainfully, "A polite bastard. Just look at these rooms, comrades! They've built themselves a palace, and the death planeters live in the elevator! No, I'll take care of that, I won't leave it like that."

"My God," Bela said dreamily. "To sit at a table with normal, decent people and hear nothing about the dollar or stocks or that people are cattle.. .Vladimir Sergeyevich, couldn't you send me someone here, please," he begged.

"Bear with it a little longer, Bela," Yurkovsky said. "This shop is closing up soon."

"Speaking of stocks," Zhilin said. "I can imagine the bedlam at the radio room..."

"Certainly," Bela said. "They're buying and selling places in line to the radioman, eyes rolling, mouths foaming... Oh, when will I get out of here!"

"By the way, Bela, could they end up with someone more or less decent as director?"

"Why not?" he said, "sure they will. The engineers here are not bad—small businessmen."

"You left the stones back there," he grumbled. "I picked them up. We have all kinds of people here, you know."

It was the hour of the usual predinner chores. Yura was suffering over the Course in the Theory of Metals. Rumpled and sleepy, Yurkovsky was leafing quietly through another report. From time to time he yawned deliciously, delicately covering his mouth with his hand. Bykov was sitting in his chair, reading his last magazines. It was the twenty-fourth day of the journey, somewhere between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.

"Changes in the crystal pattern of the cadmium types depending on the temperatures in the region of low temperatures are determined, as we have seen, by the correspondence..." read Yura. He thought, I wonder what will happen when Alexei Petrovich's last magazines are read? He remembered a short story by Caldwell about a fellow whittling a small stick on a hot day and everyone waiting to see what would happen when the stick was worn away. He snickered and just then Yurkovsky turned to Bykov.

"If you only knew how tired I am of all this, Alexei!" Yurkovsky said. "How I want to refresh myself..."

"Restless old man," Bykov said and shut his magazine. "You're not twenty-five any more. Why do you keep asking for trouble?"

"Why...uhm...trouble?" Yurkovsky asked. "It will be a small, absolutely safe expedition..."

"Haven't you had enough?" asked Bykov. "First there was the absolutely safe expedition in the cave with the leeches, then the safe expedition with the death planeters—by the way, how's your liver?—and then that wild descent to Bamberga."

"Your duty was to have the director come up on the Tak-hmasib and together we would have given it to him—threatening to burn down the mine with our reactors, asking the workers to hand over the gangsters and distillers—and there would not have been any ridiculous shooting. Why do you always pick the most dangerous option?"

"What do you mean 'dangerous'?" Yurkovsky asked. "Danger is a subjective concept. It seems dangerous to you, but not at all to me."

"Fine," said Bykov. "A search in Saturn's ring seems dangerous to me, and I will not permit you to undertake it."

"Well, all right, all right," Yurkovsky said, "we'll talk about it later." He turned a few pages and then looked at Bykov again. "Sometimes you astound me, Alexei!" he announced. "If I ever come across a man who called you a coward, I would smear him across the wall, but sometimes I look at you and..." He shook his head and turned a few more pages.

"Sensible bravery is an oxymoron. The peace of a mountain stream, the cool of the summer sun,' as Kipling puts it. We sing a song to the madness of the brave!..."

"The song is over," said Bykov. "Nowadays we must work, not sing. I don't know what an oxymoron is, but sensible bravery is the only kind that is viable in our day. Without all those...deceased. Who needs a deceased Yurkovsky?"

"What utilitariansim!" Yurkovsky exclaimed. "I don't want to say that only I am correct! But don't forget that there are people with various characters and temperaments. Now for me, dangerous situations bring pleasure. I'm bored living just like this! And thank God, I'm not the only one..."

"You know what, Volodya," Bykov said, "next time take Bargat as your captain—if he's still alive by then—and the two of you can fly into the sun for all I care. But I have no intention of indulging your pleasures."

Both fell into an angry silence. Yura went back to reading: "Changes in the crystal pattern of the cadmium type depending on the temperature..." Could Bykov really be right? he thought. How boring, if he is. It's true what they say—the most sensible course is the most boring one...

Zhilin came in holding a paper in his hand. He went over to Bykov and said in a low voice, "Here, Alexei Petrovich, from Mikhail Antonovich..."

There's the flight plan for Iapetus, Yura thought. They'll go on somewhere else, and I won't be here any more. Yura looked sadly at Zhilin. Zhilin was wearing his checked shirt, its sleeves rolled up.

Yurkovsky suddenly said, "Understand this, Alexei. I'm old now. In a year or two I'll remain on Earth forever, like Dauge, like Misha...And perhaps this flight is my last chance. Why won't you let me go?"

"I don't want you to go not so much because it is dangerous," Bykov said slowly, "but because it is foolishly dangerous. Really, Vladimir, it's a wild idea—the artificial origins of the rings of Saturn. It's just senility talking, and nothing more."

"You always lacked imagination, Alexei," Yurkovsky said dryly. "The cosmogony of Saturn's rings is not at all clear, and I feel that my theory has as much right to exist as any other more

rational, you might say, theory. I'm not even mentioning the fact that my theory has more than a scientific content. A theory must have moral meaning as well—it must awaken the imagination and force people to think..."

"What does imagination have to do with it?" Bykov asked. "It's simple calculation. The probability of aliens coming to our solar system is low. The probability that they put it in their heads to destroy their satellites and build rings out of them is, I think, even lower..."

"Well, all right, let's say you're right," Bykov said. "Let's say that aeons ago aliens came into the solar system and for some reason built an artificial ring near Saturn, left their mark, so to speak. But do you really hope to find confirmation of your theory in this first and only search in the ring?"

"I know one thing," Bykov said angrily. "You don't have a chance, and the whole project is crazy."

They both fell silent again, and Yurkovsky took up the report again. He looked very sad and very old. Yura felt unbearably sorry for him, but he didn't know how to help. He looked at Zhilin. Zhilin was thinking hard. Yura looked at Bykov. Bykov was pretending to read a magazine. It was apparent that he felt sorry for Yurkovsky, too.

Zhilin suddenly said,"Alexei Petrovich, why do you feel that if the chances are slight, there is no hope?"

"The world is a big place," Zhilin said. "I liked Vladimir Sergeyevich's words, 'What do we know of probabilities?'"

"I remember a man," Zhilin said uncertainly. "He had a very interesting life..." Zhilin stopped uncertainly. "Am I disturbing

"Tell the story," Yurkovsky demanded and resolutely shut the cover of the report.

"I was still a kid then and didn't understand much and forgot much, perhaps the most interesting part. It was night and I never did see the man's face well. But his voice was ordinary, a bit sad and hoarse, and he coughed occasionally, as though embarrassed. In a word, if I were to run into him somewhere on the street or at someone's house, Fm not likely to recognize him.

"We met at the beach. I had just been in the water and was sitting on a rock. Then I heard pebbles spilling behind me—he was coming down the hill—and I smelled a cigarette. Then he stopped next to me. As I said, this happened at night. The sky was covered with clouds and a storm was brewing out at sea. A strong warm wind blew along the beach. The wind blew out long orange sparks from the stranger's cigarette, which disappeared over the deserted beach. It was a beautiful sight; I remember it clearly. I was only sixteen and I didn't even expect him to talk to me, but he did. He began very strangely.

"I decided that he was simply thinking aloud and said nothing. I turned and looked at him, but I didn't see anything, it was too dark.

"He repeated, "The world is full of amazing things,' and then inhaled, showering me with sparks.

"I said nothing again; I was very shy then. He finished the cigarette, lit another one and sat on the rocks next to me. He muttered once in a while, but the noise of the water overpowered his words and all I heard was indistinct mumbling.

"He said, *I have to start way back, because if I tell you right away what the problem is, you will not understand or believe me. And it's very important that you believe me. No one believes me, and now it's gone so far that../

"He stopped and after a pause said, 'It began in childhood. I started studying the violin and broke four glasses and a saucer/

" 'How's that?' I recalled an old joke about the lady telling her friend, 'Can you imagine, the superintendent threw in the firewood last night and broke the chandelier/ There's an old joke like that.

"The stranger laughed sadly and said, 'Just imagine it. In the first month of lessons. Even then my teacher said he had never seen anything like it in his life/

"I said nothing, but thought that it must have been very strange. I pictured him waving his bow around and striking the dish cabinet once in a while. That could have led him very far, indeed.

" 'It's a natural physical law,' he explained, 'the phenomenon of resonance/ And without taking a breath, he told me an appropriate joke from school physics, about soldiers marching across a bridge and making it collapse. Then he explained that glasses and saucers can be broken with vibrations if you pick the sound waves that correspond to the frequencies. I must say that it was then that I realized that sound was vibration.

"The stranger explained that vibration in everyday life (in domestic science, as he called it) was very rare, and he was very impressed by the fact that some ancient code of law took the possibility into account and prescribed a punishment for the person whose rooster shattered a neighbor's pitcher.

"I agreed that it must be a truly rare occurrence. I had never heard of it myself.

" 'Very, very rare/ he said. 'And I in one month broke four glasses and a saucer. But that was only the beginning/ He lit another cigarette and continued: 'Soon my parents and their friends noticed that I was breaking the law of butterside.'

" 'What surname?' he asked. 'Ah, the law? No, that's not a name. That's... how can I put it... a bit of a joke. You know the old saying, "Bread always falls butter side down; if it can happen it will..." and so on... meaning that bad things happen more frequently than good things. Or to put it scientifically, the probability of a desired event is always less than half.'

" 'Half of what?' I asked, and realized I had revealed my ignorance. He was surprised by my question.

" 'Explain it,' I said angrily, and he obediently set about explaining. He told me that probability was a numerical characteristic of the possibility of some event or other.

" 'The sandwich can fall butter side down or butter side up,' he said. 'I mean if you throw sandwiches at random, they'll fall either one way or the other. Half the time they'll fall butter side up and half butter side down. Understand?'

"Then he explained that if you drop a sandwich, say, a hundred times, it might fall butter side up not fifty times but fifty-five or only twenty, and that only after throwing it for a very long time would the butter side up occur approximately half the time. I pictured that poor sandwich with butter (and maybe some caviar) after it had been dropped to the floor a

thousand times, not even a very dirty floor, and asked if there were really people who bothered to do that. He told me that people used mostly coins and not sandwiches for exercises and started telling me how it was done, getting into deeper and deeper morasses. Soon I stopped understanding and sat staring at the gray sky, thinking that it would rain. From that first lecture on probability theory I remembered a half-familiar term, 'mathematical expectancy/ The stranger used that term often, and each time he did, I pictured a large room, like a waiting room with tiled floors and seated people holding briefcases and files and tossing coins and sandwiches into the air, waiting for something with great concentration. I still dream that often. But the stranger deafened me with the term 'theorem of Moivre-Laplace' and said that this had nothing to do with the issue at hand.

" 'You know, this wasn't at all what I wanted to tell you about/ he said in a voice that lacked its former animation.

" 'No,' he replied glumly. 'What kind of a mathematician would I make? I'm a fluctuation.'

" 'You know, my uncle was the first to notice,' he continued. 'I was absentminded and often dropped sandwiches. They always fell butter side up.'

"He sighed bitterly. 'That's fine when it happens once in a while...but when it happens all the time! You understand... always!'

" 'My uncle knew a little about mathematics and he was interested in probability theory. He suggested I drop a coin. We dropped it together. Even then I didn't realize that I was a doomed man, but my uncle did. That's just what he said to me, "You're a doomed man!"'

" The first time, I dropped the coin a hundred times and uncle dropped it a hundred times. It came out heads fifty-three times for him, and ninety-eight times for me. His eyes crawled to the top of his head. Mine too. Then I threw the coin another two hundred times, and just imagine, it came out heads one hundred ninety-six times. I should have known how these things end up. I should have known that one day tonight would come!' He sobbed here, I think. 'But then, you know, I was too young, younger than you. It all seemed very interesting to me. I thought it was fascinating to be the focus of all miracles/

" 'Uhm...the focus of all miracles. I can't think of another word, even though I've tried.'

"He calmed down a bit and started telling things chronologically, chain smoking and coughing. He told his story in detail, describing every point carefully and always giving a scientific basis for all the events. He astounded me with the breadth, if not depth, of his knowledge. He showered me with terminology from physics, mathematics, thermodynamics, and the kinetic theory of gasses, so that later, as a grown-up, I was often surprised why some term or other seemed familiar to me. Often he digressed into philosophical discussions, and sometimes he seemed to lack all sense of self-criticism; thus he frequently referred to himself as a 'phenomenon,' 'a miracle of nature,' and 'a gigantic fluctuation.' That was when I realized that it wasn't a profession. He announced that miracles don't exist, but what do exist are highly improbable events.

" Tn nature,' he lectured, 'the most probable events happen with the greatest frequency, and the least probable events with much less frequency.'

"He was referring to the law of nondiminution of entropy, but it was all over my head. Then he tried to explain the concept of the most probable state and fluctuation. My imagination was overwhelmed by the famous example of the air that had all collected in one-half of a room.

" 'In that case,' he said, 'everyone sitting in the other half would asphyxiate, and the others would think it a miracle. But it's no miracle, it's a completely realistic, but highly improbable fact. It would be a gigantic fluctuation, a minuscule deviation from the more probable state.'

"According to him, he was just such a deviation from the more probable state. He was surrounded by miracles. It was a trifle for him to see a twelve-point rainbow—he had seen them six or seven times.

" I've beaten the record of any amateur meteorologist/ he bragged. 'I have seen polar lights in Alma-Ata, the Brokken Vision in the Caucasus, and I've observed the famous green light, or "hunger's sword," over twenty times. I came to Batumi and a drought started there. I headed for the Gobi Desert and was caught in tropical rainstorms there three times/

"During his school years he took numerous exams and always got question number five. Once when he was taking a special course with only four people in it, so that there would only be four questions, he still got question number five because at the last minute the professor decided to add an extra question. His sandwiches still fell butter side up. (I'm apparently doomed to do this for the rest of my life,' he said. 'It will always remind me that I'm not an ordinary man but a gigantic fluctuation.') Twice he was present at the formation of large air lenses (Those are macroscopic fluctuations in the density of the air,' he explained unclearly) and both times those lenses lit matches in his hands.

"All the miracles that he came across he divided into three groups—pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. The sandwiches butter side up were in group one. The inexorable head cold that came and ended the first day of every month, regardless of the weather, belonged to group two. The third group contained rare phenomena of nature that had the honor of appearing in his presence. Once in his presence the second law of thermodynamics was broken: the water in a vase filled with flowers suddenly started removing the heat from the surrounding air

and brought itself to a boil, while the room was covered with frost. ('I was stunned after that, as you can imagine, and I still test the water with my finger before drinking it, say...') Balls of lightning often flew into his tent—he traveled a lot—and hung by the ceiling for hours. He finally got used to it and used the lightning for a reading lamp.

" 'Do you know what a meteorite is?' he asked. Youth likes jokes, and I replied that meteorites were falling stars that had nothing in common with stars that didn't fall.

" 'Meteorites sometimes hit houses,' he said thoughtfully. 'But that is a very rare occurrence, and there is only one recorded instance of a meteorite hitting a person. The only one of its kind, you know...'

"It turned out that it had happened in the Urals. He was walking in the mountains and stopped for a minute to tie his shoelace. A sharp rustling whistle came out of nowhere, and he felt a push on his behind and the pain of a burn.

" 'There was a hole this big on my pants,' he said. T was bleeding, but not hard. Too bad it's dark, or I would show you the scar.'

"He picked up some suspicious-looking rocks and keeps them in his desk; maybe one of them is the meteorite.

"Other things happened to him that were totally inexplicable from a scientific point of view, at least now, at our present level of science. Thus, once for no apparent reason he became the source of a powerful magnetic field. It was expressed this way: in his house all the objects made of iron flew from their places straight at him. His steel pen pierced his cheek, then something hit him hard on the back and head. He shielded his face, and trembled with fright. He was getting covered from head to toe with knives, forks, spoons, and scissors, and then it all stopped. The phenomenon didn't last more than ten seconds, and he had no idea how to explain it.

"Another time, getting a letter from a friend, the first in a very long while, he realized he had received the exact letter several years ago. He remembered that on the on the first letter, next to the signature, was a large splotch. Turning over the more recent letter he saw the splotch.

" 'None of these things repeated themselves,' he told me sadly. 'I considered them the most amazing in my collection, but that was until tonight/

"He often interrupted his story to announce something like, 'All this would be fine, you know, but today.. .That's just too much, I'm telling you/

" Tve considered it,' he said, 'I wrote. I even offered myself. But no one believes me. Even my family doesn't. Only my uncle believed me, and he's dead now. Everyone considers me eccentric and not a very funny joker. I simply can't imagine what they'll think after today/ He sighed and tossed away a cigarette butt. 'Perhaps it's better they don't believe me. Let's say that someone did believe me. They'd create a commission, which would follow me around all the time, waiting for miracles. I'm a loner by nature, and I've grown very testy with all this. Sometimes I don't sleep at night—I'm afraid to/

"I agreed with him about the commission. After all, he couldn't make the miracles happen at will. He was merely the focus of miracles, a point in space, as he put it, where highly improbable events occurred. It would have been better without the commission and the observation.

" 'I wrote to a famous scientist," he said, 'primarily about the meterorite and the water in the vase, but he treated it humorously. He replied that the meteorite didn't fall on me but on some Japanese chauffeur. And he very sarcastically suggested that I see a doctor. I became very interested in that chauffeur. I thought that he was another gigantic fluctuation—you realize that that's possible—but it turned out that he had died many years ago. Yes, you know.. / He paused in thought. 'But I did go

see a doctor. There's nothing special about me from a medical point of view, it seems. But he found that my nerves were shot and sent me here to this resort. And I went. How could I have known what would happen here?' He suddenly grabbed my shoulder and whispered, 'An hour ago my girlfriend flew away!'

" 'We were walking up there in the park. After all, I'm a man, and I had the most serious intentions. We met in the dining room, we went for a walk on the grounds, and she flew off/

" T don't know. We were walking, suddenly she screamed, gasped, rose from the earth and into the air. I didn't think fast enough, I just grabbed her foot, and then...'

"He shoved a solid object at me. It was a slipper, an ordinary light-colored slipper of medium size. 'You see, it's not completely impossible,' the phenomenon muttered. The chaotic motion of the body's molecules, the Brownian motion of the particles of a living colloid took on order. She was torn from the ground and carried off who knows where. It's very, very unlikely...Just tell me, should I consider myself a murderer?'

"I was astounded and said nothing. For the first time it occurred to me that he was making it all up. And he said sadly, 'And you see, that's not even the issue. After all, she might have caught on a tree somewhere. I didn't look for her because I was afraid I wouldn't find her. But you know...before, all these miracles affected only me. I didn't care for the fluctuations, but the fluctuations sure like me. And now? What if these things start happening to my friends?.. .Today a girl flies away, tomorrow a colleague falls through the ground, the day after tomorrow...Take you, for instance. You're not insured against anything, are you?'

"I had realized that myself, and I was feeling interested and spooky. That would be terrific, I thought. Now! I suddenly thought that I was flying up and I grabbed the rock I was sitting on. The stranger stood up.

" Tou know,' he said sadly, Td better go. I don't like meaningless sacrifices. You stay and I'll go. Why didn't it occur to me earlier?'

"He hurried along the shore, tripping on the rocks, and then shouted from a distance, 'Please excuse me, if something happens to you! It doesn't depend on me, you know!'

"He was moving further and further away and soon became a tiny black figure against the slightly phosphorescent waves. I thought that he threw something white into the sea. It was probably the slipper. That's how we parted.

"Unfortunately, I could never recognize him in a crowd, unless some miracle happened. I never heard anything more about him and I don't think that anything special happened at the seashore that summer. Probably his girlfriend caught on a branch and they got married. After all, he had the most serious intentions. I know only one thing: if someday, while shaking hands with a stranger, I suddenly feel that I'm becoming a powerful magnetic field and also see that my new acquaintance is a heavy smoker and coughs a lot, then I'll know it's him, the phenomenon, the focus of miracles, the fluctuation."

Zhilin finished the story and looked around at his listeners triumphantly. Yura liked the story, but as usual, he didn't stop to think whether or not Zhilin had made it up or was telling the truth. Just in case, he had laughed skeptically throughout the story.

"The moral is this," Yurkovsky explained, "nothing is impossible, some things are merely improbable."

"And besides that," Zhilin said, "the world is full of amazing things—that's one. And two, what do we know of probabilities?"

"Don't you try to confuse me, all of you," Bykov said and rose. "I see that you can't rest, Ivan, now that Mikhail An-

tonovich has a writer's laurels. You can put the story in your memoirs." "I certainly will," Zhilin said. "It's a good one, isn't it?" "Thank you, Vanya," Yurkovsky said. "You've helped distract me quite a bit. I wonder how that electromagnetic field arose?" "Magnetic," Zhilin corrected. "He told me it was magnetic." "Hm," said Yurkovsky and lapsed into thought.

After dinner the men of the Takhmasib were left alone together in the lounge. Mikhail Antonovich, just off duty, climbed into Bykov's chair with a sigh to read The Tale ofGenji before bedtime, and Yura and Zhilin settled in front of the screen of the magnitovision to watch something light. The lamp in the lounge was dimmed, the gloomy colors of the jungles through which the discoverers were plodding flashed by on the magnitovision screen, and the shiny pate of the navigator glistened under his reading lamp. It was very quiet.

Zhilin had already seen the movie, The Discoverers, and thought it was much more interesting to watch Yura and the navigator. Yura stared at the screen incessantly, sometimes impatiently adjusting the thin phonodemonstrator on his head. He was crazy about The Discoverers, whereas Zhilin laughed at it and thought how ridiculous and primitive the movie was, especially if one was watching it a second time and was over thirty. The exploits of the discoverers were nothing more than examples of voluptuous self-destruction, and that ricidulous Commander Sanders should be replaced immediately, sent to Earth as an archivist and chewed out, so that he will stop going crazy and killing off all those innocent people who could not contradict his orders. And bump off that hysterical woman, Praskovina. Send her off into the jungle alone, if she is so eager. What a crew! A bunch of suicides with infantile development. The doctor wasn't bad, but the author bumped him off at the beginning, apparently so that he wouldn't interfere with the commander's wild plan.

The most amusing thing was that Yura certainly had to see what was wrong with the movie, but there was no way he could be pulled away from the screen and made to read Genji, for instance...It had been that way since time immemorial and would probably always be that way, that young men up to a certain age prefer a drama with chases, exploits, and self-destruction to the drama of human souls, subtle emotions, which is more complex, fascinating, or tragic than anything else on this Earth...Oh, of course, he would say that Leo Tolstoy is a great memorial to the human spirit, and Dmitri Strogov has no equal when it comes to studying the inner world of the new man. But that would be lip service, opinions taught him. Of course, the time will come when he will be astounded to find Prince Andrei alive among the living, when he will hold his breath in fear and pity, when he will fully understand Soames Forsyte, when he will sense the immense pride that comes with looking at the sun that burns in the complex soul of Strogov's Tokmakov... But that will come later, after his own soul has suffered and loved.

Now Mikhail Antonovich was another case altogether. He looked up and fixed his small eyes on the darkness of the room. He was picturing, of course, the distant hero in strange garb and strange coif, with an unneeded sword in his belt, slender and mocking, a Japanese Don Juan—just as he had appeared from the pen of the woman genius—in a luxurious and filthy Japanese palace, setting out to travel invisibly across the world until translators of genius would be found for him. And Mikhail Antonovich sees him now as though there was no gap of nine centuries and a billion and one-half kilometers between them, and only he can see him; Yura cannot do that yet. Yura will be able to do so only in five years or so, when Tokmakov and the Forsytes and Katya and Dasha and many other characters will enter Yura's life...

The last discoverer died under the raised flag and the screen went black. Yura pulled the phonodemonstrator off his head and said thoughtfully, "That's an excellent film."

"What wonderful people, hah?" Yura pulled his cowlick. "Like a steel blade...the ultimate heroes. That Praskovina seemed a bit unnatural."

"No!" Yura looked around, saw Mikhail Antonovich, and switched to a whisper, "Of course, they're all real and pure, but..."

Yura was saying, "They're all fine, I'm not arguing with that, but Vladimir Sergeyevich is something else. He's more powerful than they are, more significant..."

Yura was saying, "What a swamp that was! It was all done so well—the brown ooze with the huge white flowers, and that glistening skin in the seaweed.. .and the cries of the jungle..." He stopped.

"No, no!" Zhilin said. "I've seen it already, and I'm a bit old for all those swamps, Yura. I've spent time in them and I know what really goes on in them..."

"Really, pal, the swamp isn't the point," Zhilin said, then leaned back in his chair and moved into his favorite pose: head back, hands clasped behind it, elbows spread. "And please don't think that I'm hinting about the difference in our ages. No. It's not true, you know, that there are children and adults. It's all much more complicated. There are adults and there are adults. Take, for instance, you, me, and Mikhail Antonovich. Would you now in your right mind start reading The TaJe of

Genji? I see the answer on your face. But Mikhail Antonovich is rereading Genji for the fifth time, I think, and I appreciated his charm only this year." Zhilin paused. "The charm of the character, of course. I appreciated the charm of Mikhail Antonovich much earlier.

"I know it's a classic and all that," he said. "But I wouldn't read Genji five times. It's all complicated and confused... and life is actually simple, much more simple than they depict in those books."

"No, life is complicated," Zhilin said. "Much more complicated than they show in those movies like The Discoverers. If you like, we can try to figure it out. Take Commander Sanders. He has a wife, son, and friends, and yet he faces death so easily. He has a conscience, and yet he leads his men to death so easily.. "

"Yura, they never forget about all that. And the point of the movie should not be that Sanders died heroically but how he forced himself to forget all that. Death is certain, pal. They don't have that in the movie and that's why it all seems simple. And if it had been included, the movie would have seemed more boring..."

"Perhaps," Yura said unwillingly. "But I still think that life must be regarded more simply."

Yura said, "There is cowardice, there is exploit, there is work—interesting and uninteresting work. Must it all be mixed up, and must cowardice be passed off for exploit and vice versa?"

Yura laughed. "I'm just putting it schematically, the way it happens in certain books. They take a character, drool around him, and then end up with a 'subtle paradox* or a 'contradictory figure/ And he is still just a character, like that Genji."

"We're all heroes a bit," Zhilin said profoundly. "We're each a hero in our own way. It's life that mixes everything up, her majesty life, that blessed villainess. Life forces proud Yurkovsky to beg inexorable Bykov. Life forces Bykov to refuse his best friend. Which one is the hero, the character? Life forces Zhilin, who wholeheartedly concurs with Bykov's iron line, to make up a story about a gigantic fluctuation, to at least express his protest against the inflexibility of the line. Zhilin's a character, too, Full of drool and no consistency of opinion. And famous vacuum welder Borodin? Didn't he see the meaning of life in putting his belly on the appropriate altar? And who shook his faith, and not with logic but simply with the look on his face? The corrupt barkeeper from the Wild West. He did shake your faith, didn't he?"

"Well, isn't Borodin a character? Well, is life simple? Pick a principle and stick to it. But what's good about principles is that they age. They age faster than man, and man is left only with the principles dictated by history. For instance, in our times, history has cruelly ordered the Yurkovskys: Halt! Enough! No discoveries are worth a single human life. Life can be risked only to save a life.

"People didn't invent that. History dictated that, and people only made the history. But wherever the general principle clashes with the individual, that's where the simple life ends and the complicated life begins. Life is like that."

They fell silent and Zhilin again sensed the torment of a split personality that had been plaguing him for several years. Every time he left on a flight, something extremely important, invaluable for mankind, more important than the rest of the Universe,

more important than the most magnificent things created by human hands, was left behind on Earth.

People—young people and children—were left behind on Earth. Millions and millions of Yuras were left behind, and Zhilin sensed that he could really help them, at least some of them. It didn't matter where—in a boarding school, in a factory club, or house of pioneers. He could help them enter life, find themselves, determine their place in the world.

He could teach them to want many things simultaneously and to want to work at full speed. Teach them not to bow to authority, but to study it and compare its teachings with life; to treat the experiences of people with caution, because life changes with startling speed; to despise philistine wisdom. Teach them that skepticism and cynicism in life are cheap, that it's a lot easier and more boring than being eternally surprised and pleased by life. Teach them to trust the feelings of their neighbors. Teach them that it's better to be wrong about a person twenty times than to treat everyone with suspicion; that it's not how others influence you, but how you influence others; and that one person alone isn't worth a damn.

Yurkovsky had known the director of the observatory on Dione for a long time, since the director had been a graduate student at the Institute of Planetology. Vladislav Kimovich Shershen had taken Yurkovsky's course, Giant Planets. Yurkovsky remembered him and loved him for the daring of his mind and his extraordinary direction and focus.

Shershen came out to the caisson to meet his old mentor. "I didn't expect this, I didn't," he said, leading Vladimir Ser-geyevich by the arm into his office.

Shershen was no longer the same. He wasn't the slender, black-haired youth, always tanned and slightly serious. Shershen was pale, bald, plump, and constantly smiling.

"I certainly didn't expect you!" he kept repeating with pleasure. "What made you decide to come see us, Vladimir Sergeyevich? No one told us..."

He sat Yurkovsky at his own desk in the office, pushing aside a pile of photocorrections in a spring press, and took the stool opposite.

Yurkovsky was looking around and nodding benignly. The office was small and bare—a real work area for a scientist on an interplanetary station. And Vladislav was just right for the place. He was wearing a worn but ironed jumpsuit with rolled-

up sleeves, his plump face was closely shaven, and the thin, half-gray strands of hair were neatly combed.

"YouVe aged, Vladislav," Yurkovsky said sadly. "And your ...uhm...figure...is different, too. You used to be an athlete, Vladislav."

"IVe been here six years, Vladimir Sergeyevich, with almost no leave," Shershen said. "Gravity is fifty times less than on the planet, and I don't have time to torment myself with expanders like our young people, and my heart is acting up, too, so I'm gaining weight. What do I need to be slim for, Vladimir Sergeyevich? My wife doesn't care, and it's not my style to diet to impress girls. My position doesn't allow fooling around anyway..."

"What's new at the Institute?" Shershen asked. "How's Gab-dul Kadyrovich's work?"

"Gabdul is stuck," Yurkovsky said. "He's eager to have your results, Vladislav. Essentially, all the planetology of Saturn depends on you. You've spoiled them, Vladislav, you've... uhm... spoiled them."

"Well," said Shershen, "we won't hold things up. Next year we begin deep launches...I wish you would send me some people, Vladimir Sergeyevich, some specialists, experienced, solid specialists..."

"Specialists," said Yurkovsky with a laugh. "You need specialists. But that is your function, Vladislav, preparing specialists. You should be sending them to the Institute, not the Institute to you. And I heard that Muller is leaving you for Tethys. You're losing what little we've given you."

Shershen shook his head. "Dear Vladimir Sergeyevich," he said, "I have to work, not prepare specialists. Big deal, Muller. Well, he is a good atmosphericist; he has two dozen fairly good works. But Dione has a program to complete; we can't chase after clever Mullers. And the Institute can keep its Mullers; no

one wants them. We need young, disciplined men...Who's in the coordination division now? Is it still Barkan?"

"Now, now Vladislav, Barkan is a good worker. But five new laboratories have opened in space, and they all need people."

"But, comrades!" Shershen said, "you have to plan in a human way! There are more observatories but no more specialists! That's wrong!"

"All right," Yurkovsky said merrily, "Your...uhm...displeasure, Vladislav, I will certainly pass along to Barkan. And in general, Vladislav, prepare all your complaints and comments—about your staff, your equipment. Use this opportunity, for at the present the authorities have invested me with the power to permit and to change. The highest authorities, Vladislav." Shershen raised his eyebrows questioningly. "Yes, Vladislav, you are speaking with IACC's inspector general."

Shershen looked up abruptly. "Ah...so that's it," he said slowly. "I didn't expect that!" He smiled again. "And here I was trying to figure out how the head of world planetology unexpectedly, without warning, came here... I wonder what about our little Dione warrants a general's visit?"

"Listen... uhm.. .Vladislav," Yurkovsky said. "We are pleased with the laboratory's work, you know that. And I am very pleased with you, Vladislav. You work...uhm...responsibly. And I had no intention of bothering you in my... uhm... official capacity. But there is the problem of personnel. You see, Vladislav, a certain concern, which I would call legitimate, is brought on by the fact that here...uhm...Well, in the last year you people finished twenty projects, good projects. Some are absolutely outstanding. For instance, uhm...the one on determining the depths of exospheric layers by the configurations of the ring shadows. Yes, good work. But there is not a single independent project among them. Shershen and Averin, Shershen and Shatrova.. .The question arises: Where is Averin alone

and Shatrova alone? Where's Svirsky? I mean, the impression is that you are carrying the weight of your young people. Of course, the results are the important things, the victor is not judged... uhm... but with your heavy work load, you must not forget to prepare specialists. Sooner or later they will have to work independently, and, in turn, teach. What's going on here?"

"It's a legitimate question, Vladimir Sergeyevich," Shershen said after a long pause. "But I can't imagine how to reply to it. It looks suspicious. I would say, terrible. I've tried several times to refuse a coauthorship—you know, just to save face. And imagine, the kids won't let me. And I understand them! Take Tolya Kravets." He patted the photocorrections. "A wonderful observer, a master of precise measurements, a brilliant engineer. But I guess he lacks experience.. .He has an enormous amount of fascinating observations, and almost no ability to do a qualified analysis of it. You see, Vladimir Sergeyevich, I'm a scientist. It hurts me to see the material go to waste, yet there's no reason to publish it in its raw state, so that Gabdul Kadyrovich has to make the conclusions himself. I can't control myself; I set down and start interpreting. Well... the lad had his pride...and so we have—Shershen and Kravets."

"Hm," Yurkovsky said. "That happens. Don't worry, Vladislav, no one is suggesting anything horrible...We know you well. Yes, Anatoly Kravets, I think I...uhm...remember him. A solid fellow, very polite. Yes, yes, I remember. He was very conscientious. For some reason I thought he was on Earth, in Abastumani...uhm...yes. Vladislav, please tell me about your coworkers. I've forgotten them all."

"Well," said Shershen, "that's not heard. There are only eight people on all of Dione. Well, we'll forget about Dietz and Olenov, because they're control engineers. Fine responsible people, not a single accident in three years. We don't need to talk about me, so that leaves five astronomers. There's Averin, an astrophysicist. He promises to become a valuable worker, but for now he spreads himself too thin. I've never liked that in

people. That's why Muller and I didn't get along. So, then there's Vitali Svirsky, also an astrophysicist."

"Wait, wait," Yurkovsky said. "Averin and Svirsky! Of course .. .what a wonderful pair they were! I remember, I was in a bad humor and failed Averin, and Svirsky refused to take my exam. It was a very touching rebellion, as I recall...Yes, they were great friends."

"I remember her!" Yurkovsky cried out. "A small merry woman, with eyes as blue as... uhm... forget-me-nots. Everyone courted her, and she laughed them off. She was a wonderful girl."

"She's not anymore," Shershen said. "I'm all mixed up in these affairs of the heart, Vladimir Sergeyevich. No, say what you want. I always disagreed with you on this and always will. Young girls do not belong on distant bases, Vladimir Sergeyevich."

"That's not the point, in the long run, even though I had expected much from that pair—Averin and Svirsky. But they demanded separate projects. Averin and I are working on their old project and Svirsky is working alone. All right, Svirsky is calm, controlled, and somewhat phlegmatic. I intend to leave him as my replacement when I go on vacation. He's not completely independent yet; I have to help him. And I've told you about Tolya Kravets. Zina Shatrova..."

Shershen stopped and scratched his head. "She's a girl! Knowledgeable, of course, but still.. .There's a vagueness about everything. Emotions. Of course, I have no complaints about her work. She's earning her bread on Dione, I guess. And there's Bazanov.

Shershen stopped to think. Yurkovsky glanced over at the photocorrections, then moved the press covering the title page. "Shershen and Kravets," he read. " 'Dust Components of Saturn's Bands.'" He sighed and went back to looking at Shershen.

"Bazanov is an excellent worker," Shershen said resolutely. "He's a bit recalcitrant, but his head is good and clear. But he's hard to get along with."

"He's an atmosphericist. You know, Vladimir Sergeyevich, he's overscrupulous. His project is finished; Muller had helped him. It's time to publish, but no! He's still unhappy with this and that, some things still seem unfounded.. .You know, there are people like that...too self-critical...self-critical and stubborn. We've been using his results for a long time... It puts us in a ridiculous position: we can't refer to his work. But I'm not too worried, to tell the truth. And he's also very stubborn and irritable."

"Yes," Yurkovsky said. "There was a very...independent student like that. Yes...very." He reached for the photocorrec-tion, as though accidentally, and leafed through it distractedly. "Yes...uhm...interesting. I haven't seen this work, yet, Vladislav," he said.

"It's my last," said Shershen, smiling. "I'll take the correction to Earth myself, when I go on vacation. The results are quite paradoxical, Vladimir Sergeyevich. Absolutely astonishing. Just look..."

Shershen walked around the desk and leaned over Yurkovsky. There was a knock at the door.

Through the low, oval hatch came a bony, pale man, bent over. Yurkovsky recognized him—it was Petya Bazanov, kindly and extremely fair, sweet and gentle. Yurkovsky had started smiling pleasantly, but Bazanov merely nodded coldly, came up to the desk, and placed a folder before Shershen.

Yurkovsky said calmly, "What is it, Peter... uhm... I don't recall your patronymic. You don't even wish to say hello to me?" "

Bazanov slowly turned his thin face toward Yurkovsky and, squinting, looked into his eyes. "Please forgive me, Vladimir Sergeyevich," he said. "Hello. Fm afraid I forgot myself a bit."

"I'm afraid you really have forgotten yourself, Bazanov," Shershen said in a low voice.

Bazanov shrugged and left, slamming the door behind him. Yurkovsky stood up sharply and was pulled up and away from the table. Shershen caught him by the arm.

"We're supposed to keep our magnetic taps on the floor, Comrade Inspector General," he said with a laugh. "This isn't the Takhmasib, you know."

Yurkovsky was staring at the shut door. Could that really be Bazanov? he thought in amazement.

Shershen grew serious. "Don't be surprised by Bazanov's behavior," he said. "We had an argument over these coefficients of absorption. He considers it beneath him to compute the coefficients, and he's been terrorizing the entire observatory for two days now."

Yurkovsky frowned, trying to remember. Then he just waved it off. "Let's not talk about it," he said. "Come, Vladislav, show me your paradoxes."

A thin bridge was set up from the Takhmasib's reactor ring through the rocky plain to the cylindrical tower of the elevator. Yura moved slowly and carefully down the bridge, sensing with pleasure that the period of preparation in weightless conditions had helped. Ahead some fifty paces Mikhail An-tonovich's space suit glittered in Saturn's yellow light.

The huge yellow scythe of Saturn peeked over his shoulder. Straight ahead over the near horizon glowed the greenish damaged moon. That was Titan, Saturn's largest satellite and

the largest satellite in the solar system. Yura looked back at Saturn. The rings weren't visible from Dione, and all Yura could see was a thin silvery ray that cut the scythe in half. The unilluminated part of the disk glowed pale green. Rhea was moving somewhere behind Saturn.

Mikhail Antonovich waited for Yura and they pushed through the narrow rounded door together. The observatory was underground; the only things on the surface were the grids of the interferometer towers and the parabolic antennas, which resembled gigantic saucers.

In the caisson, as he got out of his suit, Mikhail Antonovich said, 'Til go to the library, Yura, and you walk around here, look around. All the workers are young, you'll make friends quickly. We'll meet in two hours or so...or just go back to the ship..."

He slapped Yura on the shoulder and went down the left corridor, magnetic taps clattering. Yura went right. The corridor was round, covered with matte plastic, and there was a narrow steel path on the floor, scuffed by the taps. Pipes extended the length of the corridor and there was gurgling and bubbling in them. It smelled of a pine forest and heated metal.

Yura passed an opened hatch. No one was inside, little lights pulsed on the panels. It's so quiet, thought Yura. No one is visible or audible. He turned down a perpendicular corridor and heard music. Someone was playing a guitar, slowly picking out a sad melody. Is it like this on Rhea? he thought. He liked noise, for everyone to be together, laughing, joking, and singing. He felt sad. Then he thought that people were at work now, but he still couldn't get rid of the feeling that people must get depressed in these round, empty corridors—here and on other distant planets. It was probably the guitar music that made him feel this way.

Suddenly someone spoke into his ear, "That has nothing to do with you! Understand? Not at all!" Yura stopped. The corridor was empty.

Another voice, gentle and apologetic, said, "I didn't mean any harm, Vitaly. You don't need it, nor does she, nor does Vladislav Kimovich. No one needs it. I just wanted to say..."

The angry voice interrupted, "I heard you, and I'm sick of it! Will you leave me alone with your Averin! Don't interfere in my affairs! I ask only one thing: Let me finish my three years and then disappear in hell's hell..."

A hatch opened on Yura's left, and a blond man jumped into the corridor. He was about twenty-five, with fair locks that were frazzled, and a reddened face that twisted in an ugly grimace. He slammed the door with satisfaction and stopped in front of Yura. They stared at one another for a minute.

He passed Yura and stalked down the corridor, leaping up to the ceiling and muttering: "You can all go to hell, all of you!"

Yura coolly called after him, "Did you catch your finger in the door, young man?" The blond man did not turn around. Well, well, thought Yura. It's not so boring here after all.

He turned to the hatch and found that another man was standing before him, probably the one with the apologetic voice. He was stocky, broad-shouldered, and dressed with dandified taste. He had a good haircut and a ruddy, sad face.

"With Vladimir Sergeyevich Yurkovsky? Hello," the man said, offering his hand, "I'm Kravets, Anatoly. Will you be working with us?"

"Ah, passing through?" Kravets said. He was still holding Yura's hand. His hand was cool and dry.

"So you're just passing through. Tell me, Yura, did Vladimir Sergeyevich come here to inspect?"

"Well, of course, how would you know.. .You see, this strange rumor has started here...Have you known Vladimir Sergeyevich long?"

"A month," Yura said reluctantly. He had realized that he didn't like Kravets, maybe because he had used the apologetic tone with the blond or maybe because he kept asking questions.

"I've known him longer," Kravets said. "I studied with him." He suddenly gasped. "What are we standing around for? Come inside!"

Yura went in. It's the computer lab, he thought. Glass-fronted panels of the computer were on every wall. A dull white control board stood in the middle of the room, and there was a large desk covered with papers, diagrams, and several small electronic machines for manual calculations.

"Everyone is off on observations now," Kravets spoke. "You see, no one's around. We all spend a lot of time observing. Everyone works hard. The time flies by unnoticed. Sometimes there are such arguments over the work..." He waved his hand and laughed. "Our astrophysicists are feuding. Each has his own idea and considers the other a fool. They converse through me. And both yell at me."

"Well," said Yura looking away, "it happens." Of course, he thought, no one wants to wash his dirty linen in public.

"There are just a few of us here," Kravets said, "and we're all very busy. Our director, Vladislav Kimovich, is a good man, but he's busy too. So at first it may appear rather dull around here, but actually we work around the clock on our own projects."

Yura said politely, "Yes, of course, there is plenty to work on here. Space is for work, not entertainment. Of course, it is rather desolate around here. Just that lone guitar."

The hatch opened and a small young woman with a large bundle of papers clumsily entered the laboratory. She shut the hatch with her shoulder and looked at Yura. She had probably just awakened—her eyes were puffy.

Kravets said, "This is Zina Shatrova. And this, Zinochka, is Yura Borodin, who came here with Vladimir Sergeyevich Yurkovsky."

The girl nodded without looking up. Yura was trying to figure out if the workers of the observatory treated everyone who had come on the Takhmasib with Yurkovsky this strangely. He glanced at Kravets. It seemed that Kravets was looking at Zina and calculating something. Zina was silently going through the papers. When she pulled over a calculator and started clicking the number buttons, Kravets turned to Yura and said:

He was interrupted by the soft song of a radiophone call. He excused himself and pulled a radiophone out of his pocket.

The beeps of the sign off came on. Kravets returned the radiophone to his pocket and looked uncertainly at Zina and Yura.

"I have to leave," he said. "The director asked me to help our atmosphericist...Zina, please be good enough to show our guest the observatory. Remember that he is a good friend of Vladimir Sergeyevich's and we must treat him well.'^,

Zina did not reply. It was as though she had not heard Kravets, and she lowered her face over the calculator. Kravets gave Yura a sad smile, raised his eyebrows, spread his hands in helplessness, and left.

Yura walked over to the control board and peeked at the girl. She had a sweet and hopeless tired face. What did it all mean: "Did Vladimir Sergeyevich come here to inspect?" "Remember that he is a good friend of Vladimir Sergeyevich's and we must treat him well." "You can all go to hell!" Yura felt that it did not bode well. He had an overwhelming desire to get involved. It would be impossible to go away and leave everything as it was. He looked at Zina once more. The girl was working diligently. He had never seen a girl as pretty as that be so sad and silent. She's been hurt, he suddenly thought. It's as clear as the sun, she's been hurt. A person was hurt before your very eyes, and it's your fault, he remembered. Well, all right...

"What's this?" Yura asked loudly and pointed randomly at a blinking light. Zina shuddered and looked up.

"That?" she said. She looked at him for the first time. She had extraordinary blue eyes.

"No," Yura said, coming up to the desk. "I won't be working here. I'm passing through. And I'm no friend of Vladimir Sergeyevich, we're merely acquainted. And I'm not a favorite. I'm a vacuum welder."

She passed her hand over her face. "Wait," she muttered. "A vacuum welder? Why a vacuum welder?"

"Why not?" Yura said. He felt that for some inexplicable reason this was very important and that this sad sweet girl was

glad that he was a welder and not something else. He had never been that glad before that he was a vacuum welder.

Yura went around the desk and stopped in front of her, looking down at her. "Tell me," he demanded.

And suddenly Yura saw a flood of tears dropping on the polished shiny surface of the desk. A lump came to his throat.

Zina shook her head. He looked around at the hatch in fright and said, "Stop bawling! Shame on you!"

She raised her head. Her face was wet and swollen—pathetic—and her eyes were even puffier.

"You.. .try.. .it," she muttered. He took out his handkerchief and put it in her wet hand. She started drying her cheeks.

"Who did it to you?" Yura asked softly. "Kravets? I'll go punch him in the face. Would you like that?"

She folded the handkerchief and tried to smile. Then she asked, "Listen, are you really a vacuum welder?"

"Yes, really. But please don't bawl. You're the first person I've seen who cried at the sight of a vacuum welder."

"We heard that Yurkovsky wanted to set up a favorite of his, an astrophysicist, here on Dione..."

"What nonsense!" Yura cried. "Only the crew, Yurkovsky, and I are on board...no astrophysicists."

"Of course, really! And it's silly to think of Yurkovsky and a favorite! Who thought that one up, Kravets?"

"All right," Yura said. He found a stool with his foot and sat down. "You tell me. Tell me everything. Who hurt you?"

"No one," she said softly. "It's just that Fm a bad worker with an unbalanced psyche." She laughed grimly. "Our director is against women on observatories. Fm lucky that he didn't send me back to the planet immediately. I would have died of embarrassment. I would have had to change specialties. And I don't want to do that at all. Fm not getting anything done here, but at least Fm at an observatory, under a powerful scientist. I love all of this," she said and gulped. "I used to think that I had a calling..."

Yura said through his teeth, "It's the first time Fve ever heard of a person who loves her work and can't do it."

Zina sighed with a sob. "They've changed completely here. Bazanov hates everyone, and those two fools have imagined God knows what, got into a fight, and now won't talk to me or to each other..."

"Kravets is a toady," she said indifferently. "He doesn't care." She suddenly looked at Yura helplessly. "But please don't tell anyone what I've told you. They'll make my life miserable. They'll make all kinds of cracks and start theoretical discussions on the nature of women..."

Yura was looking at her through squinting eyes. "How can it be?" he said. "And no one knows about it?"

"Who cares?" she smiled pathetically. "This is the best of the distant laboratories..."

The hatch flew open. The blond man leaned his torso into the room, stared at Yura, wrinkling his nose unpleasantly, then looked at Zina and then back at Yura. Zina rose.

"Fd like to introduce you," she said in a trembling voice. "This is Svirsky, Vitaly Svirsky, an astrophysicist. And this is Yura Borodin..."

"Turning over your papers?" Svirsky asked in an unpleasant voice. "Well, I won't interrupt."

He started to close the door, but Yura raised his hand. "Just a minute," Yura said.

"You can have five," Svirsky grinned, "but some other time. I don't want to interrupt your tete-a-tete, colleague."

"I'm no colleague of yours, you idiot," Yura said quietly and lunged at Svirsky. Svirsky was looking at him with crazed eyes. "And I'll talk to you now, understand? And first you apologize to this young lady, you bum."

Yura was five feet away from the door when Svirsky, jaw jutting madly, climbed into the room to meet him.

Bykov was pacing the lounge, hands behind his back and head lowered. Zhilin was standing in the doorway. Yurkovsky, hands clasped, was sitting at the desk. All three were listening to Mikhail Antonovich. Mikhail Antonovich was speaking passionately and excitedly, pressing his short arm to the left side of his chest.

"...And believe me, Volodya, I have never heard so many terrible things about people in my life. They were all horrible and vicious; only Bazanov was any good. Shershen, you see, is a tyrant and dictator, blatantly making demands. Everyone was afraid of him. There was one brave man on Dione—Muller—

and Shershen got rid of him. No, no, Bazanov doesn't deny Shershen's scientific achievements; he is even impressed by them. And the fact that the observatory is so famous is thanks to Shershen. But you see, they are suffering from a low morale. Shershen has a special spy and provocateur, a certain Anatoly Kravets. This Kravets, you see, listens everywhere and reports* in, and then on the director's orders spreads rumors, getting everyone to fight with everyone else. Divide and conquer, so to speak. While we were chatting, this Kravets came into the library for a book. Bazanov yelled at him, 'Get out!' Poor Kravets, such a sweet nice young man, didn't even get a chance to say hello. He blushed and left, without his book. Of course I lost my temper and let Bazanov have it. I said to him straight out: 'Now Petya, how can you say that?'"

Mikhail Antonovich drew a breath and wiped his face. "There," he went on. "Bazanov, you see, is terribly clean morally. He can't stand anyone courting anyone else. There is a young girl there, Zina, an astrophysicist, and he immediately decided she had two suitors and that they fought over her, that she was making advances to both of them, and they were like roosters...And then, you see, he adds that it's just rumors, but the fact remains that all three of them are not speaking. He says they're all cretins, fools, and don't know how to work...My hair stood on end listening to that. Just imagine, Volodya... You know whom he blames for all that?"

Mikhail Antonovich made a dramatic pause. Bykov stopped and looked at him. Yurkovsky, eyes narrowed, tensed the muscles in his jaw.

"You!" said Mikhail Antonovich in a broken voice. "I couldn't believe my ears! He said that the inspector general is covering up all these outrages and moreover, bringing his mysterious favorites to the observatories, setting them up there, and then firing the ordinary workers, using some trifle as an excuse, then sending them back to Earth. Bazanov said that you place all your people everywhere, people like Shershen! That I

couldn't take at all. I said to him: Excuse me,' I said, 'young man, you must realize what you are saying.'"

Mikhail Antonovich took another deep breath and stopped. Bykov went back to pacing.

Mikhail Antonovich said proudly, "I just couldn't listen to him any more. I couldn't listen to him smear you with mud, Volodya, and also the collective at our best distant observatory. I rose, said goodbye sarcastically, and left. I hope he was ashamed of himself."

Yurkovsky sat with lowered eyes. Bykov said with a laugh, "It's a good life on our bases, Inspector General, a friendly life."

"If I were you, Volodya, I would do something," Mikhail Antonovich said. "Bazanov must be returned to Earth and his right to work on space stations revoked. People like that are dangerous, Volodya, you know that..."

Yurkovsky spoke, without looking up, "All right. Thank you, Mikhail. We'll have to take measures."

Zhilin was at the door and was first to see Yura. His eyes popped. Everyone else turned to Yura, too.

Yura looked horrible. His left eye was covered with a purplish bruise, his nose was deformed, and his lips were swollen and black. His left hand dangled at his side, and the

fingers of his right hand were bandaged. Dark, quickly rinsed spots covered the front of his jacket.

"He's a young astrophysicist at the observatory," Yurkovsky explained impatiently. "Why did you fight, cadet?"

"He insulted a young girl," Yura said. He was looking into Zhilin's eyes. "I demanded that he apologize."

Zhilin nodded imperceptibly in approval. Yurkovsky stood up, walked along the lounge, and stopped before Yura, his hands deep inside his robe pockets.

"The way I see it, cadet," he said coldly, "you created a disgusting scene at the observatory."

"Yes," Yura said. "But I could do nothing else. I had to force him to apologize."

Yurkovsky said in irritation, "Damn it, what does that have to do with it, Ivan?"

Yurkovsky turned back to Yura. "It was still a disgusting scene," he said. "That's how it looks, at any rate. Listen to me, cadet, I'm ready to believe that you acted out of the most noble principles, but you will have to apologize."

"What do you mean, no? You started a fight in his observatory. That's disgusting. And now you refuse to apologize?"

Silence reigned. Mikhail Antonovich sighed bitterly and shook his head. Yurkovsky looked at Yura in amazement.

Zhilin pushed away from the wall, went over to Yura, and put his hand on his shoulder. "Excuse me, Alexei Petrovich," Zhilin said. "I think we should let Borodin tell his story from the beginning."

"Who's stopping him?" Bykov said. It was clear that he was greatly displeased by the proceedings.

"What is there to tell?" Yura began softly. Then he shouted, "You have to see it! And hear it! Those fools have to be rescued immediately! You keep calling it an observatory, it's a dive! The people are crying there, do you understand? They're crying!"

"I can't take it easy! You say apologize.. .1 won't apologize to an inquisitor, to a bastard who pits those fools against one another and against a girl! Where are you looking, Inspector General? That whole setup should be evacuated to Earth, they'll be on all fours soon and biting!"

So Yura told them. How he had met Zina Shatrova, how she had cried, and how he had realized that he had to get involved, and how he had begun with Svirsky, who had grown beastly and believed all kinds of disgusting things about his favorite girl. He told them about how he had forced Averin and Svirsky to have "a heart to heart talk" and how it turned out that Svirsky had never called Averin a no-talent and a toady and Averin didn't even suspect that he was "seen" leaving Zina's

room night after night. And Yura told about how they had taken away Dietz's guitar and had discovered that he had never spread rumors about Bazanov and Tanya Olenina... and how they had found out that it was all the work of Kravets and that Shershen must have known about it, and that he was the main scoundrel...

"The young people sent me to you, Vladimir Sergeyevich, to ask you to do something. And you'd better do something, or they'll do it themselves...They're ready."

Yurkovsky was sitting in a chair by the table, and his face was so tired and old that Yura stopped and looked at Zhilin in confusion. But Zhilin nodded at him again.

"Shut up!" small, tanned Averin shouted, sitting next to Yura. "Don't you dare interrupt! Comrades, how does he dare interrupt all the time!"

Yurkovsky waited for the noise to abate and suggested, "This is all so disgusting that I had just discounted the possibility of this happening, and it took the involvement of a stranger, a boy, to...Yes, disgusting. I didn't expect this of you young people. How easy it was to make you revert to your prehistoric condition, to put you on all fours—three years, one glory-hungry maniac, and one provincial intriguer. And you bent over, turned into animals, lost your human image. Young, merry, honest people...you should be ashamed of yourselves!"

Yurkovsky paused and looked at the astronomers. They were sitting in a group and staring with hatred at Shershen and Kravets. All this is pointless now, he thought. They don't have time for me.

"All right," Yurkovsky said. "You'll be sent a new director from Titan. You can meet for two days and think. Think, you poor and weak people, I tell you—think! And now go."

"This is arbitrary rule," he said hoarsely. "You are disrupting the work of the observatory."

"You know," Bykov said, looking at Yurkovsky over his glasses and over The Physics of Metals Today, "Shershen probably considers himself unjustly insulted. It's the best observatory and so on..."

"Shershen does not interest me," Yurkovsky said. He shut his folder and stretched. "I want to know how those young people could have sunk to a life like that. Shershen is dust, a trifle."

"I have a theory...rather, a hypothesis," said Yurkovsky. "I think that they had lost their immunity against the socially harmful, so necessary in the past, but that their own antisocial inclinations had not disappeared."

"Certainly. Take you, for example. What would you do if a gossip came over to you and said that...uhm...that Mikhail Antonovich is a thief who is selling your food stores? You've seen plenty of gossips in your time and know their worth, and you would tell this one to...uhm...go blow. Now, take our cadet. What would he do if someone told him...uhm...well, say, the same thing? He would take it at face value and

immediately rush off to Mikhail for an explanation. And then he would realize that it was nonsense, return, and...uhm... beat up the scoundrel."

"But our friends on Dione are not you, nor our cadet. They take lies at face value, but their remnants of false pride prevent them from going and clearing things up."

Yura came in, crouched in front of the open bookcase, and started choosing a book for bedtime reading. The events on Dione had knocked him for a loop, and he still couldn't get a hold of himself. His farewell to Zina Shatrova was silent and very touching. Zina wasn't herself yet, but she was smiling. Yura wanted very much to stay on Dione until Zina was laughing. He was sure he could make her laugh and help her forget to some degree the horrible days of Shershen's reign. He regretted that he couldn't stay. But he did catch blond Svirsky in the corridor and asked him to make sure that everyone was particularly gentle with Zina. Svirsky looked at him wildly and said in a non sequitur: "We'll punch out his face yet."

That morning Bykov finished his last magazine, examing the cover for a long time and even checking the price. Then he sighed, took the magazine to his cabin, and when he returned, Yura realized that the fellow had finished whittling his block of wood. Bykov was very gentle now, glad to talk, and very permissive.

The three of them burst into the control room. Mikhail Antonovich looked at them from his pedestal in surprise, then smiled and waved.

"Only be careful, boys," Mikhail Antonovich warned. "Weightlessness in a half-hour,"

On Yurkovsky's demand, the Takhmasib was headed for the station Ring-1, an artificial satellite of Saturn, orbiting near the ring.

"You see, Volodya," Mikhail Antonovich replied guiltily, "it's very crowded for the Takhmasib here. I have to keep maneuvering."

They passed Zhilin, who was digging around in the control console, and sat down in front of the radio. Bykov began manipulating dials. The dynamic loudspeaker hissed and crackled.

"Music of the spheres," Zhilin said behind them. "Plug in the decipherer, Alexei Petrovich."

The loudspeaker roared in an unnatural voice: "...minutes you will hear Alexander Blumberg, rebroadcast from Earth. I repeat..."

The foice faded away and was replaced by a sleepy snore. Then someone said, "...I can't help. You'll have to wait, comrades." "And what if we send over our craft?" "Then you'll have a short wait, but you'll still have to wait."

Bykov turned on the self-tuner and the needle crawled along the bands, stopping briefly at every working station: "...eight hectares of selenoid batteries for the greenhouses, forty kilometers of copper wire at six hundredths, twenty kilometers of..."

"There's no butter, no sugar, and only a hundred packs of Hercules cigarettes, crackers, and coffee. Yes, we need more cigarettes..." "...and hear this? I'm not going to stand this impudence...Do you hear? I'm..." "Q-two, Q-two, I didn't get that...What's his frequency?...Q-two, Q-two...testing testing, one two three..." "...miss you. When are you coming back? And why aren't you writing? Kisses, your Anna. Stop." "Chan, don't be afraid. It's very simple. You take the volume integral along the hyperboloid to point H..." "Seven, seven, the third sector is cleared for you. Seven, launch into sector three ..." "Sash, there are rumors that some inspector general is here. Some say it's Yurkovsky himself..."

"Enough," Yurkovsky said. "Find Titan. The scoundrels," he mumbled, "they're finding out."

"Strange," Bykov said. "There are only one hundred fifty people in the Saturn system, and they make so much noise..."

The radio crackled and howled. Bykov found his frequency and spoke into the mike:

"Inspector General Yurkovsky calling the system director." Bykov looked over merrily at Yurkovsky. "Am I saying the right thing, Volodya?" he asked into the mike. Yurkovsky nodded condescendingly.

"Hello, hello, Takhmasib!" The woman's voice was agitated now, "Just a minute, I'll connect you with the director."

"Liza!" someone else shouted into the loudspeaker. "Give me the director, honey! And hurry!"

"What do you mean busy?" the voice demanded. "Ferenc, is that you? Without waiting your turn?"

"Everyone clear the frequency," a slow, squeaky voice said. "The director is listening to Inspector General Yurkovsky."

"Oh boy," someone said in a scared voice. Yurkovsky looked over at Bykov triumphantly.

"Fm...uhm...inspecting. I got here yesterday. Right to Di-one. I've removed Shershen. Details later. Let's do...uhm... this. I'll send Muller to replace Shershen. TYy to send Shershen back to Earth as soon as possible, Shershen and another person. His name is Kravets. Young, but poisonous. Follow this personally. And remember that I am displeased with you. You could have handled this...uhm...business yourself, and much sooner."

Yurkovsky stopped. There was a respectful silence in the air. "I've made the following plan for myself. I'm headed for Ring-1 now. I'll spend two to three days there and then I'll look in on you on Titan. Have them prepare fuel for the Takhmasib. And finally, there's this." Yurkovsky paused again. "I have a young man on board. He's a vacuum welder, one of the volunteer group that is working on your Rhea. Please suggest the best place to drop him so that he can get to Rhea immediately." Yurkovsky stopped again. The airwaves were silent. "I'm listening," Yurkovsky said.

"Just a minute," the director replied. "We're finding out. Are you on the Takhmasib?"

There was a silence. Then the squeaky voice asked cautiously, "Did something happen?"

"All right," the voice said. "Just a minute. Listen. Your welder doesn't need to go to Rhea. We've moved the volunteers to Ring-2. They're needed more there. If you're lucky, you can send him off to Ring-2 right from Ring-1. If not, we'll send him from here on Titan."

"Every five days the Swiss come to the ring with provisions. Perhaps you'll catch the Swiss boat at Ring-1."

"I see," Yurkovsky said. "Well, all right. I don't have anything else for you. See you."

The observatory Ring-1 moved along the surface of Saturn's ring in a circular orbit and made a complete orbit every fourteen and a half hours. The station was new, completed only last year. The crew consisted of ten planetologists who studied the ring, and four control engineers. The control engineers had plenty of work: some of the robots and systems on the observatory—the heat system, the oxygen regenerators, and the hydro-systems—were not completely regulated yet. The discomforts that resulted did not bother the planetologists in the least, particularly since they spent most of their time in cos-moscaphes, floating over the ring. The planetologists' work was highly regarded in the Saturn system. They were hoping to find water, iron, and rare metal in the rings; this would give the system some autonomy in fuel and material production. Of

course, even if they succeeded, it was not feasible to use the discoveries yet. They did not have the equipment to enter the sparkling layer of Saturn's rings and return unharmed.

Alexei Petrovich Bykov brought the Takhmasib up to the exterior line of docks and docked carefully. The approach to artificial satellites is a tricky thing, demanding mastery and a jeweler's precision. At moments like this Bykov got out of his easy chair and went up to the controls himself. There was already a boat at the docks; it looked like the provisions boat.

"I'm letting the crew go on shore," Bykov said. "If they invite you to eat, don't go overboard. This isn't a hotel. Better yet, take along some cans and bottles of mineral water."

There was a noise outside. It was the dispatcher attaching a hermetic tunnel to the Takhmasib. Five minutes later he radioed, "You can come out, but dress warmly."

"What does warmly mean?" Yurkovsky grumbled. "What should we wear? Flannels? Or felt boots? Down jackets?"

Bykov said, "Take a sweater. Put on warm socks. Maybe take along a fur jacket with the electric heater."

"I'll wear my pullover," Mikhail Antonovich said. "I have a nice one...with a sail."

They went into the observatory together, dressed in various warm costumes. Bykov had a fur jacket from Greenland: Mikhail Antonovich was also wearing a jacket, as well as flight boots. The boots didn't have magnetic taps and they pulled

Mikhail Antonovich along like a balloon. Zhilin pulled on a sweater and gave another one to Yura. Yura was also wearing Bykov's fur trousers, which he pulled up to his armpits. Zhilin's fur trousers were on Yurkovsky. Yurkovsky was also wearing Mikhail Antonovich's pullover with the sail and a handsome white jacket.

They were met in the caisson by the dispatcher, who was wearing nothing but underwear. It was like a sauna in the caisson.

"Hello," he said. He looked over the guests and frowned. "I told you to dress warmly. You'll freeze in shoes/'

Icy air hit them from the corridor and a gust of steam flew in. The dispatcher, huddling against the cold shouted, "Quickly, please!"

The walls of the corridor were taken apart in places and the yellow network of the thermoelements shone shamelessly in the bluish light. They bumped into a control engineer near the lounge. The engineer was wearing an enormously long fur coat which revealed a blue undershirt. He had on a fur hat with earflaps.

Four people were sitting in the lounge, buckled to their chairs, wearing fur coats with the collars raised. They were sipping hot coffee from transparent thermos bottles.

Upon seeing Yurkovsky one of them bent back his collar and, breathing a cloud of steam, said: "Hello, Vladimir Sergeyevich. You're dressed rather lightly. Sit down. Some coffee?"

One of the planetologists got up and floated into the corridor in front of Yurkovsky. Another one, lean and lanky, said, "Tell me, are there any other inspector generals among you?"

"Then I'll tell you straight: this is a dog's life. Yesterday it was thirty degrees Celsius all over the observatory, and even thirty-three in the lounge. Last night the temperature fell. I got frostbite on my heel, and no one really feels like working with all these temperature changes, and that's why we're taking turns in the cosmoscaphes. They have automatic air conditioning. Does this ever happen to you?"

"You've been living this way a whole year?" Mikhail An-tonovich asked in horror and pity.

"No, no! Just a month. Before the changes weren't so noticeable, but we organized a brigade to help the engineers, and now .. .you can see for yourselves."

"It isn't according to the rules of hospitality," the lanky one said uncertainly.

"We feel funny about it," another planetologist said. "Let's sit here a bit. Maybe we'll get talking anyway."

Zhilin said, "It's warm on the ship. A turn of the regulator and we can even make it hot. We'll sit in light, attractive clothing. We won't be sniffling."

A glum man dressed only in a fur coat came in. Looking at the ceiling, he said impatiently, "Excuse me, please, but I wish you would all go to your cabins. We will be turning off the air in here in five minutes."

In triumphant silence they went down the halls, gulped the hot air in the caisson, and went on board the Takhmasib. The lanky planetologist sneaked off his fur coat and jacket and began unwinding his scarf. Then came the introductions and icy handshakes. The lanky man was Rafail Gorchakov. The other three were Josif Vlcheck, Evgeny Sadovsky, and Pavel Shemiakin. As they thawed, they became happy and talkative fellows. It became clear very soon that Gorchakov and Sadovsky were studying the turbulent motion in the ring, weren't married, loved Graham Greene and Strogov, preferred movies to the theater, were reading Montaigne's Essays in the original, did not understand neorealist painting but did not preclude the possibility that there might be something to it; that Josif Vlcheck was looking for iron ore in the ring through neutron reflections and exploding bombs, but was a violinist by profession, was the European champion in the four-hundred-meter hurdle, and got into the Saturn system to pay his girlfriend back for her coldness and insensitivity; that Pavel Shemiakin, on the other hand, was married, had children, worked as an assistant at the Institute of Planetology, was an

avid supporter of the hypothesis of the ring's artificial origins and was was prepared "to lay down my life to turn the hypothesis into theory."

"The whole problem is," he said heatedly, "that our cos-moscaphes cannot stand up to the least bit of criticism. They are very slow and very insubstantial. When I sit in one over the ring, I could weep in frustration. I'm so close and yet.. .We are absolutely forbidden to go into the ring. And Fm absolutely certain that the very first expedition will yield something interesting, at least something to go on..."

"I do," Gorchakov said. "He's hoping to find a trace of a barefoot print on one of the rocks. Do you know how he works? He gets as low as possible over the ring and looks at the shards through forty-magnification binoculars. And while he's doing that, a huge asteroid creeps up behind him and hits his scaphe. Pasha tries to get away from his binoculars, and while he's doing that, another asteroid..."

"That's silly," Shemiakin said angrily. "If we could show that the ring is the result of the disintegration of some body, that would be very significant, and yet we are not allowed to try to catch any pieces."

"That's easy to say, catch a piece," Bykov said. "I know that work. You're covered with sweat from head to toe, and you don't know who's caught whom, and then you discover that you've lost your emergency rocket and you don't have enough fuel to get back to base. No, they're right to ban that nonsense."

Mikhail Antonovich, his eyes shut, suddenly spoke, "But boys, it's so exciting! It's such lively, subtle work!"

The planetologists looked at him with respectful surprise. Yura too. It never occurred to Yura that fat, kind Mikhail Antonovich had ever chased asteroids. Bykov looked coldly at Mikhail Antonovich and coughed loudly.

Mikhail Antonovich looked at him quickly and said, "But of course, it is very dangerous...an unjustified risk...and it shouldn't be done..."

"By the way, about footprints," Zhilin said thoughtfully. "You're far from sources of information here," he said, looking at the planetologists, "and you probably haven't heard..."

"What are you talking about?" Sadovsky asked. It was obvious from the look on his face that he craved news.

"On the island of Honshu," Zhilin said, "Not far from the Danno-ura bay, in a cavern between the Shiramine and Chichigatake Mountains, in an impenetrable forest, archeolo-gists have discovered a system of caves. They found a lot of prehistoric things in the caves and, most interesting, many petrified footprints of prehistoric people. The archeologists feel that the early proto-Japanese lived there twenty centuries ago and that their descendants were later killed by the tribes of Yamato, led by the Emperor Jimmu-tenno, the divine grandson of the heavenly shining Amaterasu."

"This discovery has upset the entire world," Zhilin said, "and you've probably heard about it."

"And yet there was much written and said about it, but that's not the point. The most interesting discovery was made rather recently, when they cleared the central cave. Just imagine, in the petrified clay they found more than twenty pairs of barefoot prints with highly separated big toes, and among them..." Zhilin passed his eyes over his listeners. Yura knew what was happening, but nevertheless was impressed by the dramatic pause. "A footprint in a shoe..." Zhilin said in an ordinary voice. Bykov got up and left the lounge.

"No," Zhilin said, shaking his head. "If only there had been a sign of some sort! Just the print of a shoe... slightly covered with a bare foot...which had come later."

"Then it is a fake," Vlcheck said. "It's obvious! Like the group of mermaids on the Isle of Man, or Bonaparte's ghost that moved into the Massachusetts computer..."

"Sunspots in a pattern of the Pythagorean theorem," said Sadovsky. "The inhabitants of the sun are seeking contact with IACC!" *

"I read a report in the science section of Asahishimbun," Zhilin said. "At first I thought it was a hoax, too. There was nothing in our papers about it. But the article was signed by Professor Uzozuki, a major scholar. I had heard of him from Japanese friends. He wrote, incidentally, that he wanted to put an end to the misinformation of other reports but would not make any commentaries. I understood from that that they had no explanation for it."

"An important European in the paws of angry sinanthropes!" Sadovsky pronounced. "Eaten whole, leaving only the mark of a shoe from Majestic Shoes. But Majestic Shoes if you want to leave something behind."

"They weren't sinanthropes," Zhilin said patiently. "The big toe differed enough to be recognizable to the naked eye. Professor Uzozuki calls them nahonanthropes."

"But why do you think it's a hoax?" he asked. "Why always pick the least likely of the available hypotheses?"

"Yes, why?" Sadovsky said. "The print was left by an alien, naturally, and the first contact ended tragically."

"And why not?" Shemiakin said. "Who else could have worn a shoe twenty centuries ago?"

"Nonsense," Sadovsky said. "If you want to speak seriously, then it was left by one of the archeologists."

Zhilin shook his head. "First of all, the clay is completely petrified there. The age of the print is not in doubt. Don't you think that Uzozuki had considered such a possibility?"

"Of course," Zhilin said. "There was a photo of the print, and of the caves, and of Uzozuki. Also bear in mind that Japanese shoes run size twelve, maybe thirteen at the largest."

"How about this," Gorchakov said. "Let's say that our problem is to construct a logically incontrovertible hypothesis that will explain the Japanese discovery."

"Fine," Shemiakin said. "I suggest an alien from outer space. Find a contradiction in that."

Sadovsky waved his hand. "Aliens again," he said. "It was just some brontosaurus."

"It's simpler to suppose," Gorchakov said, "that it is the footprint of some European, a tourist."

"Yes, it's some unknown animal or a tourist," Vlcheck said. "Animal prints sometimes have amazing shapes."

"The comrades are tyring to explain the Japanese print," Zhilin said. "They have suggested an alien, a European, and an unknown animal."

"All the hypotheses," Zhilin said, "including the one with the alien, contain a monstrous contradiction."

"I forgot to tell you," Zhilin said. "The area of the cave is forty square meters. The print of the shoe is located right in the middle of the cave."

"Absolutely not," Zhilin said. "Twenty pairs of perfectly clear barefoot prints in the whole cave and just a print with a shoe right in the middle."

"It's like this, then," Bykov said. "The alien had only one leg. They brought him into the cave, set him down in the middle, and after a brief talk ate him on the spot."

"Why not?" Mikhail Antonovich said. "I think it's logicially incontrovertible. Hm?"

"Too bad that he's one-legged," Shemiakin said. "It's hard to imagine a one-legged intelligent being."

"God knows what nonsense we're wasting our time on," Shemiakin said. "Let's go work."

"Oh no," Vlcheck said. "We have to figure it out. I have this hypothesis: the alien had an extremely long stride. They're all very leggy, you know."

"He would have broken his head on the cave ceiling then," Sadovsky countered. "I think he was winged—flew into the cave, saw that it was not a friendly place, pushed off, and flew away. What do you think, Ivan?"

Zhilin opened his mouth to answer, but then raised his finger and said, "Attention! The Inspector General!"

Red and hot, Yurkovsky came into the lounge. "Pfui!" he said. "How nice, it's cool. Planetologists, your chief is waiting for you. -And bear in mind that it's close to forty degrees centigrade in there now." He turned to Yura. "Get ready, cadet. I've made an arrangement with the captain of the tanker; he'll drop you on Ring-2."

Yurkovsky went on. "The tanker starts in a few hours, but you should get there early. Vanya, you'll take him. Yes! Plan-etologists! Where are the planetologists?" He looked out in the corridor. "Shemiakin! Pasha! Prepare the photographs you made over the ring. I have to look at them. Mikhail, don't leave, wait a minute. Stay here, Alexei, put down your book, I need to talk to you."

Bykov put his book aside. Only he, Yurkovsky, and Mikhail Antonovich were left in the lounge. Yurkovsky, swaying clumsily, was pacing from corner to corner.

"What's the matter with you?" Bykov asked, suspiciously following his movements.

Yurkovsky stopped abruptly. "Here's what's the matter, Alexei," he said. "I've arranged with Markushin to give me a cosmoscaphe. I want to fly over the ring. It's an absolutely safe flight, Alexei." Yurkovsky suddenly grew angry. "What are you looking at me like that for? The men here have been making two flights like that a day for the past year. Yes, I know you're stubborn. But I'm not planning to go into the ring. I want to fly over the ring. I obey your commands. Please take my wishes into account as well. I beg you in the most humble manner, damn it. After all, are we friends or not?"

"Or I'll go alone," Yurkovsky said quickly. "And I don't know cosmoscaphes well."

"I could take a pilot from the station," Yurkovsky said, "but I'm asking for Mikhail because Mikhail is a hundred times more experienced and careful than all of them put together. Do you understand? More careful!"

"We will be extremely careful," Yurkovsky said. "We will fly at an altitude of twenty to thirty kilometers over the middle layer, no lower. I will take a few circle-scope pictures, observe visually, and return in two hours."

"Alyosha," Mikhail Antonovich said meekly. "Random fragments over the ring are very rare, and they're not that terrible. Just a little caution..."

Bykov was staring silently at Yurkovsky. Well, what am I to do with him? he thought. What do you do with the old madman? Mikhail has a bad heart. This is his last flight. His reactions are duller than ever before, and cosmoscaphes have manual controls. And I can't drive a cosmoscaphe, and neither can Zhilin. And I can't let him go off with a young pilot. They'll convince each other to dive into the ring. Why didn't I learn to drive a cosmoscaphe, old fool?

"Alyosha," Yurkovsky said, "I'm asking you. I'll probably never see Saturn's rings again. I'm old, Alyosha."

Yurkovsky covered his face with his hands. "Ah, how terrible!" he said with regret. "Why do I have such a horrible reputation? Huh, Misha?"

"You're very careless, Volodya," said Mikhail Antonovich. "Really, it's your own fault."

"Why be careful?" Yurkovsky said. "Tell me, please, what for? To live until you reach total spiritual and physical disability? To reach the moment when life disgusts you and die of boredom in bed? It's ridiculous, after all, Mikhail, to worry so much about one's life."

Mikhail Antonovich was shaking his head. "You're like that, Volodya," he said softly. "And can't you understand, dear fellow, that you'll die and that will be it. But you will leave people behind, friends. Do you know how hard it will be on them? And you only think about yourself, only yourself."

"Hey, Misha," Yurkovsky said, "I don't want to argue with you. Tell me instead, will Alexei agree or not?"

"I think he's already agreed," Mikhail Antonovich said. "Can't you see? I know him, we've been on the same ship for fifteen years."

Yurkovsky ran around the room again. "Do you want to fly or not?" he shouted. "Or are you also just 'agreeing'?"

Yura was packing his suitcase. He never did learn how to pack well, and now he was in a hurry so that no one would notice how much he wanted to stay on the Takhmasib. Ivan stood next to him, and it made him very sad to think that he would have to say goodbye and never see him again. Yura was stuffing his underwear, notebooks, and books into the suitcase—including The Road of Roads, about which Bykov had said, "When you start liking this book, you can consider yourself an adult." Ivan, whistling a tune, watched Yura with merry eyes.

Yura finally shut his suitcase, looked around his cabin sadly, and said, "That's it, I think."

He took Yura's weightless suitcase and then went down the circular corridor, past the ten-kilo barbells floating in the air, past the showers, past the galley which smelled of oatmeal, to the lounge.

Only Yurkovsky was in the lounge. He sat at the empty desk, hands around his bald head, and a single piece of paper clamped to the desk lay before him.

Yurkovsky raised his head. "Ah, cadet," he said, smiling sadly. "Well, goodbye."

"Now, now," Yurkovsky said. "Don't be silly. You know that I didn't want to take you. And I was wrong. What can I wish you as we part? Work hard, Yura. Work with your hands, work with your head. And remember that real people are those who think a lot about many things. Don't let your brains get stale." Yurkovsky looked at Yura with a familiar expression, as though he expected Yura to change immediately for the better, before his eyes. "Well, go along."

Yura bowed clumsily and left the lounge. He looked back from the door. Yurkovsky was looking thoughtfully in Yura's direction, but apparently he didn't see him. Yura went up into the control room. Mikhail Antonovich and Bykov were talking at the console. When Yura came in, they stopped and looked at him.

"Thank you very much, Alexei Petrovich," Yura repeated. "And you, Mikhail Antonovich."

"It was nothing, Yura," Mikhail Antonovich said. "Good luck in your work. Be sure to send me a letter. You haven't lost the address?"

"Fine then, that's wonderful. Write, and if you feel like it, come visit. Really, as soon as you get back to Earth, come and see me. It's fun. Lots of young people. You can read my memoirs."

Yura and Zhilin left the control room. For the last time the caisson door opened and shut for Yura.

They went along the endless corridor of the observatory, where it was as hot as a steambath, and came out on the second

dock level. By the open tanker hatch, on a small bamboo bench, sat a leggy red-haired man in an unbuttoned jacket with gold buttons and in striped shorts. Looking in a small mirror, he was combing his red sideburns and whistling a Tyrolean tune. Upon seeing Yura and Zhilin, he put the mirror in his pocket and stood up.

"You will take this comrade," Zhilin said, "to Ring-2. The inspector general spoke with you, is that so?"

"Well, goodbye Yura," Zhilin said. "Please don't let your nose droop like that. What is this really?"

"I know perfectly well why you are," Zhilin said. "You think we'll never meet again and you didn't want to turn it into a tragedy. This is no tragedy. You'll spend the next hundred years meeting all kinds of good and bad people. And can you answer this question: How does one good man differ from another?"

"I'll tell you," Zhilin said. "In no essential way. Now tomorrow you'll be with your friends. Tomorrow they'll all be envious and you'll be bragging. Inspector General Yurkovsky and I...and so on. You'll tell them how you shot at leeches on Mars, how you took a chair with your hands to Mr. Richardson on Bamberga, how you saved the blue-eyed maiden from the evil Shershen. And you'll make something up about the death planeters, too."

"And why not? You have a lively imagination. I can imagine your version of the ballad of the one-legged alien. But remember this: to tell the truth, there were two footprints. I didn't get a chance to tell about the other one. The second one was on the ceiling, exactly over the other one. Don't forget. Well, goodbye."

"Goodbye, Vanya," Yura said. He shook Zhilin's hand between his two. Zhilin slapped him on the back, turned, and went out into the corridor.

Yura heard someone shout in the corridor, "Ivan! Here's another hypothesis! There was no alien in the cave, just his shoe!"

"Volodya, move over a bit," Mikhail Antonovich said, "or my elbow is right in you. If I have to make a sudden turn, say..."

"Certainly," Yurkovsky said. "But there's nowhere for me to move to. It's extraordinarily crowded. Who built these...uhm ...apparatuses...?"

It was very crowded in the cosmoscaphe. The small round rocket was intended for only one man, but usually two fit in. And the safety rules called for passengers to wear space suits with the helmets back when working over the ring. Two people, in space suits, with the helmets hanging on their backs could not move in the cosmoscaphe. Mikhail Antonovich got the comfortable driver's seat with broad, soft belts, and he was very worried that his friend had to crouch somewhere between the regenerator cover and the bombardier console.

Yurkovsky, pressing his face to the frame of the binocrat, clicked his camera from time to time.

"Slow down a bit, Misha," he would mutter. "There...stop ...Pfui, this is unbelievably uncomfortable ..."

Mikhail Antonovich, moving the steering wheel with pleasure, watched the teleprojector screen constantly. The cosmoscaphe floated slowly at twenty-five kilometers above the middle layer of the ring. Watery Saturn lay like a huge, dull

yellow crest ahead of them. Below, to the right and the left, a shimmering flat field stretched across the entire screen. In the distance it was enveloped in a greenish haze, and it seemed that the gigantic planet was cut in half. Rocky gravel crawled under the cosmoscaphe—rainbow colors of craggy pieces, small pebbles, shiny dust. Sometimes strange movements occurred in this gravel, and then Yurkovsky would say, "Slow down, Mikhail...there..." and click the shutter several times. This vague and inexplicable movement attracted Yurkovsky's attention. The ring was not a mound of rubble dropped into dead, inert motion around Saturn; it was alive with its own strange, incomprehensible life, and the laws of that life were still to be discovered.

Mikhail Antonovich was happy. He clasped the flexible handles of the wheel tenderly, feeling the rocket respond gently to every movement of his fingers. It was wonderful—driving a ship without a computer pilot, without all the electronic gear, bionics, and cybernetics, depending only on yourself, enjoying complete and unlimited confidence in yourself, knowing that the only thing between you and the ship was the soft, comfortable wheel and that you didn't have to repress with your habitual force of will the thought that under your feet throbbed a terrible force, under control, but a force that could destroy an entire planet.

Mikhail Antonovich had a good imagination, and in his heart he was always a bit of a retrograde, and the slow cosmoscaphe with its weak engine seemed cozy and homey in comparison with the monstrous Takhmasib and other monsters that he had dealt with in his twenty-five years as navigator. He was also enraptured as usual by the scintillating rainbow colors of the rings. Mikhail Antonovich had always had a soft spot for Saturn and its rings. The ring was extraordinarily beautiful. It was much more beautiful than he could ever describe, and every time he saw the ring, he wanted to describe it.

Mikhail Antonovich stopped talking and braked harder. Yurkovsky's shutter was clicking.

Mikhail Antonovich waited and then said into the microphone, "Alyosha, are you listening to us?"

"Alyosha, everything is fine," Mikhail Antonovich reported patiently. "I just wanted to share the experience. It's so beautiful here. The sun shimmers on the rocks...and the dust is silvery.. .You're so good, Alyosha, for letting us go, to look at it one last time... Ah, if you could see this one rock shimmer!" He stopped talking, he was so overwhelmed.

Bykov waited a bit and asked, "Are you planning to head toward Saturn much longer?"

"Yes, yes!" Yurkovsky said irritably. "Why don't you go do something, Alexei. Nothing will happen to us."

"Don't you worry, Alyosha," Mikhail Antonovich said. "There are no wild rocks here; everything is quiet and safe."

"That's good that there are no wild rocks," Bykov said, "but you must be attentive anyway."

Fifteen minutes passed in silence. The cosmoscaphe had moved away from the edge of the ring by three hundred kilometers. Mikhail Antonovich was playing with the wheel and fighting the desire to speed up so that the sparkling pieces below would blend into a single shimmering stripe. It would have been very beautiful. Mikhail Antonovich had liked doing things like that when he was younger.

The cosmoscaphe hung motionless. Mikhail Antonovich looked back at Yurkovsky. Yurkovsky had pushed his face into the frame as if he wanted to push through the cosmoscaphe and look out.

"Mikhail!" he shouted. "Along the movement of the ring... there, do you see that long black piece under us? Fly right over it... right over it. Don't pass it..."

Mikhail Antonovich turned to the screen, found the long black piece below, and drove the cosmoscaphe, trying not to let the piece off the cross-sight.

"It's getting away," Yurkovsky said through his teeth. "Slow down one meter!" he shouted.

"No, that won't work," Yurkovsky said. "Misha, take a look, do you see that black fragment?" He spoke in a fast whisper.

"I see them," Mikhail Antonovich said. "Something there is glittering beautifully."

"Right. Steer for the glitter...Don't lose it, now...Is that something in my eyes?"

Mikhail Antonovich brought the shining dot into his sight and put the teleprojector on maximum magnification. He saw nicely rounded, strangely similar rocks, and among them something shiny, unclear, looking like the silvery shadow of a spread-eagled spider. It was as if the rocks were drifting apart and the spider was grabbing them with its legs.

The excited Mikhail Antonovich, without realizing it, was lowering the cosmoscaphe. It was so astounding and incomprehensible—nice identical clumps and the totally unknown silvery shadow among them.

"Alyosha!" Mikhail Antonovich called, "there really is something unusual here! May I descend just a bit? The visibility is bad up here!"

"Alyosha!" Mikhail Antonovich yelled desperately. "I'll go down. Just five kilometers, huh?"

He was clutching the steering wheel, trying not to let the shining object out of his sight. The black fragment was moving closer relentlessly. Bykov did not answer.

Mikhail Antonovich looked desperately at the calmly blinking screen of the meteorite locator and drove the cosmoscaphe down.

"Alyosha," he muttered. "I'm just going down a bit, just to keep it in sight. Everything is calm here, don't worry."

Yurkovsky was clicking the shutter impatiently. The long black fragment was creeping closer and finally covered the white rocks and the shining spider among them.

Bykov was still silent, and then Mikhail Antonovich looked at the radio. The receiver was turned off.

"Oh dear!" Mikhail Antonovich shouted. "How could I have ...With my elbow, I guess?"

"...khail, Mikhail! Go back! Mikhail, go back!" Bykov was repeating in a monotone.

"Right away, Alyosha!" Mikhail Antonovich said. "We've finished everything and everything is all right..." He stopped. The long black fragment was gradually floating away, revealing the group of white rocks again. The silver spider flashed in the Sun.

"Alexei!" he shouted. "Remember the fairy tale about the gigantic fluctuation? I think we got that one chance in a billion!"

"Look, look, Volodya!" Mikhail Antonovich muttered, looking at the screen in horror. A mass of thick gray dust was moving in from the side, and over it floated several dozen shining sharp fragments. Yurkovsky groaned: the strange white rocks and silver spider would be covered, crumpled, and dragged away, and no one would even know what it was.

"Look at the screen, Mikhail," he said. "In twenty minutes it will be too late." Mikhail Antonovich looked at the radio. "Mikhail, don't be a fool...We have a chance in a billion... We'll never be forgiven if we don't take it...Don't you understand, you old fool?"

Mikhail Antonovich reached for the receiver and turned it on. They could hear Bykov breathing heavily.

"Misha," Yurkovsky whispered hoarsely. "I'll never forgive you, Misha...I'll forget that you were my friend, Misha...I'll forget that we had been on Golconda together...Misha, this is the whole meaning of my life, understand that.. .I've waited all my life for this...I've believed in it...It's the aliens, Misha..." Mikhail Antonovich looked in his friend's face and shut his eyes: he didn't recognize Yurkovsky.

"Misha, the dust is moving in.. .Go under the dust, Misha, I beg you, please.. .We'll be quick. We'll just leave a radio marker and come right back. It's so simple and safe, and no one will know..."

"We can't," said Mikhail. "Don't ask me. We can't. I promised. He'll go crazy with worry. Don't ask me..."

Silently, he started pulling Mikhail Antonovich out of the chair. It was so wild and terrifying that Mikhail Antonovich lost his bearings.

"All right," he muttered. "All right.. .just wait...a bit..." He still couldn't recognize Yurkovsky's face; it was like a nightmare.

"Here I am," Mikhail Antonovich said in a tiny voice and Yurkovsky hit the lever with his armored fist as hard as he could. The metal glove cut off the lever as though with a scythe.

Mikhail Antonovich, horrified, dropped the cosmoscaphe into a twenty-kilometer chasm. He was quivering with pity and bad premonitions. A minute passed, another...

The porous rock clumps on the screen were growing and slowly turning. Yurkovsky pulled the transparent helmet of his suit over his head with a practiced gesture.

Bykov sat hunched over the radio, both hands tight on the useless microphone stand. He could only listen and try to understand what was happening, and wait and hope. If they get back, I'll beat them to a pulp, he thought. That sweet navigator and that general louse. No, I won't beat them. I just hope they return, let them return. Next to him stood Zhilin with hands in pockets, silent.

Bykov shut his eyes. The rocks in the ring—sharp, heavy; flying, crawling, swirling; surrounding you; nudging; scraping on metal with a repulsive sound. A jolt. Then a harder one. That's nothing, it's not dangerous. It's just small crawling things hammering like hard peas on the exterior, but somewhere behind them the largest and fastest rock is getting ready, thrown from a gigantic catapult, and the locaters don't see it yet behind the dust cloud, and when they see it, it will be too late...The body shatters, the bulkhead folds up like an accordian, then the rock-filled sky flashes through the crack for a second and the air whistles through, and the people turn white and fragile, like ice...Of course, they're wearing their space suits, Bykov thought and opened his eyes.

"Zhilin," he said. "Go to Markushin and find out where there's another cosmoscaphe. Have them prepare a pilot for me.

"Slow down a bit. I'll get the marker ready. Too bad I broke the radio, what a fool..."

"I don't know, really...This is all so strange...I don't feel right..." he replied.

What did they find there, Bykov thought. What paw? What are they so slow about? Can't they do it any faster?

"Look, it seems to be grown into the rock...Did you notice that they're all identical?"

Bykov didn't even ask what that meant. He left the microphone and said, "Let's find the Swiss."

Bykov hurried to the exit. Zhilin followed and locked the door. Bykov said as they walked, "We'll take the tanker, go out there by bearing, and wait for them there.

"I don't know," Bykov said through his teeth. "And I don't want to know. While I talk to the captain, go to the control room and figure out the bearing."

In the corridor of the observatory Bykov found the sweaty dispatcher and ordered, "We're going to the tanker. Take off the crosspiece and shut the hatch."

The dispatcher nodded. "The second cosmoscaphe is returning," he said. Bykov stopped. "No, no," the dispatcher said with regret. "It won't be here for another three hours."

Bykov silently moved on. He walked past the caisson and the bamboo chair, and up the narrow, crowded ramp to the tanker's control room. Captain Korf and his navigator were leaning over a low desk scanning a chart.

Zhilin, without saying a word, went to the radio and started tuning in the cosmoscaphe. The captain and navigator stared at him in amazement. Bykov went over to them.

"Be glad to," Captain Korf said. He looked at Zhilin, who was working with the radio.

The navigator spoke quickly; Bykov only caught individual words. Korf listened and nodded. Then, blushing strongly, he said to Bykov, "The navigator does not want to go. He is not required to do so."

He waved off the navigator and went to the control panel. The navigator, looking at no one, left. In a minute the outside hatch slammed.

"Girls," said Captain Korf, "they make us weak, as weak as them. But we must struggle. Let's prepare."

"There," he said. "That's where it belongs when the flight is dangerous. Take your places, please."

Bykov sat at the console with the captain. Zhilin belted himself into the seat in front of the radio.

Captain Korf pushed the starter, and everything moved. Suddenly Zhilin remembered. "Yura!" He stared at the radio for a few seconds, hearing Mikhail Antonovich's sad sighs. He didn't know what to do. The tanker was outside the zone of the observatory, and Captain Korf, turning the wheel, was bringing the tanker on the bearing course. Let's not panic, Zhilin thought. It's not so bad. Nothing has happened yet.

"Right away, Volodya," Mikhail Antonovich replied. His voice was strange—either tired or confused.

"Hey!" said Yura's voice from behind. Zhilin turned. Yura came into the control room, sleepy and very happy. "Are you going to Ring-2, too?"

"Himmeldonnerwetter!" Captain Korf whispered. He had forgotten all about Yura. The passenger! "To your cabin!" he shouted angrily. His red sideburns bristled.

Mikhail Antonovich suddenly said loudly, "Volodya... please be so kind as to move the cosmoscaphe about thirty meters...Can you do it?"

Bykov jumped up and tore the fastening on his jacket. Yura watched him in horror. His face, always brick red, turned bluish white.

There was a weak moan, and Mikhail Antonovich said in a trembling voice, "Go away, Volodya. Go away fast. I can't."

"Go away, go away, don't come this way..." Mikhail An-tonovich muttered. "It won't work... Don't... don't..."

"So that's it," Yurkovsky said. "Why didn't you say something? Don't worry. We'll just...just...You really got it..."

Captain Korf, his freckled face contorted, leaned into the keyboard controls. The overload was growing.

"Just a minute, Misha, just a minute," Yurkovsky was saying in a cheerful voice. "Like this...Ah, damn me..."

In the ensuing silence, they heard Yurkovsky and Mikhail Antonovich breathing heavily, wheezing.

And after a brief silence someone—it wasn't clear who— called quietly and piteously, "Alyosha...Alexei..."

Bykov silently pushed Captain Korf aside, like a kitten, and pounced on the keyboard. The tanker surged. Squashed into his seat by the powerful overload, Zhilin had time to think: Forced! He blacked out for a second. Then through the noise in his ears he heard a brief, strangled cry, as from great pain, and through the red veil that covered his eyes, he saw the needle on the autobearing quiver and shake impotently from side to side.

Yura felt sick. He was nauseated and his head ached badly. He was tormented by a bizarre double delirium. He was on his berth in the crowded dark cabin on the Takhmasib, and at the

same time it was his airy light room at home on Earth. His mother would come into the room, place her cool pleasant hand on his cheek, and speak in Zhilin's voice, "No, he's still asleep." Yura wanted to say that he wasn't sleeping, but for some reason he couldn't do it. People, some familiar and some not, passed by, and one of them, in a white robe, bent over and hit Yura very hard on his poor cracked head, and Mikhail Antonovich said in a pitiful voice, "Alyosha...Alexei..." and Bykov, horrible and pale as a corpse, grabbed the console, and Yura was thrown down the corridor head first into something sharp and hard. Music that brought tears to his eyes was playing, and a voice said, "...while exploring Saturn's ring Inspector General Vladimir Sergeyevich Yurkovsky and Chief Navigator Cosmonaut Mikhail Antonovich Krutikov were killed..." And Yura wept, the way grown-ups weep in their sleep when they dream something sad.

When Yura came to, he saw that he was really in his cabin on the Takhmasib and that a doctor in a white coat was standing next to his bed.

"Did they really die?" Yura asked. Zhilin nodded silently. "And Alexei Petrovich?" Zhilin said nothing.

"That's good," the doctor said. "Stay in bed for five days or so and you'll be fine."

"They won't send me back to Earth, will they?" Yura asked. He was suddenly very worried that they would.

The doctor told Zhilin that Yura had to take his medicine every three hours and warned that he would be back the day

after tomorrow and left. Zhilin said that he would be right back and went out with the doctor.

Yura shut his eyes again. Dead, he thought. No one will ever call me cadet and ask me to chat with an old man, and no one will shyly read in a kind voice his memoirs about the sweetest and nicest people. That will never happen again. How horrible—it will never happen. You can break your head on a wall, you can tear your shirt, and that won't bring back Vladimir Sergeyevich standing by the shower room in his luxurious robe and giant towel over his shoulder or Mikhail Antonovich ladling out the oatmeal and smiling gently. Never, never, never .. .Why is there a never? How can it be, never? Some stupid rock in some stupid ring of stupid Saturn.. .And people who should be alive, who simply must be alive because the world is a worse place without them—these people are gone and will never be back...Yura recalled vaguely that they had found something. But that was not important, even though they felt that it was the most important thing. It's always like that. If you don't know who performed the heroic deed, then the deed is the most important thing for you. But if you do know the person, then what do you care about the deed? You'd rather it had never happened, just as long as the person was still alive. Heroics is fine, but the person must live.

Yura thought he would be seeing his friends in a few days. They would naturally start questioning him. They won't ask about Yurkovsky or Krutikov; they will ask about what Yurkovsky and Krutikov found. They'll be burning up with curiosity. They will be most interested in what Yurkovsky and Krutikov had time to report about their discovery. They will be impressed by the courage of Yurkovsky and Krutikov, their self-denial, and they will exclaim with envy, "Now they were real men!" And most of all, they will be impressed that they had died in the performance of duty.

he would tell them. To keep from screaming, "Snotty jerks!" to keep from crying, to keep from picking a fight, he'd say, "Wait. There's a story..." and he would begin it like this: "On the island of Honshu, in a cave in the Chichigatake Mountains, in an impenetrable forest they found a cave..."

Zhilin came in, sat at the foot of Yura's bed and patted his knee. Zhilin was wearing a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His face was drawn and tired. He was unshaven. What about Bykov, Yura thought, and then he asked, "Vanya, how's Alexei Petrovich?"

The bus rolled up quietly to the low white fence and stopped in front of the large motley crowd that was waiting. Zhilin was sitting by the window and looking at the happy faces turned red by the cold, at the snowbanks glistening in the sun in front of the arrivals building, at the trees wreathed in frost. The doors opened and the frosty air blew into the bus. The passengers headed for the door, exchanging farewell jokes with the stewardesses. A happy hum hung over the crowd—people hugged, shook hands, kissed. Zhilin looked for familiar faces, didn't find any, and sighed with relief. He looked at Bykov. Bykov sat immobile, his face deep in the fur collar of his Greenland jacket.

The stewardess took his suitcase and said merrily, "Well, comrades? We're here! The bus doesn't go any farther."

Bykov rose heavily and, without taking his hands from his pockets, walked through the empty bus to the exit. Zhilin, carrying Yurkovsky's briefcase, followed. The crowd was gone. Groups of people were walking toward the building, laughing and talking. Bykov stepped into the snow, squinting against the sun, and went toward the building. The snow creaked underfoot. A long shadow ran alongside. Then Zhilin saw Dauge.

hobbling toward them, leaning heavily on a thick polished stick. In his hand, in his warm, shaggy mitten, was a pathetic bouquet of wilted forget-me-nots. Looking straight ahead, he came up to Bykov, shoved the flowers at him, and pressed his face against the Greenland jacket.

Bykov embraced him and grumbled, "Why didn't you stay home, you see how cold it is..."

He took Dauge's arm and they walked slowly toward the building—huge, stoop-shouldered Bykov and tiny, hunchbacked Dauge. Zhilin followed.

"You need to go to the mountains. You're not a boy anymore, you have to take care of yourself."

"No time," Dauge said. "There's so much I must finish. There's so much that is begun, Alyosha."

Then Dauge said, "The question of the expedition to TYans-pluto has been decided. They want you to go. I asked them to wait until you got back."

They started up the steps. It was hard for Dauge—he still wasn't used to his stick. Bykov supported him with his elbow.

Dauge said softly, "I didn't even embrace them, Alyosha...I embraced you, I embraced Vanya, but not them..."

Bykov said nothing, and they went into the lobby. Zhilin went up the stairs and saw in the shadow of a column a woman who was looking at him. She turned away immediately, but he had had time to see her face under her fur hat. It must have been beautiful once and now it was old and haggard, almost

hideous. Where have I seen her, Zhilin thought. Fve seen her somewhere many times. Or does she just look like someone else?

He pushed open the door and went into the lobby. So, now it will be Transpluto. Far, far away from everything—from Earth, from people, from the most important thing. Soon the steel box again, and the strange, pale, so unimportant cliffs. The important thing will remain on Earth. As usual, of course. It's time to decide, Ivan Zhilin, it's time! Of course, some people will say, with pity or with mockery, "He lost his nerve. It happens." Zhilin stopped walking. Yes, that's what they'll think. "He lost his nerve. And he was such a strong man." But that's great! It won't hurt so much that I'm leaving him now, when he's all alone... Of course, it will be easier for him to think that I've lost my nerve than to see that I don't value all those Transplutos. He's stubborn and holds hard to his convictions... and mistakes... rock solid mistakes.

The most important thing is on Earth. The most important thing always stays on Earth, and I will stay on Earth, too, I've decided, he thought. Decided. The important thing is to be on Earth...