Metro 2033 Part 8

'But is there no other pa.s.sage there?' he asked carefully.

'No, and the map is silent about it. The pa.s.sage to lines that are actually constructed doesn't begin at Turgenevskaya. But even if the pa.s.sage did exist I'm not sure that you have enough courage to separate from the group and go into it. Especially if you listen to the latest rumours about that lovely little place while you're waiting to join the caravan.'

'So what should I do?' Artyom asked despondently, scrutinizing the little calendar.

'It's possible to get to Kitai Gorod. Oh, now that's a curious station, and the morals there are very amusing - but there, at least, you won't disappear without a trace in such a way that your closest friends wonder to themselves if you ever existed at all. At Turgenevskaya that can happen . . . From Kitai Gorod, follow me now,' he was tracing a finger on the map, 'it's only two stations to Pushkinskaya, and there there's a pa.s.sage to Chekhovskaya, and another one there, and then you're at Polis. That would be shorter than the route which you were planning.'

Artyom was moving his lips, counting the stations and transfers on each route. However he counted though, the route that Khan suggested was much shorter and less dangerous and it wasn't clear why Artyom hadn't thought of it himself. So there was no choice left.

'You're right,' he said finally. 'And how often do caravans go there?'

'I'm afraid not often. And there is one small but annoying detail: in order to go into the southern tunnel to Kitai Gorod, you have to come to our little half-station from the north,' and he pointed at the d.a.m.ned tunnel which Artyom had only barely made it out of. 'Basically, the last caravan to the south left a while ago now, and we're hoping that there's another group planning on coming through soon. Talk to some people, ask around, but don't talk too much. There're some cutthroats around here and they can't be trusted . . . OK, I'll go with you so you don't get into anything stupid,' he added after thinking it over.

Artyom was going to put on his rucksack when Khan stopped him with a gesture: 'Don't worry about your things. People are so scared of me here that no riff-raff would dare even look at my lair. And while you're here, you're under my protection.'

Artyom left his rucksack by the fire but he took his machine gun with him anyway, not wanting to be separated from his new treasure, and he hurried to follow Khan who was walking in a leisurely fas.h.i.+on towards the fires that were burning on the other side of the hall. He noticed with surprise how under-nourished tramps, wrapped in stinking rags scuttled away from them as they pa.s.sed and Artyom thought that people really were probably afraid of Khan here. He wondered why . . .

The first fire swam by but Khan didn't slow his pace. It was a very tiny little fire, barely burning, and there were two figures sitting next to it, tightly pressed to each other, a man and a woman. They were whispering quietly in an unknown language, and their whispers dispersed, not quite reaching Artyom's ears. Artyom was so fascinated that he almost turned his head. He could hardly resist looking at this pair.

In front of them was another fire, a big, bright one and a whole camp of people were settled around it. Fierce looking peasant types were sitting there, warming their hands. Loud laughter thundered and the air was so torn with the sound of noisy arguing that Artyom became a bit scared and slowed his pace. But Khan calmly and confidently walked up to the seated men, greeted them and sat down by the fire so that Artyom could do nothing else but follow his example and sit down next to him.

'. . . He's looking at himself and sees that he has the same rash on his hands, and something is swelling and hard and really painful in his armpits. Imagine the horror, f.u.c.k's sake . . . Different people behave in different ways. Some shoot themselves straight away, some go crazy and start throwing themselves at other people trying to hug them so they won't die alone. Some run into the tunnel beyond the Ring to the backwaters so they won't infect other people . . . There are all sorts of people. So this guy, as soon as he sees all this, asks his doctor: is there any chance I can get better? The doctor tells him straight: none. After the appearance of this rash you have about two weeks to live. And the battalion commander, I see, is already quietly taking his Makarov out of its holster just in case the guy starts to get violent . . .' The man speaking was a thin old guy with a bristly chin in a quilted jacket with a voice faltering out genuine anxiety as he looked at the grey watery eyes around him.

And though Artyom did not understand what it was all about, the spirit with which the story was told and the pregnant silence among the recently riotous group made him shudder and ask Khan quietly about it in order not to draw any attention to himself.

'What's he talking about?'

'The plague,' Khan answered heavily. 'It's started.'

Those words emitted the stench of decomposed bodies and the greasy smoke of cremation fires and echoes of alarm bells and the howl of manual sirens.

At VDNKh VDNKh and its surroundings there had never been an epidemic; rats as carriers of infection were destroyed, and there were also several good doctors at the station. Artyom had only read in books about fatal infectious diseases. He came across some of them when he was very young and they had left a deep trace in his memory and long inhabited the world of his childhood dreams and fears. Therefore when he heard the word 'plague' he felt a cold sweat on his back and a little faint. He didn't ask Khan anything more, but listened with an unhealthy attention to the story of the thin man in the quilted coat. and its surroundings there had never been an epidemic; rats as carriers of infection were destroyed, and there were also several good doctors at the station. Artyom had only read in books about fatal infectious diseases. He came across some of them when he was very young and they had left a deep trace in his memory and long inhabited the world of his childhood dreams and fears. Therefore when he heard the word 'plague' he felt a cold sweat on his back and a little faint. He didn't ask Khan anything more, but listened with an unhealthy attention to the story of the thin man in the quilted coat.

'But Ryzhii wasn't that type, he wasn't a psycho. He stood there silently for a minute and says: "Give me some cartridges and I'll go. I can't stay here with you anymore." I heard the battalion commander sigh with relief straight away. It was clear: there's little joy in shooting one of your own even if he's sick. They gave Ryzhii two horns. And he went to the north-east, beyond Aviamotornaya. And we didn't see him again. But the battalion commander asks our doctor afterwards about how long it takes the disease to act. The doctor says the incubation period is a week. If nothing appears a week after contact with it then you're not infected. So the battalion commander then decides: we'll leave the station and stay there for a week and then we'll see. We can't be inside the Ring, basically - if the infection penetrates the Ring then the whole metro will die. And so they stayed away for a whole week. They didn't even go up to each other - because how could we know who was infected among us. So there was this other guy, who we called Cup because he really liked to drink. Everyone kept away from him since he'd hung out with Rizhii a lot. When he approached anyone they would run to the other end of the station. Some guy even pointed his barrel at him, telling him to, like, push off. When Cup ran out of water, the guys shared with him of course - but they did it by putting it on the floor and then walking away and no one got near. After a week he went missing. Then people were saying different things, some were even telling lies and saying that some beast had dragged him off but the tunnels there are quiet and clean. I personally think that he noticed a rash on himself and his armpits were hurting so he ran off. And no one else from our forces was infected and we waited a little longer and then the battalion commander checked everyone himself. Everyone was healthy.'

Artyom noticed that despite this a.s.surance, the s.p.a.ce around the story-teller was empty even though there wasn't much s.p.a.ce at the fire altogether and everyone was sitting close together, shoulder to shoulder.

'Did it take you a while to get here, brother?' A thick-set bearded man in a leather waistcoat asked him quietly but clearly.

'It's about thirty days since we came out from Aviamotornaya,' the thin guy replied looking at him uneasily.

'So I have news for you. There's plague at Aviamotornaya. There's plague there - do you hear?! The Hansa have closed it as well as Taganskaya and Kurskaya. They've called a quarantine. I have acquaintances there, Hansa citizens. And there's flame-throwers standing at the pa.s.sages to Taganskaya and Kurskaya and everyone who comes within range is blasted. They're calling it disinfection. Apparently, some have an incubation period of a week and for others it takes longer, so you obviously brought the infection back,' he concluded, viciously lowering his voice.

'What, oh come on guys? I'm healthy! See for yourself!' the little guy jumped up from his place and started to convulsively strip off his quilted coat and to show the dirty body underneath it, hurrying, afraid that he wouldn't convince them.

The tension mounted. There was no one left near the thin man, they'd all crowded at the other side of the fire. People were talking nervously and Artyom heard the quiet clanking of gun locks. He looked at Khan questioningly, pulling his gun from his shoulder to firing position, pointed forward. Khan kept his silence but stopped him with a gesture. Then he quickly got up and walked away from the fire without a sound, taking Artyom with him. At about ten paces he froze and continued to look at what was happening.

Quick and busy movements were visible in the light of the fire and they looked like some kind of primitive reckless dance. Talk in the crowd went silent and the action continued in ominous silence. Finally, the man succeeded in pulling off his unders.h.i.+rt and he exclaimed triumphantly: 'See! Look! I am clean! I am healthy! There's nothing there! I'm healthy!'

The bearded guy in the waistcoat pulled a board out of the fire that was burning on one end and carefully approached the thin guy looking at him with disgust. The skin of the overly talkative guy was dark with dirt and glossy with grease, but there was no trace of a rash as far as the bearded guy could see and so after a thorough inspection he commanded him: 'Raise your arms!'

The unfortunate fellow quickly threw his arms up, giving the people crowded on the other side of the fire a view of his armpits which were overgrown with fine hairs. The bearded man made a show of holding his nose as he got closer, meticulously examining and looking for buboes, but he couldn't find any symptoms of plague.

'I am healthy! Healthy! Are you convinced now?' The little man cried out, almost hysterical now.

There was a hostile whisper in the crowd. Taking stock of the overall mood and not wis.h.i.+ng to succ.u.mb to it, the thickset man declared: 'Well, let's a.s.sume that you're healthy. That still means nothing!'

'Why does it mean nothing?' The thin man was taken aback and immediately drooped.

'That's right. You might have not got sick yourself. You might be immune. But you can still carry the infection. You had contact with that Rizhii guy? Were you in the same force? Did you talk with him, share the same water? Did you shake his hand? You shook his hand, don't lie brother.'

'So what, what if I shook his hand? I didn't get sick . . .' The man replied at a loss of what to say. He was frozen powerless, and persecuted by the gaze of the crowd.

'So. It isn't impossible that you're infectious, brother. So, I'm sorry but we can't risk it. It's a prophylactic brother, you see?' The bearded man undid the b.u.t.tons of his waistcoat, baring a brown leather holster. There were encouraging outbursts and more sounds of snapping gun-locks among the crowd at the fire.

'Guys! But I'm healthy! I didn't get sick! Look, see!' The thin man again raised his arms but now everyone just winced disdainfully and with evident aversion.

The thickset man took his pistol from its holster and pointed it at the guy who it seemed couldn't understand what was going on and he was muttering that he was healthy, squeezing his quilted coat to his chest: it was chilly and he had already started to get cold.

Then Artyom couldn't stand it. Pulling at his gun-lock, he stepped toward the crowd, not exactly knowing what he was about to do. There was a lump in the pit of his stomach and one stuck in his throat too so he wouldn't be able to utter a word. But something in this person, in his empty and desperate eyes, in the senseless, mechanical mutterings, had hooked into Artyom and had pushed him to take a step forward. It wasn't clear what he was going to do next but there was a hand on his shoulder and G.o.d what a heavy hand it was!

'Stop,' Khan ordered him quietly, and Artyom was as frozen as a corpse, feeling that his brittle determination had been shattered against the granite of someone else's will. 'You can't help him. You will either be killed or you will bring fury on yourself. Your mission will not be completed in either case and you should remember that.'

At that moment the thin man suddenly twitched, yelled, clinging to his quilted jacket and with a wave he jumped onto the path and dashed into the black trough of the southern tunnel with superhuman speed, squealing, as wild as an animal. The bearded man jerked and was after him, trying to take aim at his back but then stopped and waved a hand. This was already going too far, and all of them stood on the platform knew it. It wasn't clear if the chased man remembered what he was running into, perhaps he was hoping for a miracle, or maybe fear had wiped everything out of his head.

After several minutes, there was a howl which tore painfully into the dull silence of the terrible tunnel and the echoes of his footsteps went suddenly silent, as if someone had turned off the sound. Even the echo died immediately, and silence reigned again. This was so strange, so unusual to human hearing and reason, that the imagination tried to fill the gaps and it seemed to them that they could hear a far-off cry. But everyone understood that it was an illusion.

'Jackals always know when one of their pack is sick, my friend.' said Khan and Artyom almost fell backwards as he noticed the predatory fire in Khan's eyes. 'The sick one is a burden to the pack and a threat to its health. So the pack kills the sick one. They tear him to pieces. To pieces,' he repeated, as though he was relis.h.i.+ng what he'd said.

'But these aren't jackals,' Artyom finally found the courage to object to Khan, who he was suddenly believing to be the reincarnation of Genghis Khan. 'These are people!'

'And what would you have them do?' Khan parried. 'Degradation. Our medicine is at the level of jackals. And there's as much humanity in us too. So . . .'

Artyom knew how to object to this too but arguing with his only protector at this wild station was not appropriate. But Khan who had been expecting an objection evidently decided that Artyom had given up and he turned the conversation to a different subject.

'So now, while the subject of infectious diseases and the methods to fight them will dominate our friends' discussions, we need to forge some iron. Otherwise they might decide not to move ahead for weeks. Even though weeks around here can fly past unnoticed.'

The people at the fire were excitedly discussing what had happened. They were all tense and upset, the spectral shadow of the terrible danger had covered them, and now they were trying to decide what to do next, but their thoughts, like those of lab mice in a labyrinth, were going in circles as they helplessly poked into blind alleys, senselessly rus.h.i.+ng back and forth, unable to find the exit.

'Our friends are very close to panic,' Khan commented smugly, smiling and looking gaily at Artyom. 'Furthermore, they suspect that they just lynched an innocent man and this act does not stimulate rational thinking. Now we are dealing not with a collective but with a pack. A perfect mental state for the manipulation of their psyches! The conditions couldn't be better.'

Artyom felt uneasy again seeing the triumphant look on Khan's face. He tried to smile in response - after all Khan wanted to help him - but the smile came out pitifully and unconvincing.

'The main thing now is authority. Strength. The pack respects strength, and not logical argument,' Khan added, nodding. 'Stand and watch. You'll be able to go on your way in less than a day's time.' And with these words, he took several long strides and wedged himself into the crowd.

'We can't stay here!' His voice thundered and the conversation in the crowd went silent.

People listened to him carefully . . . Khan was using his powerful almost hypnotic gift of persuasion. With his first words, there was an acute feeling of danger hanging above each person, and Artyom doubted that anyone would choose to remain at the station after this.

'He infected the air here! If we breathe this much longer then it's over. Bacilli are everywhere here, and we will definitely get hooked by it if we stay here any longer. We'll die like rats and we'll rot right in the middle of this hall on the floor. No one will choose to come and help us - there isn't a hope! We can only count on ourselves. We need to get out of this demonic station, which is seething with microbes, as soon as we can. If we leave now all together then it won't be hard to get through the tunnel. But we have to do it quickly!'

People made noises of agreement. The majority of them couldn't, like Artyom, protest against the colossal force of Khan's persuasion. In following Khan's words, Artyom obediently worried about all the circ.u.mstances and feelings that were proposed in them: the feelings of threat, the fear, the panic, the weak hope which was growing as Khan continued talking about his suggestions for escape.

'How many of you are there?'

Immediately several people started counting the gathered group. There were eight men, not counting Artyom and Khan.

'That's means there's nothing to wait for! We're already ten people so we can get through!' Khan stated and, not allowing the people to come to their senses, he continued, 'Gather your things, we need to leave within the hour! Quick, let's get back to the fire, you also need to get your belongings,' Khan whispered to Artyom, tugging him towards their little camp. 'The most important thing is that they don't realize what's going on. If we delay, they will start to question whether it is worth it for them to leave and go to Chistye Prudy. Some of them were headed in the opposite direction, and others just live here, and they have nowhere else to go. It seems that I'll have to take you to Kitai Gorod, otherwise, I'm afraid that they'll lose direction or they'll just forget where they're going and why.'

Quickly putting Bourbon's fancy things into his rucksack while Khan rolled up his tarpaulin and put out the fire, Artyom saw what was going on at the other end of the hall. People who were initially animated and quickly gathering up their households were moving less and less certainly. Someone now was squatting by the fire and another was wandering towards the centre of the platform for something, and there were two people discussing something amongst themselves. Having understood what was going on, Artyom pulled on Khan's sleeve.

'They're discussing it,' Artyom warned him.

'Alas, it's an inherent human feature to discuss things,' Khan answered. 'Even if their will is suppressed and even though they are in fact hypnotized, they will still gravitate towards each other and start talking. Man is a social being, and there's nothing you can do about it. In any other situation, I would accept any human activity as a divine concept or as the inevitable result of evolution, depending on who I was talking to. But in this situation, the fact that they're thinking is not good. We need to interfere here, my young friend, and to direct their thoughts along the most useful path,' he concluded, putting his enormous travelling pack on his back.

The fire was put out and the dense, almost tangible darkness squeezed them on all sides. Reaching into his pocket and getting out his flashlight, Artyom pushed on its b.u.t.ton. Something buzzed inside the device and the lamp came to life. An uneven, flickering light splashed out from it.

'Go on, go on, press it again, don't be afraid,' Khan encouraged him, 'it can work better than that.'

When they went up to the others, the stale tunnel drafts had had time to blow through their minds so that they were less than convinced in Khan's proposition. The strong man with the beard stepped forward.

'Listen, brother,' he carelessly turned to Artyom's companion.

Without even looking at him, Artyom could feel the air around Khan electrify. It seemed that such familiarity had incensed Khan. Of all the people Artyom knew, it was Khan that he would least like to see furious. There was also the hunter, but he seemed to Artyom to be so much more cold-blooded that it was impossible to imagine him in a rage. He would probably kill people with the same expression on his face that other people have when they were was.h.i.+ng mushrooms or making tea.

'We've been discussing it and we think,' the thickset man continued, 'that you're chasing snowstorms here. For me, for example, it's completely inconvenient to go to Kitai Gorod. And those guys are against it too. Right s.e.m.e.nych?' He turned for the support of the crowd. Someone in the crowd nodded in agreement, though rather timidly. 'Most of us were going to Prospect Mir, to the Hansa, until the business in the tunnel started up. So we're waiting here and then moving on. Nothing is left here anyway. We burned his things. And don't try to get us thinking about the air. This isn't pulmonary plague. And if we're infected, then we're already infected and there's nothing to be done. It's more likely that there wasn't any infection here to start with so you can get lost, brother, with your propositions!' The bearded man's manner was becoming even more familiar.

Artyom was a little taken aback by this onslaught. But, stealing a look at his companion, he felt that the guy was in trouble. There was that blazing orange internal flame in Khan's eyes and there was such savage malice and power coming from him that Artyom felt a chill, and the hair on his head began to rise, and he wanted to bare his teeth and roar.

'Why did you kill him if there was no infection after all?' Khan asked insinuatingly, with a deliberately soft voice.

'It was prophylactic!' the thickset man answered with an insolent look.

'No, my friend, this isn't medicine. This was a crime. What gave you the right to do it?'

'Don't call me friend, I'm not your dog, OK?' the bearded man growled. 'What right did I have? The right of the strong! Haven't you heard of it? And you're not exactly . . . We could get you and your foundling too! As a prophylactic measure! Got it?' With a gesture already familiar to Artyom, the man pulled open his waistcoat and put his hand on his holster.

This time Khan didn't manage to hold Artyom back and the bearded man was in the crosshairs of Artyom's machine gun before he could even unb.u.t.ton his holster. Artyom was breathing heavily and could hear his heart beating and the blood pounding in his temples, and there wasn't a reasonable thought in his head. He knew only one thing: if the bearded man said one more thing or if his hand continued on its way to his pistol's handle then he would immediately pull the trigger. Artyom didn't want to die like that poor guy had: he wouldn't let the pack tear him to pieces.

The bearded guy froze in place and didn't make a move, with evil flas.h.i.+ng in his dark eyes. And then something incomprehensible happened. Khan suddenly took a big step forward, looked the man in the eye and said quietly: 'Stop it. You will obey me. Or you will die.'

The threatening gaze of the bearded man faded, and his hands were powerless, hanging down beside his body. It looked so unnatural that Artyom had no doubt that it was Khan's words and not the machine gun that had had an effect on the man.

'Never discuss the rights of the strong. You are too weak to do that,' said Khan and he returned to Artyom, without even disarming the man.

The thickset man stood still, looking from side to side. People were waiting to hear what Khan was going to say next. His control over the situation had been restored.

'We will consider the matter closed and that consensus has been reached. We leave in fifteen minutes.' And turning to Artyom he said, 'People, you say? No, my friend, they are beasts. They are a pack of jackals. They were preparing to tear us apart. And they would have. But they forgot one thing. They are jackals but I am a wolf. And there are some stations where I am known only by that name.'

Artyom was silent, dumbstruck by what he had seen, finally understanding who Khan reminded him of.

'But you are a wolf cub,' Khan added after a minute, not turning around but Artyom heard the unexpectedly warm notes in his voice.

CHAPTER 7.

The Khanate of Darkness

The tunnel was absolutely empty and clean. The ground was dry, there was a pleasant breeze blowing into their faces, there wasn't even one rat, and there were no suspicious looking side pa.s.sages and gaping patches of blackness to the sides, only a few locked doors, and it seemed that one could live in this tunnel just as well as at any of the stations. But more than that, this totally unnatural calm and cleanliness not only meant they weren't on their guard but it instantly dissipated any fear of death and disappearance. Here the legends about disappeared people started to seem like silly fabrications and Artyom already started to wonder if the wild scene with the unfortunate man who they thought had the plague had actually happened. Maybe it was just a little nightmare that had visited him while he snoozed on the tarpaulin by the wandering philosopher's fire.

He and Khan were bringing up the rear since Khan was concerned that the men might break away from the group one by one - and then, according to him, no one would reach Kitai Gorod. Now he was quietly walking next to Artyom, calmly, as though nothing had happened, and the deep wrinkles which had cut through his face during the skirmish at Sukharevskaya, were now smooth. The storm had pa.s.sed, and walking next to Artyom there was now a wise and restrained Khan and not a furious, full-grown wolf. But Artyom was sure the transformation would take only a minute.

Understanding that the next opportunity to draw aside the curtain from the metro's mysteries had arisen, he couldn't hold himself back.

'Do you understand what's happening in this tunnel?'

'No one knows that, including me,' Khan answered reluctantly. 'Yes, there are some things that even I know exactly nothing about. The only thing I can tell you is that it's an abyss. I call this place the black hole . . . You probably have never seen a star? Or did you say you once saw one? And do you know anything about the cosmos? Well, a dying star can look like a hole if, when it goes out, it is affected by its own incredibly powerful energy and it starts to consume itself, taking matter from the outside to the inside, to its centre, which is becoming smaller all the time, but more dense and heavier. And the denser it becomes, the more its force of gravity grows. This process is irreversible and it's like an avalanche: with the ever-increasing gravity, the growing quant.i.ty of matter is drawn faster and faster to the heart of the monster. At a certain stage, its power achieves such magnitudes that it sucks in its neighbours, and all the matter that is located within the bounds of its influence, and finally, even light waves. The gigantic force allows it to devour the rays of other suns, and the s.p.a.ce around it is dead and black - nothing that falls into its possession has the strength to pull itself away. This is a star of darkness, a black sun, and around it is only cold and darkness.' He went quiet, listening to the conversation of the people ahead of them.

'But what does that have to do with the tunnel?' Artyom couldn't resist asking after a five-minute silence.

'You know, I have the gift of foresight. I sometimes succeed in seeing into the future, into the past, or sometimes I can transport my mind to other places. Sometimes it's unclear, it's hidden from me, like, for example, I don't know how your journey will end - your future is generally a mystery to me. It's kind of like looking through dirty water and you can't make out anything. But when I try to look into what happened here or to understand the nature of this place - there's only blackness in front of me, and the rays of my thoughts don't return from the absolute darkness of this tunnel. That's why I call it the black hole. That's all I can tell you about it.' And he went silent, but after a few moments, he added, 'And that's why I'm here.'

'So you don't know why sometimes this tunnel is completely safe and other times it swallows people? And why it only takes people travelling alone?'

'I know nothing more about it that you do, even though I've been trying for three years to figure out this mystery. So far, in vain.'

Their steps resounded with a distant echo. The air here was transparent, and breathing was surprisingly easy, and the darkness didn't seem frightening. Khan's words didn't put him on his guard or worry him; Artyom thought that his companion was so gloomy not because of the secrets and hazards of the tunnel but because of the futility of his investigations. His preoccupation was self-conscious and even ridiculous in Artyom's opinion. Here was the pa.s.sage and there were no threats here, it was straight and empty . . . A boisterous melody even started to play in his head, and apparently it then became external without his noticing, because Khan suddenly looked at him mockingly and asked: 'So then, isn't this fun? It's nice here, right? So quiet, so clean, yes?'

'Aha!' Artyom agreed joyfully.

And he felt so light and free in his soul because Khan had understood his mood and was also affected by it . . . He is also walking and smiling and not burdened with heavy thoughts, he also believes that this tunnel is . . .

'So now, cover your eyes, and I'll take you by the hand so you won't stumble . . . Do you see anything?' Khan asked with interest, softly squeezing Artyom's wrist.

'No, I don't see anything, only a little light from the flashlights through my eyelids,' Artyom said a little disappointedly, squeezing his eyes closed obediently - and suddenly he quietly yelped.

'There - you made it!' Khan noted with satisfaction. 'It's beautiful, yes?'

'Amazing . . . It's like when . . . There's no ceiling, and everything is so blue . . . My G.o.d, what beauty! And how easy to breathe!'

'That, my friend, is the sky. It's curious, no? If you relax and close your eyes in the right mood here, then lots of people see it. It's strange, of course . . . Even those who have never been to the surface see it. And the feeling is as though you've landed at the surface . . . before it all happened.'