Maxim turned off the main thoroughfare into a narrow lane between two gigantic pink stone skyscrapers and drove along the cobblestones toward a ramshackle blackened cottage. Vepr was waiting for him, leaning against a lamp post and smoking a cigarette. When the car pulled up, he threw away the butt, squeezed through the small door, and sat down beside Maxim. As usual, he was calm.
“Hi, Mac. What’s up?”
Maxim swung the car around and returned to the main thoroughfare.
“Do you know what a thermal bomb is?”
“I’ve heard about them,” replied Vepr.
“Good. Have you ever handled synchronized fuses?”
“Only yesterday,” said Vepr.
“Excellent.”
They rode in silence for some time. The traffic was heavy. Tuning out everything, Maxim concentrated exclusively on breaking through, on squeezing between huge trucks and old buses without hitting anyone or being hit, on making green lights and maintaining his speed, as slow as it was. Finally, they broke through onto a familiar expressway lined with enormous trees.
“It’s strange,” thought Maxim suddenly. “I entered this world on this very same route—or, I should say, Fank brought me into it. It’s entirely possible that I shall leave this world, and all worlds, by the very same route, and take a good man with me.” He cast a sidelong glance at Vepr’s serene face: he sat there with his artificial arm hanging out the window, waiting patiently for an explanation from Mac. Perhaps he was surprised or excited, but his face remained impassive. Maxim felt proud that a man of his caliber trusted him and relied on him implicitly.
“I’m very grateful to you, Vepr,” he said.
“How’s that?” asked Vepr, turning to him.
“Do you remember how you called me aside once at a staff meeting and gave me some good advice?”
“I do.”
“So, I’m grateful to you for it. I listened to you.”
“Yes, I noticed. But you disappointed me a little, too.”
“You were right then,” said Maxim. “I took your advice. As a result, a very special opportunity has just presented itself: the opportunity to capture the Center.”
Vepr started.
“Now?” he asked quickly.
“Yes, now. We must hurry. I didn’t have time to prepare anything. It’s possible that I’ll be killed; then the whole thing will be a waste. That’s why I brought you along.”
“Keep talking.”
“I’ll enter the building, and you’ll stay in the car. An alarm will go off after a while and shooting may begin. Don’t let that bother you. Stay put in the car and wait. Wait twenty minutes. If you receive a radiation strike during that time, it means that everything went OK. You can pass out with a happy smile on your face. If there’s no radiation strike, step out of the car. You’ll find a bomb in the trunk. It has a synchronized fuse set for ten minutes. Unload the bomb on the roadway, turn on the fuse, and leave. Panic will break out. Play it for all it’s worth.”
Vepr pondered Mac’s instructions.
“Can I make a call?”
“No.”
“Listen, Mac, if you’re still alive, you’ll need people who are prepared to fight. If you’re dead, I’ll need them. That’s why you brought me along. If I’m alone, all I can do is begin. And then there will be too little time. So people must be warned beforehand. I’d like to warn them.”
“The underground staff?” asked Maxim hostilely.
“Certainly not. I have my own group.”
Maxim said nothing. A familiar gray five-story building with a stone wall along its pediment loomed ahead of them. Somewhere along its corridors wandered Fishface, and enraged Hippo was shouting and sputtering. This was the Center. He had come full circle.
“OK,” agreed Maxim. “There’s a phone booth by the entrance. When I enter—but no sooner—you can leave the car and call.”
“Good,” said Vepr.
As they approached the exit ramp from the expressway, thoughts of Rada crossed Maxim’s mind; he wondered what would become of her if he failed to return. She would have a bad time of it. Perhaps nothing would happen, and they would release her. “Still, she’ll be all alone. With Guy gone. And myself, too. Poor girl.”
“Do you have a family?” he asked Vepr.
“Yes, a wife.”
Maxim bit his lip.
“I’m sorry that things turned out so awkwardly.”
“Forget it, Mac,” said Vepr calmly. “I said my farewells. I always do when I leave the house. So this is the Center. Whoever would have thought?”
Maxim parked the car, maneuvering it between a shabby compact and a luxurious state limousine.
“Well, I guess that’s it,” he said. “Wish me luck, Vepr.”
“With all my heart.” Vepr’s voice broke. “Still, I’ve lived to see this day.”
Maxim rested his cheek on the wheel.
“If only we live through this day,” he said. “To see the evening.”
Vepr looked at him anxiously.
“It’s hard for me to go, Vepr,” explained Maxim. “Damned hard. By the way, remember this and be sure to tell it to your friends: you people do not live on the inner surface of a sphere, but on the outer surface. The universe has many more such spheres. The inhabitants of some are far worse off than you, and the inhabitants of others live much better than you. But I can tell you this: nowhere else in the universe do people live more stupidly than you. You don’t believe it? Then the hell with you. I’m going.”
He opened the door and climbed out. He walked through the parking lot and ascended the stone steps. Step by step he went up, groping in his pocket for the entrance pass prepared for him by the prosecutor, for the building pass that the prosecutor had stolen, and for the plain pink piece of cardboard, representing another pass that the prosecutor could neither counterfeit nor steal for him. It was hot, and the inhabited island’s impenetrable sky glistened like aluminum. The steps seemed to burn through his soles. What a senseless venture! “Why the hell go through with it if we didn’t have the time to prepare properly? Suppose, instead of one officer in that little room, there are two, even three, waiting for me with their guns? Captain Chachu used a pistol, but there’s going to be a lot more bullets this time. I was in much better condition then, and Chachu almost did me in. This time they won’t let me slip away. I’m a fool. I was a fool then and I still am. The prosecutor sure hooked me. But how come he trusted me? I can’t figure it out. Ah, how nice it would be to escape from all this and run off to the mountains, breathe the pure, fresh mountain air. I never did manage to get to them. Such a clever, distrustful man—yet he trusted me with such a precious secret! His world’s supreme treasure!”
He opened a glass door and handed a legionnaire his entrance pass. Crossing the lobby, he went past a bespectacled girl stamping passes and an administrator exchanging curses with someone on the telephone. He showed his building pass to another legionnaire at the corridor entrance. The legionnaire nodded amicably to the familiar figure: Mac had been coming here daily for the past three days.
He kept walking.
He passed through the long, doorless corridor and turned left.
This was his second visit here. Yesterday, he had been here “by mistake.” (“What room are you looking for, sir?” “Sixteen, corporal.” “You’re in the wrong corridor, sir. It’s in the next one.” “Sorry, corporal. Thank you.”)
He handed the corporal his building pass and cast a sidelong glance at two strapping legionnaires, armed with submachine guns and standing stiffly at either side of the door opposite him. Then he looked at the other door, through which he would be passing in a few seconds. “Department of Special Transportation.” The corporal inspected his pass carefully and pressed a button on the wall. A bell rang behind the door. “Now the officer sitting beside the green drapes has been alerted. Maybe two officers. Or even three. They are waiting for me to enter. If I frighten them and jump back, I’ll run into the corporal and those legionnaires guarding the other door. And that room is probably crawling with soldiers.”