Yellow ore piled up in cone-shaped mounds, blast furnaces gleaming in the sun, rails, rails, and more rails, a locomotive with flatcars on the rails. In other words, an industry town. Only there were no people. Neither living nor dead. You could see the garage, too: a long gray intestine, its doors wide open. The trucks were parked on the paved lot next to it. He was right about the trucks—his brains were functioning. God forbid you should stick your head between two trucks. You have to sidle around them. There’s a crack in the asphalt, if it hasn’t been overgrown with bramble yet. Forty yards. Where was he counting from? Oh, probably from the last pylon. He’s right, it wouldn’t be further than that from there. Those egghead scientists were making progress. They’ve got the road hung all the way to the dump, and cleverly hung at that! There’s that ditch where Slimy ended up, just two yards from their road. Knuckles had told Slimy: stay as far away from the ditches as you can, jerk, or there won’t be anything to bury. When I looked down into the water, there was nothing. This is the way it is with the Zone: if you come back with swag—it’s a miracle; if you come back alive—it’s a success; if the patrol bullets miss you—it’s a stroke of luck. And as for anything else—that’s fate.
I looked at Kirill and saw that he was secretly watching me. And the look on his face made me change my mind. The hell with them all, I thought. After all, what can those toads do to me? He really didn’t have to say anything, but he did.
“Laboratory Assistant Schuhart,” he says. “Official—and I stress official—sources have led me to believe that an inspection of the garage could be of great scientific value. I am suggesting that we inspect the garage. I guarantee a bonus.” And he beamed like the June sun.
“What official sources?” I asked, and smiled like a fool myself.
“They are confidential. But I can tell you.” He frowned. “Let’s say, I found out from Dr. Douglas.”
“Oh,” I said. “From Dr. Douglas. What Dr. Douglas?”
“Sam Douglas,” he said drily. “He died last year.”
My skin crawled. You so-and-so fool. Who talks about such things before setting out? You can beat these eggheads over the head with a two-by-four and they still don’t catch on. I stabbed the ashtray with my cigarette butt.
“All right. Where’s your Tender? How long do we have to wait for him?”
In other words, we didn’t touch on the subject again. Kirill phoned PPS and ordered a flying boot. I looked over his map to see what was on it. It wasn’t bad. It was a photographic process—aerial and highly enlarged. You could even see the ridges on the cover that was lying by the gates to the garage. If stalkers could get their hands on a map like that … but it wouldn’t be of great use at night when the stars look down on your ass and it’s so dark you can’t even see your own hands.
Tender made his entrance. He was red and out of breath. His daughter was sick and he had gone for the doctor. Apologized for being late. Well, we gave him his little present: we’re off into the Zone. He even stopped puffing and wheezing at first, he was so scared. “What do you mean the Zone?” he asked. “And why me?” However, talk of a double bonus and the fact that Red Schuhart was going too got him breathing again.
So we went down to the “boudoir” and Kirill went for the passes. We showed them to another sergeant, who handed us special outfits. Now they are handy things. Just dye them any other color than their original red, and any stalker would gladly pay 500 for one without blinking an eye. I swore a long time ago that one of these days I would figure out a way to swipe one. At first glance it didn’t seem like anything special, just an outfit like a diving suit with a bubble-top helmet with a visor. Not really like a diver’s—more like a jet pilot’s or an astronaut’s. It was light, comfortable, without binding anywhere, and you didn’t sweat in it. In a little suit like that you could go through fire, and gas couldn’t penetrate it. They say even a bullet can’t get through. Of course, fire and mustard gases and bullets are all earthly human things. Nothing like that exists in the Zone and there is no need to fear things like that in the Zone. And anyway, to tell the truth, people drop like flies in the special suits too. It’s another matter that maybe many many more would die without the suits. The suits are 100 percent protection against the burning fluff, for example, and against the spitting devil’s cabbage … All right.
We pulled on the special suits. I poured the nuts and bolts from the bag into my hip pocket, and we trekked across the institute yard to the Zone entrance. That’s the routine they have here, so that everyone will see the heroes of science laying down their lives on the altar of humanity, knowledge, and the holy ghost. Amen. And sure enough—all the way up to the fifteenth floor sympathetic faces watched us off. All we lacked were waving hankies and an orchestra. “Hup two,” I said to Tender. “Suck in your gut, you flabby platoon! A grateful mankind will never forget you!”
He looked at me and I saw that he was in no shape for joking around. And he was right, this was no time for jokes. But when you’re going out into the Zone you can either cry or joke—and I never cried, even as a child. I looked at Kirill. He was holding up under the strain, but was moving his lips, like he was praying.
“Praying?” I asked. “Pray on, pray. The further into the Zone the nearer to Heaven.”
“What?”
“Pray!” I shouted. “Stalkers go to the head of the line into Heaven.”
He broke out in a smile and patted me on the back, as if to say don’t be afraid, nothing will happen as long as you’re with me, and if it does, well, we only die once. He sure is a funny guy, honest to God.
We turned in our passes to the last sergeant, only this time, for a change of pace, it was a lieutenant. I know him, his father sells grave borders in Rexopolis. The flying boot was waiting for us, brought by the fellows from PPS and left at the passageway. Everyone else was waiting, too. The emergency first-aid team, and firemen, and our valiant guards, our fearless rescuers—a bunch of overfed bums with a helicopter. I wish I had never set eyes on them!
We got up into the boot, and Kirill took the controls and said: “OK, Red, lead on.”
Coolly, I lowered the zipper on my chest, pulled out a flask, took a good long tug, and replaced the flask. I can’t do it without that. I’ve been in the Zone many times, but without it—no, I just can’t. They were both looking at me and waiting.
“So,” I said. “I’m not offering any to you, because this is the first time we’re going in together, and I don’t know how the stuff affects you. This is the way we’ll do things. Anything that I say you do immediately and without question. If someone starts fumbling or asking questions I’ll hit whatever I reach first. I’ll apologize now. For example, Mr. Tender, if I order you to start walking on your hands you will immediately hoist your fat ass into the air and do what I tell you. And if you don’t, maybe you’ll never see your sick daughter again. Got it? But I’ll make sure that you do get to see her.”
“Just don’t forget to give me the order,” Tender wheezed. He was all red and sweating and chomping his lips. “I’ll walk on my teeth, not just on my hands, if I have to. I’m not a greenhorn.”
“You’re both greenhorns as far as I’m concerned,” I said. “And I won’t forget to give the orders, don’t worry. By the way, do you know how to drive a boot?”
“He knows,” Kirill said. “He’s a good driver.”
“All right then,” I said. “Then we’re off, Godspeed. Lower your visors. Low speed ahead along the pylons, altitude three yards. Halt at the twenty-seventh pylon.”
Kirill raised the boot to three yards and went ahead in low gear. I turned around without being noticed and spit over my left shoulder. I saw that the rescue squad had climbed into their helicopter, the firemen were standing at attention out of respect, the lieutenant at the door of the passage was saluting us, the jerk, and above all of them fluttered the huge, faded banner: “Welcome, Visitors.” Tender looked like he was about to wave to them, but I gave him such a jab in the ribs that he immediately dropped all ideas of such ceremonious bye-byes. I’ll show you how to say good-bye. You’ll be saying good-bye yet!