Roadside Picnic

3

RICHARD H. NOONAN, AGE 51, SUPERVISOR OF ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT SUPPLIES FOR THE HARMONT BRANCH OF THE IIEC

Richard H. Noonan was sitting at the desk in his study doodling on the legal size pad. He was also smiling sympathetically, nodding his bald head, and not listening to his visitor. He was simply waiting for a telephone call, and his visitor, Dr. Pilman, was lazily lecturing him. Or imagining that he was lecturing him. Or trying to convince himself that he was lecturing him.

“We’ll keep all that in mind,” Noonan finally said, crossing out another group of five lines and flipping down the pad’s cover. “It really is shocking.”

Valentine’s slender hand neatly flicked the ashes from his cigarette into the ashtray.

“And what precisely will you keep in mind?” he inquired politely.

“Why, everything that you said,” Noonan answered cheerfully, leaning back in his armchair. “To the very last word.”

“And what did I say?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Noonan said. “We’ll keep whatever you say in mind.”

Valentine (Dr. Valentine Pilman, Nobel Prize winner) was sitting in front of him in a deep armchair. He was small, delicate, and neat. There wasn’t a stain on his suede jacket or a wrinkle in his trousers. A blindingly white shirt, a severe solid-colored tie, shining shoes. A malicious smile on his thin pale lips and enormous dark glasses over his eyes. His low broad forehead was topped with a bristly crewcut.

“In my opinion, you’re being paid a fantastic salary for nothing,” he said. “And on top of that, in my opinion, you’re a saboteur as well, Dick.”

“Shhhhhh!” Noonan whispered. “For God’s sake, not so loud.”

“Actually,” Valentine continued, “I’ve been watching you for a long time. In my opinion, you don’t work at all.”

“Just a minute here!” Noonan interrupted and waved his pink finger at him. “What do you mean I don’t work? Is there even one replacement order that hasn’t been handled?”

“I don’t know,” Valentine said and flicked his ash again. “We get good equipment and we get bad equipment. We get the good stuff more often, but what you have to do with it I’m sure I don’t know.” “Well, if it weren’t for me,” Noonan countered, “the good stuff would be much rarer. And besides, you scientists are always breaking the good equipment, and then calling for a replacement, and who covers for you then? For example … ”

The phone rang and Noonan broke off and grabbed the receiver. “Mr. Noonan?” the secretary asked. “Mr. Lemchen again.” “Put him on.”

Valentine got up, brought two fingers to his forehead as a sign of farewell, and went out. Small, straight, and well-proportioned. “Mr. Noonan?” the familiar drawling voice spoke in the phone. “I’m listening.”

“You’re not easy to reach at work, Mr. Noonan.” “A new shipment has arrived.”

“Yes, I know about it already. Mr. Noonan, I’m here only for a short time. There are a few questions that must be discussed in person. I’m referring to the latest contracts with Mitsubishi Denshi. The legal side.”

“At your service.”

“Then, if you have no objection, be at our offices in a half hour. Is that convenient?”

“Perfect. In a half hour.”

Richard Noonan hung up, stood, and rubbing his plump hands, walked around the office. He even began singing some pop ditty, but broke off on a particularly sour note and jovially laughed at himself. He picked up his hat, tossed his raincoat over his arm, and went out into the reception area.

“Honey,” he said to the secretary, “I’m off to see some clients. You stay here, hold the fort, as they say, and I’ll bring you a present when I get back.”

She blossomed. Noonan blew her a kiss and rolled out into the corridors of the institute. Attempts were made to stop him a few times—he wangled out of conversations, joking, asking people to hold the fort without him, to keep their cool, and finally emerged unscathed and uncaught, waving his unopened pass under the nose of the sergeant on duty.

Heavy clouds hung low over the city. It was muggy and the first hesitant drops of rain were scattering on the sidewalk like little black stars. Spreading his coat over his head and shoulders, Noonan trotted past the long row of cars to his Peugeot, dove in, and tossed the coat in the back seat. He took out the round black stick of the so-so from his suit pocket, put it in the jack in the dashboard, and pushed it in to the hilt with his thumb. He wriggled around, getting more comfortable behind the wheel, and pressed the accelerator pedal. The Peugeot silently drove out into the middle of the street and raced toward the exit from the Pre-Zone Area.

The rain came pouring down suddenly, as though a bucket had been overturned in the sky. The road got slippery and the car swerved at corners. Noonan turned on the wipers and slowed down. So, he thought, they got the report. Now they’ll be praising me. Well, I’m all for that. I like being praised. Especially by Mr. Lemchen himself. In spite of himself. Strange isn’t it? Why do we like being praised? It doesn’t get you any more money. Glory? What kind of glory can we have? “He’s famous: three people know about him now.” Well, let’s say four, counting Bayliss. What a funny creature man is! It seems we enjoy praise just for itself. The way children like ice cream. And it’s so stupid. How can I be better in my own eyes? As if I didn’t know myself? Good old fat Richard H. Noonan? By the way, what does that “H” stand for? What do you know about that? And there’s nobody to ask, either. I can’t ask Mr. Lemchen about it. Oh, I remember! Herbert! Richard Herbert Noonan. Boy, it’s pouring.

He turned onto Central and suddenly thought how the city had grown over the past few years. Huge skyscrapers. They’re building another one over there. What will it be? Oh, the Luna Complex—the world’s best jazz, and a variety show, and so on. Everything for our glorious troops and our brave tourists, especially the elderly ones, and for the noble knights of science. And the suburbs are being emptied.

Yes, I’d like to know how this will all end. Well, ten years ago, I was sure I knew. Impenetrable police lines. DMZ twenty miles wide. Scientists and soldiers, and no one else. The horrible sore on the face of the earth blocked off. And I wasn’t the only one who thought that way, either. All the speechifying, all the legislation they introduced! And now you can’t even remember how the universal steely resolve melted into a quivering pool of jelly. “On the one hand, you can’t not acknowledge it, and on the other, you can’t disagree.” It all began, I think, when the stalkers first brought out the so-so’s from the Zone. Little batteries. Yes, I think that’s when it happened. Particularly, when it was discovered that the batteries multiplied. The sore didn’t seem like such a sore any more. More like a treasure trove, Hell’s temptation, Pandora’s box, or the devil. They found ways to use it. Twenty years they’ve been puffing and huffing, wasting billions, and they still haven’t been able to organize their thievery. Everyone has his own little business, and the scientists furrow their brows significantly and portentously: on the one hand, you can’t not acknowledge it, and on the other, you can’t disagree. Since such and such object, when X-rayed at an angle of 18 degrees emits quasither-mal electrons at an angle of 22 degrees. The hell with it! I won’t live to see the end of it anyway.

The car was passing Buzzard Burbridge’s townhouse. Because of the pouring rain, all the lights in the house were on. He could see dancing couples in the second-floor rooms of the beautiful Dina. Either they had started very early, or they were still going strong from last night. That was the new fad in the city—to have parties that went on for several days. We sure are growing hardy kids, full of endurance and steadfast in the pursuit of their desires.

Noonan stopped the car in front of an unsightly building with a discreet sign: “Legal offices of Korsh, Korsh, and Simak.” He took out the so-so and put it in his pocket, pulled on his raincoat again, took his hat, and ran for the entrance. He ran past the doorman, buried in a newspaper, up the stairs covered with a worn carpet. His shoes clattered along the dark corridor of the second floor, which reeked of an odor that he had long ago given up trying to identify, and he threw open the door at the end of the corridor and went in. Instead of the secretary there was a very tan, unfamiliar young man at the desk. He was in shirtsleeves. He was digging around in the guts of some electronic device that was set up on the desk instead of the typewriter. Richard Noonan hung up his coat and hat, smoothed what was left of his hair with both hands, and looked inquiringly at the young man. He nodded. Noonan opened the door to the office.

Mr. Lemchen rose heavily from the big leather armchair in front of the draped window. His angular general’s face was wrinkled either in a welcoming smile or in displeasure with the weather or, perhaps, in a struggle with a sneeze.

“Here you are. Come in, make yourself comfortable.”

Noonan looked around for a place to make himself comfortable and could find nothing except for a hard, straight-backed chair tucked away behind the desk. He sat on the edge of the desk. His jovial mood was dissipating for some reason—he himself did not understand why. Suddenly he understood that he was not going to be praised today. On the contrary. The day of wrath, he thought philosophically and steeled himself for the worst.

“Please smoke,” Mr. Lemchen offered, lowering himself back into the armchair.

“No thank you, I don’t smoke.”

Mr. Lemchen nodded as though his worst suspicions had been confirmed, pressed his fingertips together in a steeple in front of his face, and carefully examined them for a while.

“I suppose that we won’t be discussing the legal affairs of the Mitsubishi Denshi Company,” he finally said.

That was a joke. Richard Noonan smiled readily.

“As you like!”

It was devilishly uncomfortable on the desk, and his feet did not reach the floor.

“I’m sorry to tell you, Richard, that your report created an extremely favorable impression upstairs.”

“Hmm,” Noonan mumbled. Here it comes, he thought.

“They were even going to recommend you for a decoration,” Mr. Lemchen continued. “However, I talked them into waiting on it. And I was right.” He tore himself away from contemplating the pattern of the ten fingers and looked up at Noonan. “You ask why I behaved in such a cautious manner?”

“You probably had some justification,” Noonan said in a dull tone.

“Yes, I had. What are the results of your report, Richard? The Métropole gang is liquidated. Through your efforts. The Green Flower gang was apprehended red-handed. Brilliant work. Also yours. Quasimodo, the Wandering Musicians, and all the other gangs, I don’t remember the names, disbanded because they knew the jig was up and they would be taken any day. All this really did happen, it’s all been verified by other sources. The battlefield was cleared. Your victory, Richard. The enemy retreated in disarray, suffering heavy losses. Have I given an accurate acount?”

“In any case,” Noonan said carefully, “during the last three months the flow of materials from the Zone through Harmont has stopped. At least according to my information.”

“The enemy has retreated, is that not so?”

“Well, if you insist on the metaphor, yes.”

“No! The point is that this enemy never retreats. I know that for sure. In rushing a victory report, Richard, you have demonstrated your lack of maturity. That is why I suggested they hold off rewarding you immediately.”

Go blow, you and your awards, thought Noonan, swinging his foot and glumly watching his shiny toe. Stick your awards in the cobwebs in the attic! And all I need is a little didacticism from you. I know who I’m dealing with without your lectures. Don’t tell me about the enemy. Just tell me straight out—when, where, and how I messed up, what those bastards managed to steal, where and how they found cracks—and without the bullshit, I’m no raw recruit, I’m over half a century old and I’m not sitting here for the sake of your stupid decorations and orders.

“What have you heard about the Golden Ball?” Mr. Lemchen suddenly asked.

God, what does the Golden Ball have to do with all this, Noonan thought in irritation. I wish you and your indirect manner would go to hell.

“The Golden Ball is a legend,” he reported in a dull voice. “A mythical artifact located in the Zone in the shape and form of a gold ball that grants human wishes.”

“Any wishes?”

“According to the canonic version of the legend, any wish. There are, however, variant versions.”

“All right. What have you heard about death lamps?”

“Eight years ago a stalker by the name of Stefan Norman, nicknamed Four-eyes, brought out an apparatus from the Zone that, as far as can be judged, was some kind of ray-emitting system fatal to earth organisms. This Four-eyes offered the apparatus to the institute. They did not agree on price. Four-eyes reentered the Zone and never came back. The present whereabouts of the apparatus is unknown. People at the institute are still tearing their hair out over it. Hugh from the Métropole, whom you know, offered any sum that could be written on a check.”

“Is that all?” Mr. Lemchen asked.

“That’s all.” Noonan was blatantly looking around the room. The room was boring, there was nothing to look at.

“All right. And what have you heard about lobster eyes?”

“What kind of eyes?”

“Lobster eyes. Lobsters. You know? With claws.”

Lemchen made clawlike movements with his fingers.

“I’ve never heard of them,” Noonan said frowing.

“And what about rattling napkins?”

Noonan climbed down from the desk and stood before Lemchen, hands in pockets.

“I don’t know a thing about them. How about you?”

“Unfortunately, neither do I. Nor about the lobster eyes or the rattling napkins. Nevertheless, they exist.”

“In my Zone?” Noonan asked.

“Sit down, sit down,” Mr. Lemchen said waving his hand. “Our little talk is just starting. Sit down.”

Noonan walked around the desk and sat on the hard chair with the straight back.

What’s he aiming at? he thought feverishly. What is all this new stuff? They probably found it in the other Zones and he’s trying to make a fool out of me, the ass. He never liked me, the old devil, he can’t forget the limerick.

“Let’s continue our little examination,” Lemchen announced as he drew aside an edge of the drape and peered out the window. “It’s pouring. I like it.” He released the curtain, sat back in his chair, and looking at the ceiling, asked: “How’s old Burbridge getting along?”

“Burbridge? Buzzard Burbridge is under surveillance. He’s a cripple, well-to-do. No connection with the Zone. He owns four bars and a dance school, and he organizes picnics for officers from the garrison and for tourists. His daughter Dina leads a dissolute life. His son Arthur just graduated from law school.”

Mr. Lemchen nodded in satisfaction. “And what is Creon the Maltese doing?”

“He is one of the few active stalkers. He was mixed up with the Quasimodo gang, and now he peddles his swag to the institute through me. I’m giving him a free rein: somebody will pick him off sooner or later. He’s been drinking a lot lately, and I’m afraid he won’t last too long.”

“Contact with Burbridge?”

“He’s courting Dina. No success.”

“Very good,” Mr. Lemchen said. “What do you hear about Red Schuhart?”

“He got out of prison last month. No financial difficulties. He tried to emigrate, but he has … ” Noonan was silent. “Well, he has family problems. He has no time for the Zone.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s all.”

“Not much,” Mr. Lemchen said. “How are things with Lucky Carter?”

“He hasn’t been a stalker for many years. He sells used cars and he has a shop that converts cars to run on so-so’s. Four kids, his wife died last year. Has a mother-in-law.”

Lemchen nodded.

“Well, who have I forgotten of the oldsters?” he asked in a kindly tone.

“You forgot Jonathan Miles, known as Cactus. He’s in the hospital, dying of cancer. And you forgot Gutalin.”

“Yes, yes, what about Gutalin?”

“He’s still the same. He has a gang of three men. They go into the Zone for days at a time, destroying everything they come across. His old organization, the Fighting Angels, broke up.”

“Why?”

“Well, as you recall, they used to buy up swag and Gutalin would take it back into the Zone. The devil’s things to the devil. Now there’s nothing to buy, and besides, the new director of the institute got the cops on them.”

“I understand,” Mr. Lemchen said. “What about the young ones?”

“Well, the young ones, they come and go. There are five or six with some experience, but lately there’s been no one to fence the swag and they’re lost. I’m training them little by little. I think that stalking has almost disappeared in my Zone, chief. The old ones are retired, the young ones don’t know how, and the prestige of the trade is slipping. Technology is taking over. Now there are robot stalkers.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve heard about that. But the machines use up too much energy. Or am I mistaken?”

“It’s just a question of time. They’ll be worth it soon.”

“How soon?”

“Five or six years.”

Mr. Lemchen nodded again.

“By the way you probably don’t know that the enemy has started employing the automated stalkers?”

“In my Zone?” Noonan asked, on guard.

“In yours, too. They base themselves in Rexopolis, transfer the equipment by helicopter over the mountains to Snake Canyon, to Black Lake, and the foothills of Mount Boulder.”

“But that’s the periphery of the Zone,” Noonan said suspiciously. “It’s empty there. What could they find?”

“Little, very little. But they find it. Anyway, I was just informing you, it doesn’t concern you. Let’s recapitulate. There are almost no professional stalkers left in Harmont. The ones who have stayed have no relationship to the Zone any more. The young ones are lost and undergoing a process of being tamed. The enemy is shattered, scattered, and lying low somewhere licking his wounds. There is no swag, and when it does appear, there’s nobody to sell it to. The illegal removal of material from the Harmont Zone ceased three months ago. Correct?”

Noonan was silent. Now, he thought. Now he’s going to give it to me. But where was the gap? It must have been a really big one, too. Well, do it, you old fart! Don’t drag it out.

“I don’t hear your reply,” Mr. Lemchen said cupping his hand to his wrinkled hairy ear.

“All right, chief,” Noonan said somberly. “Enough. You’ve boiled and fried me, now serve me at the table.”

Mr. Lemchen harrumphed vaguely.

“You have absolutely nothing to say for yourself,” he said with unexpected bitterness. “You stand there flapping your ears before authority, how do you think I felt day before yesterday?” He interrupted himself, got up, and started for the safe. “In short, during the last two months, according to the information we have, the enemy has received more than six thousand items from the various Zones.” He stopped before the safe, patted its painted side, and turned sharply toward Noonan. “Don’t comfort yourself with illusions!” he shouted. “The fingerprints of Burbridge! The fingerprints of the Maltese! The fingerprints of Ben Halevy the Nose, whom you did not even bother to mention! The fingerprints of Hindus Heresh and Pygmy Zmyg! So that’s how you’re training your youths! Bracelets! Needles! White whirligigs! And on top of that—these lobsters’ eyes, and bitches’ rattles, and rattling napkins, whatever they are! The hell with them all!” He interrupted himself again, returned to his armchair, made a steeple with his fingers, and asked politely: “What do you think about all this, Richard?”

Noonan mopped his neck with his handkerchief.

“I don’t think anything about it,” he honestly answered. “Forgive me, chief, I’m a little … let me catch my breath … Burbridge! Burbridge has nothing to do with the Zone any more! I know his every step! He arranges picnics and drinking parties at lakesides. He’s hauling it in, he just doesn’t need the money. Excuse me, I know I’m blabbing nonsense, but I can assure you that I haven’t lost sight of Burbridge since he got out of the hospital.”

“I won’t keep you any longer,” Mr. Lemchen said. “I’m giving you a week. Come up with some ideas as to how the material from the Zone gets into the hands of Burbridge—and all the others. Goodbye.”

Noonan rose, nodded to Lemchen’s profile, and still wiping his sweating neck, went out into the reception area. The tan young man was smoking, thoughtfully gazing into the bowels of the mangled electronic device. He glanced over at Noonan—his eyes were empty and seemed to gaze inward.

Richard Noonan shoved his hat on his head, grabbed his raincoat, and went outside. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. His thoughts were confused and rambling. I must—Ben Halevy the Nose! He’s even gotten himself a nickname! When? He’s just a little punk, a snotty-nosed little punk. No, there’s something else going on! You legless shmuck. Buzzard, you really got me this time. Caught me with my pants down. How could it have happened? Just like that time in Singapore—face flat on the table, then slammed against the wall …

He got in the car and for some time looked around the dashboard for the ignition key, forgetting everything. Rain was dripping from his hat onto his lap. He took it off and tossed it into the back without looking. Rain was streaming across the windshield, and Richard Noonan thought that it was keeping him from understanding what his next step should be. He punched himself in the head. He felt better. He immediately remembered that there was no key and couldn’t be any because the so-so was in his pocket. The permanent battery. And you have to take it out of your pocket, dummy, and stick it into the jack, and then at least you’ll be able to drive somewhere—somewhere far away from this building where the old bastard was probably watching from a window.

Noonan’s hand froze as it was reaching for the so-so. Now I know who to begin with. I’ll begin with him, oh how I’ll begin with him. Nobody’s ever begun with anybody the way I’ll begin with him. And it’ll be a pleasure. He turned on the wipers and drove down the avenue, seeing almost nothing in front of him, but slowly calming down. All right. Let it be like it was in Singapore. After all, it ended well in Singapore. So what, I got my face slammed down on the table one lousy time! It could have been worse. It could have been some other part of me and it could have been something with nails in it instead of a table. All right, let’s stay on the track. Where’s my little establishment? Can’t see a damn thing. Ah, here it is.

It wasn’t business hours, but the Five Minutes was as lit up as the Métropole. Shaking himself like a dog coming out of the water, Richard Noonan entered the brightly lit room that reeked of tobacco, perfume, and stale champagne. Old Benny, not in uniform yet, was sitting at the counter eating something, his fork in his fist. Spreading out her huge breasts on the counter among the empty glasses, Madame watched him eat. The room had not yet been cleaned up from last night. When Noonan walked in, Madame turned her broad, heavily made-up face toward him. It was angry at first, but immediately dissolved into a professional smile.

“Hi!” she said in her deep voice. “Mr. Noonan himself! Missed the girls?”

Benny went on eating; he was as deaf as a doornail.

“Greetings, old lady! What do I need with the girls when I have a real woman in front of me?”

Benny finally noticed him. His horrible face, covered with blue and purple scars, contorted into a welcoming smile.

“Hello, boss! Came in out of the rain?”

Noonan smiled in return and waved. He did not like talking with Benny: he had to shout all the time.

“Where’s my manager, folks?” he asked.

“In his room,” Madame answered. “He has to pay the taxes tomorrow.

“Oh, those taxes! All right. Madame, please fix my favorite. I’ll be right back.”

Stepping soundlessly on the thick synthetic carpeting, he went down the hallway past the draped doorways of the cubicles—a picture of some flower painted on the wall next to each one—turned into a quiet dead end, and opened the leather-covered door without knocking.

Mosul Kitty sat behind the desk, examining a painful sore on his nose in the mirror. He did not give a damn that he had to pay the taxes tomorrow. The completely bare desk top held only a jar with mercury salve and a glass with a clear liquid. Mosul Kitty raised his bloodshot eyes at Noonan and jumped up, dropping the mirror. Wordlessly, Noonan settled into the armchair opposite him and silently watched, while he muttered something about the damn rain and his rheumatism. Then he said:

“Why don’t you lock the door, pal.”

Mosul, his flat feet slapping the floor, ran up to the door, turned the key, and returned to the desk. His hairy head towered over Noonan, and he stared loyally into his mouth. Noonan kept watching him through half-shut eyes. For some reason he remembered that Mosul Kitty’s real name was Raphael. Mosul was famous for his huge bony fists, purplish and bare, that stuck out from the thick hair that covered his arms like sleeves. He had called himself Kitty because he was convinced that that was the traditional name of the great Mongol kings. Raphael. Well, Raphael baby, let’s get started.

“How are things?” he asked gently.

“In perfect order, boss,” Raphael-Mosul replied rapidly.

“You smoothed over the problem at headquarters?”

“It cost 150. Everybody is happy.”

“It comes out of your pocket. It was your fault, pal. It should have been taken care of.”

Mosul made a pathetic face and spread his hands in a sign of submission.

“The parquet in the hall should be replaced,” Noonan said.

“It will be done.”

Noonan said nothing, puckered his lips.

“Swag?” he asked, lowering his voice.

“There’s a little,” Mosul replied in a low voice, too.

“Let’s see it.”

Mosul rushed over to the safe, took out a package, and opened it on the desk in front of Noonan. Noonan felt around with one finger in the pile of black sprays, picked up a bracelet, examined it from all sides and put it back.

“This is all?”

“They don’t bring any,” Mosul said guiltily.

“They don’t bring any,” Noonan repeated.

He aimed carefully and jabbed his toe with all his strength into Mosul’s shin. Mosul grunted and bent over to grab the injured spot, but immediately straightened out and stood at attention. Then Noonan jumped up, grabbed Mosul by his collar and came at him, kicking, rolling his eyes, and whispering obscenities. Mosul, moaning and groaning, rearing his head like a frightened horse, backed away from him until he fell onto the couch.

“Working both sides, eh? You son of a bitch.” Noonan was hissing right into his terrified eyes. “Buzzard Burbridge is swimming in swag and you give me beads wrapped in paper?” He smacked him in the face, trying to hit the scab on his nose. “I’ll ship you off to jail. You’ll be living in manure, eating dry bread. You’ll curse the day you were born!” He punched the sore nose one more time. “Where does Burbridge get the swag? Why do they bring it to him, and not to you? Who brings it? Why don’t I know anything? Who are you working for, you filthy pig? Talk!”

Mosul soundlessly opened and shut his mouth. Noonan let go of him, returned to the chair, and put his feet up on the desk. “Well?” he said.

Mosul sniffled back the-blood from his nose and said: “Honest, boss, what’s the matter? What swag can Buzzard have? He doesn’t have any. Nobody’s got swag.”

“What, are you going to argue with me?” Noonan asked gently, taking his feet off the desk.

“No, no, boss, honest,” Mosul hurried to say. “Me argue with you? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I’m going to get rid of you,” Noonan threatened. “You don’t know how to work. What the hell do I need you for, you so-and-so? Guys like you are a dime a dozen. I need a real man for real work.”

“Hold on, boss,” Mosul said reasonably, smearing blood all over his face. “Why do you attack me all of a sudden? Let’s work this out.” He touched his nose gingerly. “You say Burbridge has a lot of swag? I don’t know, somebody’s been lying to you. Nobody’s got any swag now. After all, only punks go into the Zone now, and they’re the only ones coming out. Nope, boss, someone’s lied to you.”

Noonan was watching him covertly. It looked as if Mosul really didn’t know a thing. It wouldn’t have paid him to lie, anyway—Buzzard Burbridge didn’t pay very well.

“These picnics, are they profitable?”

“The picnics? I don’t think so. You won’t shovel in the money. But there aren’t any profitable things left in town.”

“Where are these picnics held?”

“Where? You know, in different places. By White Mountain, at the Hot Springs, at Rainbow Lake.”

“Who are the customers?”

“The customers?” Mosul sniffed, blinked, and spoke confidentially. “If you’re planning to get into the business yourself, boss, I wouldn’t recommend it. You won’t make much up against Buzzard.”

“Why not?”

“Buzzard’s customers are the blue helmets, one.” Mosol was ticking the points off on his fingers. “Officers from the command post, two. Tourists from the Métropole, the White Lily, and the Plaza, three. Then he’s got good advertising. Even the locals go to him. Honest, boss, it’s not worth getting mixed up in this business. He doesn’t pay us that much for the girls, you know.”

“The locals go to him, too?”

“The young people, mostly.”

“Well, what happens on these picnics?”

“What happens? We go there on buses, see? And when we get there everything is set up—tables, tents, music. And everyone lives it up. The officers usually go with the girls. The tourists go look at the Zone—if it’s at the Hot Springs, the Zone is just a stone’s throw away, on the other side of the Sulphur Gorge. Buzzard has thrown a lot of horse bones around there and they look at them through binoculars.”

“And the locals?”

“The locals? Well, that doesn’t interest the locals, of course. They amuse themselves in other ways.”

“And Burbridge?”

“Burbridge? Burbridge … is like everybody else.”

“And you?”

“Me? I’m like everybody else. I watch to see that the girls aren’t hurt … and, well, like everybody else, basically.”

“And how long does all this go on?”

“Depends. Three days, sometimes, sometimes a whole week.”

“And how much does this pleasure trip cost?” Noonan asked, thinking about something else entirely. Mosul answered something, but Noonan didn’t hear him. That’s the ticket, Noonan thought. Several days, several nights. Under those conditions, it’s simply impossible to keep an eye on Burbridge, even if you tried. But still he didn’t understand. Burbridge was legless, and there was the gorge. No, there was something else there.

“Which locals are steady customers?”

“Locals? I told you, mostly the young ones. You know, Halevy, Rajba, Chicken Tsapfa, that Zmyg guy—and the Maltese often goes. A cute little group. They call it Sunday school. Shall we go to Sunday school, they say. They concentrate on the old ladies, make pretty good money. Some old broad from Europe … ”

“Sunday school,” Noonan repeated.

A strange thought came to him. School. He rose.

“All right,” he said. “The hell with the picnics. That’s not for us. But get it straight: Buzzard has swag, and that’s our business, pal. Look for it, Mosul, look for it, or I’ll throw you to the dogs. Where does he get it, who gives it to him? Find out and we’ll give twenty percent more than he does. Got it?”

“Got it, boss.” Mosul was standing, too, at attention, loyalty on his blood-smeared face.

“Move it! Use your brains, you animal!” Noonan shouted and left.

Back at the bar he quickly drank his aperitif, had a chat with Madame about the decline in morality, hinted that he was planning to expand the operation, and lowering his voice for emphasis, asked for her advice on what to do about Benny—the old guy was getting old, he was deaf, his reaction time was off, and he didn’t get along like he used to. It was six already and he was hungry. A thought was drilling through his brain, out of nowhere but at the same time explaining a lot. Actually, a lot had become clear by now anyway and the mystical aura that irritated and frightened him about this business was gone. All that was left was disappointment in himself because he had not thought of the possibility earlier. But the most important thing was the thought that kept floating in his head and giving him no peace.

He said good-bye to Madame and shook Benny’s hand, and headed straight for the Borscht. The whole trouble is that we don’t notice the years slipping by, Noonan thought. The hell with the years, we don’t notice everything changing. We know that everything changes, we’re taught from childhood that everything changes, and we’ve seen everything change with our own eyes many a time, and yet we’re totally incapable of recognizing the moment when the change comes or else we look for the change in the wrong place. There are new stalkers now, created by cybernetics. The old stalker was a dirty, sullen man who crawled inch by inch through the Zone on his belly with mulish stubbornness, gathering his nest egg. The new stalker was a dandy in a silk tie, an engineer sitting a mile or so away from the Zone, a cigarette in his mouth, a glass with a pleasant brew at his elbow, and all he does is sit and monitor some screens. A salaried gentleman. A very logical picture. So logical that any alternative just did not come to mind. But there were other possibilities—the Sunday school, for one.

And suddenly, from nowhere, a wave of despair engulfed him. It was all useless. Pointless. My God, he thought, we won’t be able to do a thing! We won’t have the power to contain this blight, he thought in horror. Not because we don’t work well. And not because they’re smarter and more clever either. It’s just that that’s the way the world is. And that’s the way man is in this world. If there had never been the Visitation, there would have been something else. Pigs always find mud.

The Borscht was lit up and gave off a delicious smell. The Borscht had changed, too. No more dancing, no more fun. Gutalin didn’t go there any more, he was turned off by it, and Redrick Schuhart probably had stuck his nose in, made a face, and left. Ernest was still in stir and his old lady finally got to run the place. She built up a solid steady clientele; the entire institute lunched there, including the senior officers. The booths were cozy, the food good, the prices reasonable, and the beer bubbly. A good old-fashioned pub.

Noonan saw Valentine Pilman in one of the booths. The laureate was drinking coffee and reading a magazine he had folded in half. Noonan approached him.

“May I join you?”

Valentine turned his dark glasses on him.

“Ah,” he said. “Please do.”

“Just a second, I’ll wash up first.” He had remembered Mosul’s nose.

He was well known there. When he got back to Valentine’s booth, there was a plate of steaming sausages and a mug of beer—not cold and not warm, just the way he liked it—on the table. Valentine put down the magazine and took a sip of coffee.

“Listen, Valentine,” Noonan said, cutting the meat. “What do you think, how will all this end?”

“What?”

“The Visitation. The Zones, the stalkers, the military-industrial complexes—the whole lot. How can it all end?”

Valentine looked at him for a long time with his blind black lenses.

“For whom? Be specific.”

“Well, say for our part of the planet.”

“That depends on whether we have luck or not. We now know that in our part of the planet the Visitation left no aftereffects, for the most part. That does not rule out, of course, the possibility that in pulling all these chestnuts out of the fire, we may pull out something that will make life impossible not only for us, but for the entire planet. That would be bad luck. But, you must admit, such a threat always hovers over mankind.” He chuckled. “You see, I’ve long lost the habit of talking about mankind in general. Humanity as a whole is too fixed a system, there’s no changing it.”

“You think so? Maybe, you’re right, who knows?”

“Be honest, Richard,” Valentine said, obviously enjoying himself. “What has the Visitation changed in your life? You’re a businessman. Now you know there is at least one other rational creature in the Universe besides man. So what?”

“What can I say?” Noonan was mumbling. He was sorry that he had ever started the conversation. There was nothing to talk about. “What has changed for me? Well, for several years now I’ve been feeling uneasy, insecure. All right. So they came and left right away. And what if they come again and decide to stay? As a businessman, I have to take these questions seriously: who are they, how do they live, what do they need? On the most basic level I have to think how to change my product. I have to be ready. And what if I turn out to be completely superfluous in their system?” He livened up. “What if we are superfluous? Listen, Valentine, since we’re talking about it, are there any answers to these questions? Who are they, what did they want, will they return?”

“There are answers,” Valentine said, smiling. “Lots of them, take your pick.”

“And what do you think yourself?”

“To tell the truth, I never permitted myself the luxury of thinking about it seriously. For me the Visitation is primarily a unique event that allows us to skip several steps in the process of cognition. Like a trip into the future of technology. Like a quantum generator ending up in Isaac Newton’s laboratory.”

“Newton wouldn’t have understood a thing.”

“You’re wrong. Newton was a very perspicacious man.”

“Really? Well, who cares about him anyway. What do you think about the Visitation? You can answer unseriously.”

“All right, I’ll tell you. But I must warn you that your question, Richard, comes under the heading of xenology. Xenology: an unnatural mixture of science fiction and formal logic. It’s based on the false premise that human psychology is applicable to extraterrestrial intelligent beings.”

“Why is that false?” Noonan asked.

“Because biologists have already been burned trying to use human psychology on animals. Earth animals, at that.”

“Forgive me, but that’s an entirely different matter. We’re talking about the psychology of rational beings.”

“Yes. And everything would be fine if we only knew what reason was.”

“Don’t we know?” Noonan was surprised.

“Believe it or not, we don’t. Usually a trivial definition is used: reason is that part of man’s activity that distinguishes him from the animals. You know, an attempt to distinguish the owner from the dog who understands everything but just can’t speak. Actually, this trivial definition gives rise to rather more ingenious ones. Based on bitter observation of the above-mentioned human activities. For example: reason is the ability of a living creature to perform unreasonable or unnatural acts.”

“Yes, that’s about us, about me, and those like me,” Noonan agreed bitterly.

“Unfortunately. Or how about this hypothetical definition. Reason is a complex type of instinct that has not yet formed completely. This implies that instinctual behavior is always purposeful and natural. A million years from now our instinct will have matured and we will stop making the mistakes that are probably integral to reason. And then, if something should change in the universe, we will all become extinct—precisely because we will have forgotten how to make mistakes, that is, to try various approaches not stipulated by an inflexible program of permitted alternatives.”

“Somehow you make it all sound demeaning.”

“All right, how about another definition—a very lofty and noble one. Reason is the ability to use the forces of the environment without destroying that environment.”

Noonan grimaced and shook his head.

“No, that’s not about us. How about this: ‘man, as opposed to animals, is a creature with an undefinable need for knowledge’? I read that somewhere.”

“So have I,” said Valentine. “But the whole problem with that is that the average man—the one you have in mind when you talk about ‘us’ and ‘not us’—very easily manages to overcome this need for knowledge. I don’t believe that need even exists. There is a need to understand, and you don’t need knowledge for that. The hypothesis of God, for instance, gives an incomparably absolute opportunity to understand everything and know absolutely nothing. Give man an extremely simplified system of the world and explain every phenomenon away on the basis of that system. An approach like that doesn’t require any knowledge. Just a few memorized formulas plus so-called intuition and so-called common sense.”

“Hold on,” Noonan said. He finished his beer and set the mug noisily on the table. “Don’t get off the track. Let’s get back to the subject on hand. Man meets an extraterrestrial creature. How do they find out that they are both rational creatures?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Valentine said with great pleasure. “Everything I’ve read on the subject comes down to a vicious circle. If they are capable of making contact, then they are rational. And vice versa; if they are rational, they are capable of contact. And in general: if an extraterrestrial creature has the honor of possessing human psychology, then it is rational. Like that.”

“There you go. And I thought you boys had it all laid out in neat cubbyholes.”

“A monkey can put things into cubbyholes,” Valentine replied.

“No, wait a minute.” For some reason, Noonan felt cheated. “If you don’t know simple things like that … All right, the hell with reason. Obviously, it’s a real quagmire. OK. But what about the Visitation? What do you think about the Visitation?”

“My pleasure. Imagine a picnic.”

Noonan shuddered.

“What did you say?”

“A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car drives off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out of the car carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Gas and oil spilled on the grass. Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around. Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind. Oil slicks on the pond. And of course, the usual mess—apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow.”

“I see. A roadside picnic.”

“Precisely. A roadside picnic, on some road in the cosmos. And you ask if they will come back.”

“Let me have a smoke. Goddamn this pseudoscience! Somehow I imagined it all differently.”

“That’s your right.”

“So does that mean they never even noticed us?”

“Why?”

“Well, anyway, didn’t pay any attention to us?”

“You know, I wouldn’t be upset if I were you.”

Noonan inhaled, coughed, and threw away the cigarette.

“I don’t care,” he said stubbornly. “It can’t be. Damn you scientists! Where do you get your contempt for man? Why are you always trying to put mankind down?”

“Wait a minute,” Valentine said. “Listen: ‘You ask me what makes man great?’ ” he quoted. “ ‘That he re-created nature? That he has harnessed cosmic forces? That in a brief time he conquered the planet and opened a window on the universe? No! That, despite all this, he has survived and intends to survive in the future.’ ”

There was a silence. Noonan was thinking.

“Don’t get depressed,” Valentine said kindly. “The picnic is my own theory. And not even a theory—just a picture. The serious xenologists are working on much more solid and flattering versions for human vanity. For example, that there has been no Visitation yet, that it is to come. A highly rational culture threw containers with artifacts of its civilization onto Earth. They expect us to study the artifacts, make a giant technological leap, and send a signal in response that will show we are ready for contact. How do you like that one?”

“That’s much better,” Noonan said. “I see that there are decent people among scientists after all.”

“Here’s another one. The Visitation has taken place, but it is not over by a long shot. We are in contact even as we speak, but we are not aware of it. The visitors are living in the Zones and carefully observing us and simultaneously preparing us for the ‘cruel wonders of the future.’ ”

“Now that I can understand! At least that explains the mysterious activity in the ruins of the factory. By the way, your picnic doesn’t explain it.”

“Why doesn’t it? One of the girls could have forgotten her favorite wind-up teddy bear on the meadow.”

“Just skip it. That’s some teddy bear. The earth around it is shaking! On the other hand, maybe it is somebody’s teddy. How about a beer? Rosalie! Two beers for the xenologists! You know, it really is nice chatting with you,” he said to Valentine. “Cleaning out the old brains, like pouring Epsom salts under my skull. You know, you work and work, and lose sight of why, and what will happen, and how you’ll soothe your savage breast.”

The beer came. Noonan took a sip, watching over the head of foam as Valentine examined his mug with a look of distaste.

“You don’t like it?”

“I usually don’t drink,” Valentine said hesitantly.

“Really?”

“The hell with it!” Valentine moved the mug of beer away from him. “Why don’t you order me a cognac in that case.”

“Rosalie!” Noonan called out, finally cheering up.

The cognac arrived. Noonan spoke.

“But you really shouldn’t go on like that. I’m not talking about your picnic—that’s too much—but even if we accept the version that this is a prelude to contact, I still don’t like it. I can understand the bracelets and the empties. But why the witches’ jelly? The mosquito mange spots and that disgusting fluff?”

“Excuse me,” Valentine said, taking a slice of lemon. “I don’t quite understand your terminology. What mange?”

Noonan laughed.

“That’s folklore. Stalkers’ slang. Shop talk. The mosquito mange spots are areas of heightened gravitation.”

“Ah. Graviconcentrates. Directed gravity. That’s something I would enjoy talking about for a couple of hours, but you wouldn’t understand a thing.”

“Why wouldn’t I? I’m an engineer, you know.”

“Because I don’t understand it myself. I have systems of equations, but no way to interpret them. Witches’ jelly, is that colloidal gas?”

“The very same. Did you hear about the catastrophe at the Currigan labs?”

“I heard something about it.”

“Those idiots put a porcelain container with the jelly into a special room, highly insulated and isolated. That is, they thought it was isolated. And when they opened the container with manipulators the jelly went through metal and plastic, like water through a sieve, and outside. And everything it touched also turned into jelly. Thirty-five people were killed, more than a hundred were crippled, and the entire building was destroyed. Did you ever go there? Marvelously equipped place! And now the jelly has seeped down into the basement and the lower floors. Some prelude to contact.”

Valentine made a face.

“Yes, I know all that. But you must agree, Richard, that the visitors had nothing to do with it. How could they have known about the existence of our military-industrial complexes?”

“They should have known,” Noonan insisted.

“Their answer to that would be that the military-industrial complexes should have been done away with a long time ago.”

“That’s for sure. That’s what they should have taken care of, if they’re so powerful.”

“You mean you’re suggesting interference in the internal affairs of the human race?”

“Hmmm,” Noonan said. “I guess we’re going too far. Let’s drop it. Instead, let’s go back to the beginning of our discussion. How will it all end? Well, look at you, for instance, you’re a scientist. Are you hoping for something fundamental to come out of the Zone, something that will alter science, technology, our way of life?”

Valentine shrugged.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Richard. I don’t like to indulge in empty fantasizing. When the subject is something serious, I prefer to revert to healthy careful skepticism. Based on what we’ve already received, a whole range of possibilities is raised, and I can say nothing specific about it.”

“All right, let’s try another approach. What do you think you’ve already received?”

“You’ll find this amusing—very little. We’ve unearthed many miracles. In a few cases, we’ve even learned how to use these miracles for our own needs. A monkey pushes a red button and gets a banana, pushes a white button and gets an orange, but it doesn’t know how to get bananas and oranges without the buttons. And it doesn’t understand what relationship the buttons have to the fruit. Take the so-so’s, for example. We’ve learned how to use them. We’ve even learned the circumstances under which they multiply through a process similar to cell division. But we still haven’t been able to make a single so-so. We don’t know how they work, and judging by present evidence, it will be a long time before we will.

“I would put it this way. There are objects for which we have found uses. We use them, but almost certainly not the way the visitors use them. I am positive that in the vast majority of cases we are hammering nails with microscopes. But at least we’re using some things—the so-so’s, and the bracelets to stimulate life processes. And the various types of quasibiological masses, which have created a revolution in medicine. We have received new tranquilizers, new types of mineral fertilizers, a revolution in agriculture. But why am I giving you a list! You know this at least as well as I—I notice you wear a bracelet. Let’s call this group of objects beneficial. It can be said that mankind has benefited from them in some degree, even though it should never be forgotten that in our Euclidian world every stick has two ends.”

“Undesirable applications?”

“Precisely. Say the use of so-so’s in the defense industry. But that’s not what I’m talking about. The action of every beneficial object has been more or less studied and more or less explained. Our technology is holding us up. In fifty years or so we’ll know how to make them ourselves and then we can crack nuts to our hearts’ content. It’s more complicated with the other group of objects—more complicated because we have found no application for them, and their qualities within the framework of our present concepts are definitely not understandable. For instance, the magnetic traps. We know that they’re magnetic traps, Panov has proven it very wittily. But we don’t know the source of such a powerful magnetic field and what causes their superstability. We don’t understand a thing about them. We can only weave fantastic theories about properties of space that we never suspected before. Or the K-23. What do you call it? The pretty black beads that are used for jewelry?”

“Black sprays.”

“That’s it, the black sprays. That’s a good name. Well, you know their properties. If you shine a ray of light into one of those beads, the transmission of the light is delayed and the delay depends on the bead’s weight, size, and several other parameters. And the unit of light coming out is always smaller than the one entering. What is this? Why? There is a wild theory that the black sprays are gigantic expanses of space with properties different from those of our space and that they became curled up under the influence of our space.” Valentine sighed deeply. “In short, the objects in this group have absolutely no applications to human life today. Even though from a purely scientific point of view they are of fundamental importance. They are answers that have fallen from heaven to questions that we still can’t pose. Perhaps Sir Isaac wouldn’t have figured out lasers, but he would at least have understood that such a thing is possible, and that would have influenced his scientific outlook greatly. I won’t go into detail, but the existence of such objects as the magnetic traps, the K-23, and the white ring has invalidated most of our recently developed theories and has brought forth completely new ideas. And there is still a third group.”

“Yes,” Noonan said. “The witches’ jelly and other goodies.”

“No, no. Those fall either into the first or second category. I’m talking about objects that we know nothing about or have only hearsay information. The things that the stalkers stole from under our noses and sold to God knows who, or have hidden. The things that they don’t talk about. The things that have become legends or semi-legends. The wish machine, Dick the Tramp, and the jolly ghosts.”

“Wait a minute! What are those things? I can figure out the wish machine, but … ”

Valentine laughed.

“You see, we have our own shop talk, too. Dick the Tramp—that’s the hypothetical wind-up teddy bear wreaking havoc in the old plant. And the jolly ghost is a type of dangerous turbulence that occurs in some parts of the Zone.”

“First I’ve heard of it.”

“You understand, Richard, that we’ve been digging around in the Zone for twenty years but we don’t even know a thousandth of what it contains. And if you want to talk of the Zone’s effect on man … By the way, it looks as though we’ll have to add another category, the fourth group. Not of objects, but of effects. This group has been shamefully neglected, even though as far as I’m concerned, there are more than enough facts for research. And you know, sometimes my skin crawls, Richard, when I think about those facts.”

“Zombies,” Noonan said.

“What? Oh, no, that’s merely puzzling. How can I put it—at least, that’s imaginable. I mean when suddenly for no reason at all things start happening, nonphysical, nonbiological phenomena.”

“Oh, you mean the emigrants.”

“Exactly. Statistics is a very precise science, you know, even though it deals with random occurrences. And besides, it’s an eloquent and beautiful science.”

Valentine seemed to be tipsy. His voice was louder, his cheeks were red, and his eyebrows had crept up high over his dark glasses, wrinkling his forehead into a washboard.

“I really like nondrinkers,” Noonan said.

“Don’t get off the subject!” Valentine said. “Listen, what can I tell you? It’s very strange.” He raised his glass, drank half in one gulp, and went on. “We don’t know what happened to the poor Harmonites at the very moment of the Visitation. But now one of them decides to emigrate. Your most typical man in the street. A barber. The son of a barber and the grandson of a barber. He moves, say, to Detroit. He opens up a barbershop and all hell breaks loose. Over ninety percent of his clients die during a year: they die in car crashes, fall out of windows, are cut down by gangsters or muggers, drown in shallow waters, and so on and so forth. A number of natural disasters hit Detroit and its suburbs. Typhoons and tornadoes, not seen since eighteen-oh-something, suddenly appear in the area. And all that kind of stuff. And such cataclysmic events take place in any city, any area where an emigrant from a Zone area settles. The number of catastrophes is directly proportional to the number of emigrants who have moved to the city. And note that this reaction is caused only by emigrants who actually lived through the Visitation. Those born after the Visitation have no effect on the disaster and accident statistics. You’ve lived here for ten years, but you moved in after the Visitation and it would be safe to relocate you even in the Vatican. How can this be explained? What should we reject? The statistics? Or common sense?” Valentine grabbed the glass and finished his drink in a gulp.

Richard Noonan scratched his head.

“Hmmm, yes. Of course, I’d heard all that before, but I, uh, assumed that it was all, to put it mildly, exaggerated. Really, from the point of view of our highly developed science … ”

“Or, for instance, the mutagen effect of the Zone,” Valentine interrupted. He removed his glasses and stared at Noonan with his dark, myopic eyes. “Everyone who spends enough time with the Zone undergoes changes, both of phenotype and genotype. You know what kind of children stalkers can have and you know what happens to the stalkers themselves. Why? Where is the mutation factor? There is no radiation in the Zone. While the air and soil in the Zone have their own specific chemical structure, they pose no mutation dangers at all. What should I do under the circumstances—believe in sorcery? In the evil eye?”

“I sympathize. But, frankly, I am much more upset by corpses come to life than by your statistics. Especially since I’ve never seen the statistics, but I have seen the zombies—and smelled them.”

Valentine waved away the statement.

“Bah, your zombies. Richard, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are an educated man, after all. First of all, they are not corpses. They are moulages—reconstructions on the skeletons, dummies. And I assure you, from the point of view of fundamental principles, your moulages are no more amazing than the eternal batteries. It’s just that the so-so’s violate the first law of thermodynamics, and the moulages violate the second. We’re all cave men in one sense or another. We can’t imagine anything scarier than a ghost. But the violation of the law of causality is much more terrifying than a stampede of ghosts. And all the monsters of Rubenstein, or is it Wallenstein?”

“Frankenstein.”

“Of course. Frankenstein. Mrs. Shelley. The poet’s wife. Or daughter.” He suddenly laughed. “Our moulages have a curious property—autonomie life capability. For example, if you cut off some part of their bodies, the part will live on. Separately. Without any physiological solutions to nourish it. They brought one like that to the institute recently. A lab assistant from Boyd told me about it.” Valentine laughed uproariously.

“Isn’t it time we headed for home, Valentine?” Noonan asked, glancing at his watch. “I still have some important business.”

“Let’s go.” Valentine tried hard to insert his face into the glasses and finally had to take the frame with both hands to put them on his nose. “Do you have a car?”

“Yes. I’ll drive you.”

They paid the check and headed for the door. Valentine kept making mock salutes, greeting lab workers who were curiously watching one of the great men of world physics. At the door, greeting the broadly smiling doorman, he knocked off his glasses, and all three of them scrambled to catch them.

“Tomorrow I’m running an experiment. You know, it’s an interesting thing … ” Valentine was muttering as he climbed into the Peugeot.

He went on to describe the experiment. Noonan drove him to the science complex.

They’re afraid, too, he thought, getting back into the car. The highbrows are also scared. And that’s the way it should be. They should be more afraid than all us regular folk put together. We don’t understand a thing, and they understand how much they don’t. They look into the bottomless pit and know that it’s inevitable, they must go down into it. Their hearts catch, but they must go down, and descend they do, but how, and what will they find at the bottom, and most important, will they be able to climb out? Meanwhile, we mere mortals look the other way, so to speak. Listen, maybe that’s how it should be. Let it all run its course, and we’ll just get by on our own. He was right: humanity’s most heroic deed was surviving and intending to survive. But he’d still tell the visitors to go to hell, if he could. Why couldn’t they have had their picnic somewhere else. Like the Moon. Or Mars. You heartless trash, he thought, just like all the rest, even if you do know how to curl up space. So they had themselves a picnic. A picnic.

What’s the best way to deal with my picnickers? he thought, driving slowly down the brightly lit wet streets. What would be the cleverest way to handle it? Following the law of least action, like in mechanics. What the hell use is my blankety-blank engineering degree if I can’t even figure out the best way to trap that legless son of a bitch?

He parked in front of the house in which Redrick Schuhart lived and sat in the car, planning his opening gambit. Then he removed the so-so, got out of the car, and only then noticed that the house looked uninhabited. Almost all the windows were dark, there was nobody in the park, and even the lights in the park were out. It reminded him of what he was about to see, and he shivered. He even considered the possibility of phoning Schuhart and talking with him in the car or in some quiet bar, but he rejected the idea. For a whole lot of reasons. And besides, he said to himself, let’s not behave like all those characters who ran out like rats deserting a sinking ship.

He went into the main entrance and slowly up the unswept stairs. It was quiet and many of the doors leading from the landings were ajar or wide open. It smelled damp and dusty in the apartments. He stopped before Redrick’s door, smoothed his hair, sighed deeply, and rang the bell. It was still behind the door for a while, then the floor creaked, the lock turned, and the door opened quietly. He hadn’t heard the footsteps.

Monkey, Schuhart’s daughter, stood in the doorway. A bright light fell from the foyer onto the landing, and at first Noonan could only see the girl’s dark silhouette. He thought how much she had grown in the last few months. Then she stepped back into the foyer and he saw her face. His throat went dry for a second.

“Hello, Maria,” he said, trying to be as gentle as possible. “How are you, Monkey?”

She did not reply. Silently and soundlessly she backed away from the door into the living room, looking at him from under her eyebrows. It looked as though she did not recognize him. To tell the truth, he couldn’t recognize her either. It’s the Zone, he thought. Damn.

“Who’s there?” Guta asked, looking out of the kitchen. “God, it’s Dick! Where did you disappear to? You know, Redrick is back!”

She hurried over to him drying her hands with the towel slung over her shoulder. Still as beautiful, energetic, strong, but she looked strained somehow: her face was thinner, and her eyes looked … feverish, perhaps?

He kissed her cheek, gave her his raincoat and hat.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t get away to come over. Is he in?”

“He’s in,” Guta said. “There’s somebody with him. He should be leaving soon, they’ve been talking a long time. Go on, Dick.”

He took several steps down the hall and stopped in the door to the living room. An old man was sitting at the table. A moulage. Motionless and listing slightly. The pink light from the lampshade fell on his broad dark face, his sunken, toothless mouth, and his still, lusterless eyes. And Noonan smelled it immediately. He knew that it was just his imagination, that the odor lasted only the first few days and then disappeared completely, but Richard Noonan smelled it with his memory—the fetid heavy smell of turned-up earth.

“We could go to the kitchen,” Guta said quickly. “I’m cooking there and we could chat.”

“Yes, of course!” he said cheerily. “It’s been such a long time! You haven’t forgotten that I like a drink before dinner, I hope?”

They went to the kitchen. Guta opened the refrigerator and Noonan sat at the table and looked around. As usual, it was clean and shiny and steam was rising from the pots and pans on the stove. The oven was new, semiautomatic. That meant they had money.

“Well, how is he?” Noonan asked.

“The same. He lost weight in prison, but I’m fattening him up.”

“His hair still red?”

“You bet!”

“Hot-tempered?”

“What else! He’ll be that way to the grave.”

Guta gave him a Bloody Mary. The clear layer of Russian vodka seemed to float on the layer of tomato juice.

“Too much?”

“Just right.” Noonan poured the drink down. He realized that that was his first real drink all day. “Now that’s better.”

“Is everything all right with you?” Guta asked. “Why haven’t you dropped by for such a long time?”

“Damn business. Every week I intended to come over or at least call, but first I had to go to Rexopolis, then there was a big to-do, and then I heard that Redrick was back and I thought I’d let you two have some time to yourselves. I’m really hassled, Guta. Sometimes I ask myself, what the hell are we all running around for, anyway? To make money? But what the hell do we need money if all we do is run around making it?”

Guta clattered the pot covers, took a pack of cigarettes from the shelf, and sat at the table across from Noonan. Her eyes were lowered. Noonan pulled out his lighter and lit her cigarette. And again, for the second time in his life, he saw her hands trembling, like the time when Redrick had just been sentenced and Noonan came over to give her some money—she was in a lot of trouble at first with no money at all, and no one in the building would lend her any. Then there was suddenly money in the house, and quite a bit of it, judging by everything, and Noonan had a good guess as to its source, but he continued coming over, bringing Monkey candy and toys, spending whole evenings over coffee with Guta, planning a new, happy life for Redrick. And then, having heard her stories, he would go to the neighbors and try to reason with them, explaining, coaxing, and finally, at the end of his patience, threatening them: “You know Red will be coming back, and he’ll break you all in half.” But nothing helped.

“How’s your girlfriend?” Guta asked.

“What girlfriend?”

“The one you came over with that time, the blonde.”

“That’s no girlfriend! That was my secretary. She got married and quit.”

“You ought to get married, Dick. You want me to find a girl for you?”

Noonan was about to give the standard reply: “Well, I’m just waiting for Monkey to grow up.” But he stopped himself. It just wouldn’t have come off any more.

“I need a secretary, not a wife,” he bumbled. “Why don’t you leave your red devil and come be my secretary. You used to be an excellent one. Old Harris still reminisces about you.”

“I’ll bet. My hand was always black and blue from beating him off.”

“Oh, so it was like that?” Noonan tried to look surprised. “That Harris!”

“God!” Guta said. “I could never get past him. My only worry was that Red would find out.”

Monkey walked in silently, hovering near the door. She looked at the pots, at Richard, then came up to her mother and leaned against her, averting her face.

“Well, Monkey,” Richard Noonan said heartily. “Like some chocolate?”

He took a chocolate bar out of his vest pocket and extended the plastic-wrapped package to the girl. She did not stir. Guta took the chocolate from him and put it on the table. Her lips were white. “Well, Guta, you know I’ve decided to move.” He spoke on in a hearty tone. “I’m tired of hotel living. And it’s too far from the institute.”

“She understands less and less—almost nothing any more,” Guta said softly. He stopped talking, picked up the glass with both hands, and absently twirled it.

“You’re not asking how we’re doing,” she continued. “And you’re right. Except that you’re an old friend, Dick, and we have no secrets from you. And there’s no way to keep it a secret anyway.”

“Have you seen a doctor?” he asked without looking up.

“Yes. They can’t do a thing. And one of them said … ” She stopped talking.

He was silent too. There was nothing to say about it and he didn’t want to think about it either. Suddenly he had a horrible thought: it was an invasion. Not a roadside picnic, not a prelude to contact. It was an invasion. They can’t change us, so they get into the bodies of our children and change them in their own image. He felt a chill, but then he remembered that he had read something like that in a paperback with a lurid cover, and he felt better. You can imagine anything at all. And real life is never what you imagine.

“And one of them said that she’s no longer human.”

“Nonsense,” Noonan said hollowly. “You should go to a real specialist. Go see James Cutterfield. Do you want me to talk to him? I’ll arrange an appointment.”

“You mean the Butcher?” She laughed nervously. “Don’t bother. Thanks, Dick, but he’s the one who said so. I guess it’s fate.”

When Noonan dared to look up again, Monkey was gone and Guta was sitting motionless, her mouth half-open, her eyes empty, and a long gray ash on her cigarette. He pushed his glass over to her.

“Make me another, please, and one for yourself. We’ll have a drink.”

The ash fell and she looked around for a place for the butt. She threw it into the garbage can.

“Why? That’s what I can’t understand! We’re not the worst people in the city.”

Noonan thought that she was going to cry, but she didn’t. She opened the refrigerator, got the vodka and juice, and took another glass down from the cabinet.

“Don’t give up hope. There’s nothing in the world that can’t be fixed. And believe me, Guta, I have very important connections. I’ll do everything that I can.”

He believed what he was saying and he was mentally going over the list of his connections in various cities, and it seemed to him that he had heard about similar cases, and that they had seemed to have ended happily. He just had to remember where it was and who the physician was. But then he remembered Mr. Lemchen, and he remembered why he had befriended Guta, and then he didn’t want to think about anything at all. He scattered all his thoughts of connections, got comfortable in his chair, relaxed, and waited for his drink.

There were shuffling steps and a thumping in the hall and he could hear the more-than-ever repulsive voice of Buzzard Burbridge.

“Hey, Red! Looks like your Guta is entertaining someone. I see a hat. If I were you, I wouldn’t leave them alone.”

Red’s voice: “Watch your false leg, Buzzard. Shut your mouth. There’s the door, don’t forget to leave. It’s time for my dinner.”

“Damn it, can’t even make a little joke.”

“We’ve had all the jokes we’ll ever have. Period. Now get going!”

The lock clicked and the voices were quieter. Obviously they had gone out on the landing. Burbridge said something in an undertone, and Redrick replied: “That’s all, we’ve had our talk!” More grumbling from Burbridge and Redrick’s harsh: “I said that’s it!” The door slammed, there were loud fast steps in the hall, and Redrick Schuhart appeared in the kitchen doorway. Noonan rose to greet him, and they warmly shook hands.

“I was sure it was you,” Redrick said, looking Noonan over with his quick greenish eyes. “Putting on weight, fatso! Keep putting it away, eh? I see you’re passing the time of day pleasantly enough. Guta, old love, make one for me, too. I’ve got to catch up.”

“We haven’t even started yet. How can anyone get ahead of you?”

Redrick laughed harshly and punched Noonan in the shoulder.

“Now we’ll see who catches up and who gets ahead! Come on, let’s go, what are we doing out here in the kitchen? Guta, bring on the dinner.”

He reached into the refrigerator and came out with a bottle with a bright label.

“We’ll have ourselves a feast!” he announced. “We have to treat our best friend Richard Noonan royally, for he does not desert his pals in their moment of need! Even though he is of no help whatever. Too bad Gutalin’s not here.”

“Why don’t you call him?” Noonan suggested.

Redrick shook his bright red head.

“They haven’t laid the phone lines to where he is tonight. Let’s go.”

He went into the living toom and slammed the bottle on the table.

“We’re going to celebrate, pops!” he said to the motionless old man. “This here is Richard Noonan, our friend! Dick, this is my pop, Schuhart Senior.”

Richard Noonan, his mind rolled up into an impenetrable ball, grinned from ear to ear, waved, and said in the direction of the moulage:

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Schuhart. How are you? You know, we’ve met before, Red,” he said to Schuhart, Jr., who was puttering at the bar. “We saw each other once, but very briefly, of course.”

“Sit down,” Redrick said to him, indicating the chair opposite the old man. “If you’re going to talk to him, speak up. He can’t hear a thing.”

He set up the glasses, quickly opened the bottle, and turned to Noonan.

“You pour. Just a little for pops, just cover the bottom.”

Noonan took his time pouring. The old man sat in the same position, staring at the wall. And he did not react when Noonan moved his glass closer to him. Noonan had already adjusted to the new situation. It was a game, terrible and pathetic. Red was playing the game, and he joined in, as he had always joined other peoples’ games all his life—terrifying ones, pathetic ones, shameful ones, and ones much more dangerous than this. Redrick raised his glass and said: “Well, I guess we’re off?” Noonan looked over at the old man in a completely natural manner. Redrick impatiently clinked his glass against Noonan’s and said: “We’re off, we’re off.” Then Noonan nodded, completely naturally, and they drank.

Redrick, eyes shining, began to talk in his excited and slightly artificial tone.

“That’s it, brother! Jail will never see me again. If you only knew how good it is to be home; I have the dough and I’ve picked out a new little cottage for myself, with a garden—as good as Buzzard’s place. You know, I had wanted to emigrate, I had decided when I was still in jail. I mean, what was I sitting in this lousy two-bit town for? I thought, let the whole place drop dead. So I get back, and there’s a surprise for me—emigration has been forbidden! Have we suddenly become plague-ridden during the last two years?”

He talked and talked, and Noonan nodded, sipped his whiskey, and interjected sympathetic noises and rhetorical questions. Then he started asking about the cottage—what kind was it, where was it, what did it cost?—and then they argued. Noonan insisted that the cottage was expensive and inconveniently located. He took out his address book, flipped through it, and named the locations of abandoned cottages that were being sold for a song. And the repairs would be almost free, because he could apply for emigration, be turned down, and sue for compensation, which would pay for the repairs.

“I see that you’re involved in nonemigration, too.”

“I’m involved in everything a little,” Noonan replied with a wink.

“I know, I know, I’ve heard all about your affairs.”

Noonan put on a wide-eyed look of surprise, raised his finger to his pursed lips, and nodded in the direction of the kitchen.

“All right, don’t worry, everybody knows about it,” Redrick said. “Money never stinks. I know that for sure now. But getting Mosul to be your manager. I almost fell on the floor laughing when I heard! Letting a bull into the china shop. He’s a psycho, you know. I’ve known him since we were kids.”

He fell silent and looked at the old man. A shudder crossed his face, and Noonan was amazed to see the look of real, sincere love and tenderness on that tough freckled mug of his.

Watching him, Noonan remembered what had happened when Boyd’s lab workers showed up here for the moulage. There were two lab assistants, both strong young men, athletes and all that, and a doctor from the city hospital with two orderlies, tough and rough burly guys used to lugging heavy stretchers and overpowering hysterical patients. One of the lab assistants later told him that “that redhead” at first didn’t seem to understand what was going on, because he let them into the apartment to examine his father. They probably would have gotten the old man away, because it looked as if Redrick thought that they were putting his old man in the hospital for observation. But the stupid orderlies, who had spent their time during the preliminary negotiations gawking at Guta washing the kitchen windows, grabbed the old man like a log when they were called in—and dropped him on the floor. Redrick went crazy. Then the jerk of a doctor volunteered an explanation of what was going on. Redrick listened for a minute or two and suddenly exploded without any warning like a hydrogen bomb. The assistant who told the story did not remember how he ended up on the street. The red devil got them all down the stairs, all five of them, and not one left under his own power. They all shot out of the foyer like cannonballs. Two ended up unconscious on the sidewalk and Redrick chased the other three for four blocks. Then he returned and bashed in all the windows on the institute car—the driver had made a run for it when he saw what was happening.

“I learned how to make a new cocktail at this bar,” Redrick was saying as he poured more whiskey. “It’s called Witches’ Jelly, I’ll make you one later, after we’ve eaten. Brother, it’s not something you should have on an empty stomach—it’s dangerous to the health: one drink makes your arms and legs numb. I don’t care what you say, Dick, I’m going to treat you royally today. We’ll remember the good old days and the Borscht. Poor old Ernie is still in the cooler, you know that?” He drank, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and casually asked: “What’s new at the institute? Have they tackled witches’ jelly yet? You know, I sort of fell behind science a bit.”

Noonan understood why Redrick was bringing up the topic. He threw up his hands in dismay.

“Are you kidding? Did you know what happened with that jelly? Have you heard of the Currigan Labs? There’s this little private supplier … So they got themselves some jelly … ”

He told him about the catastrophe. And about the shocking fact that they never tied up the loose ends, never found out where the lab had gotten it. Redrick listened, feigning distraction, clucking his tongue, and shaking his head. He decisively splashed more whiskey into their glasses.

“That’s what they deserve, the bloodsuckers. I hope they all choke.”

They drank. Redrick looked over at his father and a shudder crossed his face once more.

“Guta!” he shouted. “Are you going to starve us much longer? She’s knocking herself out for you, you know,” he told Noonan. “She wants to make your favorite salad, with crabmeat. She bought a supply a while ago just in case you turned up. Well, how are things at the institute in general? Found anything new? I hear you have robots working full force but not getting too much out of it.”

Noonan started in on institute business, and while he was talking, Monkey appeared noiselessly at the table by the old man. She stood there with her hairy paws on the table and then in a perfectly childlike way, she leaned against the moulage and put her head on his shoulder. Noonan went on chatting but thought, as he looked at those two horrors born of the Zone: My God, what else? What else has to be done to us before we understand? Isn’t this enough? But he knew that it wasn’t. He knew that millions upon millions of people knew nothing and wanted to know nothing, and even if they found out would ooh and aah for five minutes and then go back to their own routines. It was time to go, he thought wildly. The hell with Burbridge, the hell with Lemchen, and the hell with this goddamned family!

“What are you staring at them for?” Redrick asked softly. “Don’t worry, it won’t harm her. They even say that they generate good health.”

“Yes, I know,” Noonan said and drained his glass.

Guta came in, ordered Redrick to set the table, and set a large silver bowl with Noonan’s favorite salad on the table.

“Well, friends,” Redrick announced. “Now we’re going to have ourselves a feast!”