Snail on the Slope

Chapter Ten

The forest was invisible. In its place, below the rock as far as the horizon, lay dense clouds. It resembled an ice-field powdered with snow: ice-hummocks and snow dunes, holes and crevasses concealing endless depths - if you jumped down from the rock your fall would be broken, not by earth, warm swamps, or spreading branches, but by hard ice sparkling in the morning sun, powdered lightly with dry snow, and you would stay lying on the ice under the sun, flat, motionless, black. It might be thought to resemble an old, well-washed white blanket, thrown over the treetops...

Pepper hunted around to find a pebble, lobbed it from palm to palm, thinking what a good little place this was above the precipice: pebbles about, no sense of the Directorate, wild thorn bushes all around, faded untrodden grass, even some little birdy permitting itself a chirp. Best not to look over to the right, though, where a luxurious four-hole latrine was suspended over the precipice, its fresh paint brazenly shining in the sun. Quite a way off, it's true, and possible if you wanted, to make yourself imagine it a summerhouse or some sort of scientific pavilion, but it did spoil the scene.

Perhaps it was actually because of this new latrine, erected the previous turbulent night, that the forest had shrouded itself in clouds. Hardly likely though. The forest wouldn't wrap itself up to the distant horizon for anything so petty, it was used to a lot worse than that from people.

At any rate, Pepper thought, I can come here every morning. I'll do what they tell me, I'll tote up on the broken Mercedes, I'll beat the assault course, I'll play the manager at chess, even try to get to like yogurt: it's probably not too bad if practically everybody likes it. And of an evening (and for the night), I'll go over to Alevtina's and eat raspberry jam and lie in the director's bath. There's something to be said for that even, he thought. Dry yourself with the director's towel and warm your feet up in the director's woolly socks, meanwhile crammed into the director's dressing gown. Twice a month I'll go over to the biostation to collect salary and bonuses, not the forest, just the biostation, and not even there, just to the pay-out window, but no meeting with the forest and no war with the forest, just salary and bonuses. But in the morning, early in the morning, I shall come here and look on the forest from afar and lob pebbles into it.

The bushes behind him parted with a crash. Pepper glanced around warily, but it wasn't the director, just Hausbotcher once again. He was carrying a fat file folder and halted some distance away, looking Pepper up and down with his moist eyes. He clearly knew something, something very important, and had brought this strange alarming information that no one in the world knew of save himself, here to the cliff-edge, and it was plain that everything that had gone before was no longer significant and from everyone would be required to contribute all he was capable of.

"Hello," he said, and bowed, clasping the case to his hip. "Good morning. Did you rest well?"

"Good morning," said Pepper. "Well, thank you."

"Humidity today seventy-six percent," Hausbotcher announced. "Temperature - seventeen degrees. No wind. Cloud cover - nil." He had drawn nearer noiselessly, arms along the seams of his trousers, and, inclining his body toward Pepper, continued: "Double-u today - sixteen."

"What's double-u?" asked Pepper, getting up.

"Quantity of spots," said Hausbotcher swiftly. His eyes became shifty. "On the sun," he said. "On the s-s-s..." He ceased, staring Pepper in the face.

"And why are you telling me this?" asked Pepper with distaste.

"I beg your pardon," said Hausbotcher rapidly. "It won't be repeated. So, just humidity, cloud cover ... hmm ... wind and ... you won't require me to report planetary oppositions?"

"Listen," said Pepper dismally. "What do you want from me?"

Hausbotcher retreated a pace or two and hung his head. "I beg pardon. Perhaps I intruded, but there are a few papers that require ... that is, immediate ... your personal..." He held out the file folder toward Pepper, like an empty tray. "Do you order me to report?"

"You know what..." said Pepper menacingly.

"Yes ... yes?" said Hausbotcher. Without relinquishing the file folder, he began rummaging through his pockets, as if in search of his notepad. His face was blue-tinged as if from sheer zeal.

Fool, fool, thought Pepper, trying to control himself. What was I expecting from the likes of him? "Stupid," he said striving for restraint. "That clear? Stupid and not in the least witty."

"Yes-yes," said Hausbotcher. Bent double, with the file folder clasped between elbow and thigh, he scribbled frantically on the notepad. "One second ... yes, yes?"

"What are you writing there?" asked Pepper. Hausbotcher glanced fearfully at him and read out:

"Fifteenth June ... time ... seven forty-five ... place: cliff-edge..."

"Listen, Hausbotcher," said Pepper, exasperated. "What the hell do you want? Why d'you trail about after me all the time? I've had enough of it, just lay off! [Hausbotcher scribbled.] This joke of yours is sheer stupidity and there's no need to spy around me. You should be ashamed at your age... Now stop writing, idiot! It's damned stupidity! Why don't you do your exercises or get washed, just take a look at yourself, you're like nothing on earth! Ugh!"

He began doing up his sandal straps with fingers trembling with fury.

"They're probably right about you," he panted. "They say you get everywhere and take a note of the conversation. I used to think these were your stupid jokes... I didn't want to believe it, I can't stand that sort of thing at all, but it looks as though you're quite brazen about it now."

He straightened up and saw that Hausbotcher was standing staunchly at attention, tears were flowing down his cheeks.

"Just what's the matter with you today?" asked Pepper, alarmed.

"I can't..." mumbled Hausbotcher, between sobs.

"What can't you?"

"Exercises... My liver ... chit... and washing."

"Good God in heaven," said Pepper. "Well if you can't, you needn't, it was just a manner of speaking... Well anyway, why are you following me around? Don't you see, for God's sake, it's not exactly pleasant... I've nothing against you, but can't you grasp? ..."

"Won't happen again!" cried Hausbotcher, ecstatic. The tears on his cheeks dried instantly. "Never again!"

"To blazes with you," said Pepper wearily and walked off through the bushes. Hausbotcher forced his way after him. Old clown, thought Pepper, feebleminded ...

"Absolute urgency," Hausbotcher was muttering, breathing heavily. "Only extreme necessity... Your personal attention."'

Pepper looked around.

"What the hell?" he exclaimed. "That's my suitcase, give it here, where did you get it?"

Hausbotcher placed the case on the ground and was on the point of opening his mouth twisted by the effort of breathing, when Pepper snatched the case handle, not bothering to listen to him. At this, Hausbotcher without a word lay belly-down on the case. "Give me that case!" said Pepper, going ice-cold from fury.

"Never!" croaked Hausbotcher, scraping his knees about in the gravel. The file folder was in his way so he gripped it between his teeth and embraced the suitcase with both arms. Pepper heaved with all his might and succeeded in ripping off the handle.

"Stop this outrageous behavior!" he said. "At once!"

Hausbotcher shook his head and burbled something. Pepper loosened his collar and stared helplessly around. In the shadow of an oak tree not far off, two engineers in cardboard masks were standing for some reason. Catching his glance, they straightened up and clicked their heels. Pepper peered around him like a hunted animal, then hurriedly walked along the path out of the park. There'd been plenty of surprises up till now, he thought feverishly, but this beat all... They were all in it together ... run, he had to run! But how? He emerged from the park and was about to turn off toward the canteen, but he found Hausbotcher blocking his way once more, filthy and appalling. He was standing with the suitcase on his shoulder, his blue face was bathed in tears or water or sweat, his eyes roved beneath a white film of moisture, he gripped the file folder with teethmarks on it close to his chest.

"Not here, please..." he croaked. "I beg you ... to the study ... intolerably urgent ... not forgetting interests of subordination..."

Pepper recoiled from him and ran off along the main street. People were standing like statues along the pavements, heads back and eyes staring. A truck speeding toward him pulled up with a squeal of brakes and smashed into a newsstand. People with spades spilled out of the back and began forming up in two ranks. A security guard went by with ceremonial step, holding his rifle at the present-arms...

On two occasions Pepper attempted to turn off into a side street, but each time Hausbotcher appeared before him. Hausbotcher was no longer able to speak, he just moaned and growled, rolling beseeching eyes. Thereupon Pepper ran off toward the Directorate building.

Kim, he thought desperately, Kim won't permit... surely Kim wasn't in with them as well? ... I'll lock myself in the lavatory ... let them try ... I'll use my feet... I'm past caring...

He burst into the hallway only to be greeted at once with the brazen clangor of the amalgamated local orchestras thundering out a march. Strained faces, protruding eyes, inflated chests flashed before him. Hausbotcher caught him up and chased him up the main staircase with its raspberry carpets, a route forbidden to everyone at all times, through some unfamiliar two-tone halls, past security guards in full-dress uniform with decorations, along slippery waxed parquet, up to the fifth floor along a portrait gallery, upstairs again to floor six, past some bedecked females frozen like mannequins, into a sort of luxurious dead end with fluorescent lighting, and up to an enormous leather door with the nameplate "Director." Nowhere else to run.

Hausbotcher caught up with him and slid under his elbow, croaked horribly like an epileptic and flung the leather door wide before him. Pepper entered, and sank up to his insteps in a monstrous tiger skin, and immersed his whole being into the austere executive twilight of half-drawn door curtains, into the noble aroma of expensive tobacco, in the cotton-wool silence, into the even tenor and serenity of an alien existence.

"Hello," he said into space. But no one was sitting behind the huge table. No one was sitting in the huge armchairs. And no one met his glance except Selivan the Martyr in a vast picture occupying the whole of one side of the room.

Behind him, Hausbotcher dropped the suitcase with a thump. Pepper started and turned around. Hausbotcher was standing, swaying and proffering the file folder like an empty tray. His eyes were dead, glassy. The man'll die any minute, thought Pepper. But Hausbotcher did not die.

"Unusually urgent..." he grated, panting. "Not possible without director's signature ... personal... would never dare..."

"What director?" Pepper whispered. A terrible surmise had begun to take vague shape in his brain.

"You..." Hausbotcher croaked. "Without your official stamp ... no way..."

Pepper leaned against the table and supporting himself on its polished surface, wandered around it to the chair that seemed nearest. He dropped into its cool leather embrace and took in the rows of colored telephones on his left and the gold stamped volumes on the right. In front of him stood a monumental inkwell with Tannhauser and Venus, and above it, the white beseeching eyes of Hausbotcher and the proffered document case. He drew his elbows in, thought: Well, so that's how it is? You scum, sods, lackies ... that's it, eh? Well, well, you bastards, slaves, cardboard snouts... Well, all right, let it be...

"Stop waggling that over the table," he said severely. "Give it here."

Things began moving in the office, shadows flitted^ a small whirlwind started up and Hausbotcher materialized at his right shoulder; the folder lay on the table and opened as if of its own accord, sheets of fine quality paper peeped out, and he read a word printed in large letters: DRAFT. "Thank you," he said severely. "You may go."

Once more the whirlwind, an aroma of sweat was sensed and then vanished, Hausbotcher was already by the door pausing, trunk inclined, hands by his seams, appalling, piteous, and ready for anything.

"One moment," said Pepper. Hausbotcher froze. "Can you kill a man?" asked Pepper. Hausbotcher did not hesitate. He pulled out a small notepad and spoke: "Your orders?" "And commit suicide?" Pepper asked. "What?" said Hausbotcher. "Go," said Pepper. "I'll call for you later." Hausbotcher vanished. Pepper cleared his throat and wiped his cheeks.

"Let's assume that," he said aloud. "And now what?"

On the table he observed a desk diary, turned the page, and read the present day's entry. The previous director's handwriting disappointed him; it was large and legible like a primary school teacher's. "Group leaders. 9:30. Foot examination. 10:30. Power for Ala. Try aerated yogurt. Machinization. Reel: who stole it? Four bulldozers!!!"

To hell with the bulldozers, thought Pepper, that's it: no bulldozers, no excavators, no saw-combines of eradication... Good idea to castrate Acey at the same time - can't, pity ... and that machine-depot. Blow that up, he decided. He pictured the Directorate from above and realized that a great deal needed blowing up. Too much... Any fool can use explosives, he thought.

He pulled out the desk's middle drawer and saw there heaps of papers, blunted pencils, and two philatelic perforation-gauges, and on top of all this, a twisted golden general's epaulette. Just one. He had a look for the other, raking his hand around under the papers, received a pinprick and found a bunch of safe keys. The safe itself stood in the far comer and a pretty odd safe it was; decorated like a sideboard. Pepper got up and crossed the room to the safe; he glanced around him and noticed a good many odd things he'd not seen before.

Under the window stood a hockey stick, next to it - a crutch and a false leg wearing a boot with a rusty skate. There turned out to be another door in the recesses of the office; a rope was stretched across it on which hung some black swimming trunks and several odd socks, a number of them holed. On the door was a tarnished metal plate with the inscribed legend CATTLE. On the windowsill, half-hidden by the curtain, stood a small aquarium; in the pure transparent water among varicolored seaweeds, a plump black axoloti stirred its feathery gills in measured tempo. From behind the Selivan picture protruded a splendid bandmaster's baton complete with horses tails. Pepper was busy with the safe a good while, trying the keys. At last the heavy armored door swung open. The inside of the door was covered in indecent pin-ups from men's magazines, and the safe was practically empty. Pepper found a pair of pince-nez, the left lens broken, a crumpled cap with a mysterious cockade, and a photograph of an unknown family (grinning father, mother with cupid's-bow lips, and two boys in cadet uniform). There was a parabellum pistol too, well cleaned and looked after, a single round up the barrel, another twisted general's epaulette, and an iron cross with oak leaves. There was another pile of file folders in the safe, but they were all empty except for the bottom one, which held a rough draft of an order imposing punishment on driver Acey for systematic nonattendance at the Museum of Directorate History. "That's got him, that's got him, rascal," muttered Pepper. "Fancy that, skipping the museum... We'll do something about this." Always Acey, what the ... ?

Yogurtomaniac, repulsive womanizer, junky, still, all the drivers were that... no, a stop would be put to it: yogurt, chess during working hours. By the way, what exactly does Kim add up on the broken Mercedes? Or is everything as it should be - some sort of stochastic processes going on... Look, Pepper, you don't know much; everybody's hard at work, after all. Hardly anybody loafs around. They work at night. Everybody's busy, nobody's got any time. Orders are carried out, that I know, seen it myself. Everything looks to be in order: guards do their guarding, drivers drive, engineers construct, scientists write articles, pay-clerks dish out money...

Listen, Pepper, he thought, maybe all this merry-go-round exists just for that - so everybody's kept busy? In actual fact a good mechanic can service a car in two hours. What happens after that? What about the other twenty-two hours? And if in addition competent workmen operate the machines so as to keep them in good order? The answer's not far to seek: give the good mechanic a job as a cook, make the cook a mechanic. That way you can fill twenty-two years, never mind hours. No, there was a certain logic in it. Everybody works, discharging his obligations to humanity, not like well, monkeys ... and they extend their specialization range... Anyhow, there's no logic at all there, it's an unholy mess, that's all... My god, I'm standing here like a post, while they're defiling the forest, eradicating it, turning it into a park. Something's got to be done, now I'm responsible for every acre, every pup, every mermaid, I'm responsible for it all now...

He moved into action, somehow got the safe shut, rushed over to the table, pushed the file folder from him and pulled out a clean sheet of paper from the drawer... There's thousands of people here, though, he thought. Traditions have been founded, accepted attitudes, they'll laugh at me... He recalled the wretched, sweating Hausbotcher and indeed himself in the director's anteroom. No, they wouldn't laugh at him. They'd cry, complain ... to ... Monsieur Alas ... they'd kill each other. But not laugh. That was the worst part of it, he thought, they didn't know how to laugh, they didn't know what that was or the reason for it. People, he thought, people and little people and littler people. Democracy's what's wanted, freedom of opinion, freedom of criticism, I'll get them all together and tell them: criticize! Criticize and laugh... Yes, they would criticize. They'd do it at length with warmth and ecstasy since they'd been ordered to do it, they'd criticize the inadequate supplies of yogurt, the poor food in the canteen, they'd lay into the street cleaners with particular relish: roads unswept in donkey's years, they'd criticize driver Acey for systematic bathhouse avoidance, and in between they'd hurry to the latrine overhanging the precipice... No, I'll get things in a tangle that way, he thought. A set procedure is what we want. What have I got now?

He began writing swiftly and illegibly on the sheet:

"Forest Eradication Group, Forest Research Group, Forest Military Guard, Assistance to Native Population Group..." What else was there? Yes! "Engineering Penetration Group." Yes, and ... "Science Security Group." The lot, apparently. So. What did they all do? Odd, I've never wondered up till now what they all do here. What's more, I've never wondered what the Directorate does anyway. How is it possible to combine forest eradication with a forest guard, and assist the local populations at the same time.

Well, now, he thought. For a start, no eradications. Eradicate Eradication. Engineering Penetration too, most likely. Or let them work up top, they're no use down there, anyway. Let their machines cope. Let them build a good road, let them drain that stinking bog... What's left then? The military guard. And wolfhounds. Well, anyway ... anyway the forest has to be guarded. Only ... he recalled the faces of the guards he had encountered and gnawed his lip doubtfully, Mm-yes... Well all right, we'll assume that. But why the Directorate? Why me! Dispense with the Directorate, eh? He had a feeling of weird gaiety. Now that would be something, he thought. I can do it! Disperse it and that's it, he thought. Who's my judge? I'm the director, the chief. One order - finish!

Suddenly he heard ponderous footsteps somewhere close. The glass chandelier tinkled, the drying socks swayed on the line. Pepper rose and tiptoed to the little door. Just beyond it someone was walking unsteadily, as it might be stumbling, but nothing else could be heard and there wasn't even a keyhole to look through. Pepper cautiously pulled at the handle but the door did not yield.

"Who's there?" he asked loudly, placing his lips to the crack. No one replied but the footsteps continued. It was like a drunk wandering along, falling over his own legs. Pepper tried the handle again, gave a shrug, and went back to his chair.

Anyway, power has its advantages, he thought. I shan't disperse the Directorate, of course, stupid - why get rid of a ready-made well-knit organization? One simply had to redirect it, turn it onto its true course. Stop the intrusion into the forest, intensify careful research, try to find points of contact, learn from it... They didn't even know what the forest was, after all. Just imagine, a forest! Mountains of firewood... No, there was a lot of work ahead. Real, important work. People would be forthcoming, too - Kim, Stoyan ... Rita ... Good lord, what was wrong with the manager? ... Alevtina... Well and why not this Alas as well, no doubt a good man, brains there, doing a silly job that was all... We'll show them, he thought cheerfully. We'll show them yet, hell! All right. How are things going just now?

He drew the file folder toward him. On the top sheet was written:

DRAFT DIRECTIVE ON PROCEDURE

1. Over the past year the Forest Directorate has materially improved its work and attained splendid results in all spheres of activity. Many hundreds of acres of forest territory have been taken over, studied, eradicated, and put under military and scientific security. The skills of specialist and worker alike show continued steady development. Organization is being perfected, unproductive spending is being reduced, bureaucratic and other impediments external to productivity are being eliminated.

2. However, alongside the achievements achieved, the harmful effects of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as well as the Law of Large Numbers continue to be felt, thus lowering the general level of attainment. Our most pressing task is now the elimination of chance effects, productive of chaos and destructive of rhythm as well as inductive of a relaxation of tempo.

3. With reference to the above-mentioned, it is suggested in the future that all manifestations of chance be regarded as exceptional and at variance with the ideal of organization, and involvement in chance effects (probability) - as a criminal activity, or, if the involvement in chance effects (probability) is not attended by major consequences - as a most serious breach of office and production discipline.

4. The guilt of any person involved with chance effects (probabilities), is defined and delimited by articles of the Criminal Code nos. 62, 64, 65 (omitting paras. S and 0) 113, and 192 par. K, or Administrative Codex 12, 15 and 97. NOTE: The fatal upshot of any involvement with chance effects (probabilities) is not regarded per se as a justifying or extenuating circumstance. Conviction, or penalty in this instance, will be imposed posthumously.

5. The present Directive promulgated ... month ... day ... year. No retroactive application.

Signature: DIRECTOR (---------------).

Pepper moistened his dry lips and turned the page over. On the next sheet was an order concerning a summons for a member of the Science Security Group, one H. Toity, with reference to the Directive "On procedure," "for malicious indulgence of the law of large numbers, to wit, sliding on the ice with concomitant damage to the ankle joint, which criminal involvement with chance effects (probability) took place on March llth this year." Officer H. Toity should be referred to in all documents henceforward as probabili-trick Toity.

Pepper clicked his teeth and glanced at the next sheet. This was an order too: the imposition of administrative punishment - a fine of four months pay, posthumously - on dog-breeder G. de Montmorency of the military guard, "carelessly permitting himself to be struck down by atmospheric discharge (lightning)." Further on were requests for leave, requests to do with a lump-sum benefit on the loss of a breadwinner, and an explanatory note from one Z. Lumbago concerning the loss of a reel...

"What in the name of!" said Pepper aloud and reread the draft Directive. He began to sweat. The draft was printed on art paper with a gold edge. I need advice from somewhere, thought Pepper miserably, otherwise I'm done for...

At this the door flung open and into the study, pushing a wheeled cart before her, came Alevtina, dressed with extreme elegance in the latest fashion, and wearing a grave expression on her expertly powdered and made-up face.

"Your breakfast," said she in a delicate voice.

"Close the door and come here," said Pepper. She shut the door, pushed the cart with her foot and, adjusting her hair, came over to Pepper.

"Well now, ducky?" said she, smiling. "Satisfied now?"

"Listen," said Pepper. "This is rubbish. Have a read."

She seated herself on the arm of the chair, put her bare left arm around Pepper's neck, and picked up the Directive with the bare right one.

"Well, I know," she said. "It's all in order. What's the matter? Should I bring the Criminal Code in? The previous director couldn't remember a single article either."

"No, no, wait," said Pepper impatiently. "What's the code got to do with it, what's that to do with it? Have you read it?"

"Not only read, typed. And corrected the style. Hausbotcher's no writer, and he only learned to read here... Incidentally, ducky," she said, solicitously, "Hausbotcher is waiting out there in the anteroom, see him during breakfast, he likes that. He'll do your sandwiches for you..."

"I sent him packing!" said Pepper. "Just you explain to me what I ..."

"You shouldn't send Hausbotcher packing," put in Alevtina. "You're still my little ducky, you still don't know anything." She pressed Pepper's nose like a button. "Hausbotcher has two notepads. In one he writes who said what - for the director - in the other he notes down what the director said. Ducky, you remember that and don't go forgetting."

"Wait," said Pepper. "I want your advice. That Directive ... I'm not signing crazy stuff like that."

"How do you mean not?"

"What I say. My hand won't move - to sign anything like that."

Alevtina's face became stern.

"Ducky," she said. "Now don't get obstinate. Just sign. It's very urgent. I'll explain it all to you later, but now ..."

"What's there to explain?" asked Pepper.

"Well if you don't understand, it means you need an explanation. So that's what I'll do later."

"No, explain it now," Pepper said. "If you can," he added. "Which I doubt."

"Ooh, then, my little one," said Alevtina and kissed him on the temple. She glanced at her watch concernedly. "Well, fine, all right."

She shifted her seat to the table, placed her hands beneath her and began, her screwed-up eyes fixed above Pepper's head.

"Administrative work exists as the basis of all else. This work didn't come into being today or yesterday, the vector has its base back in the depths of time. At present it is embodied in existing orders and directives. But it extends far into the future too, and there it waits for its embodiment. It's like laying a highway through a section already marked off, where the asphalt ends and the surveyor stands with his back to the finished section looking into his theodolite.

"That surveyor is you. The imaginary line traveling along the optical axis of the theodolite is the unrealized administrative vector which only you of all people can see and to which it is your duty to give substance. Do you follow?"

"No," Pepper said firmly.

"Doesn't matter, keep listening... Just as the highway can't turn as it pleases to left or right, but has to follow the optical axis of your theodolite, just so every directive must be a continuation of all those preceding it... Ducky, sweety, don't probe into it, I don't understand anything about it myself, but that's good really, because probing stirs up doubts, doubts make people mark time, and marking time is the death of administrative activity, consequently yours, mine and every...

"That's elementary. Not a single day without a Directive and everything will be all right. This Directive on procedure, now - it doesn't exist in vacuo, it's tied up with the preceding Directive on nonabsence, and that was linked with the Order on nonpregnancy, and that Order flowed logically from the Injunction on excessive indignation, and that ..."

"What the hell!" said Pepper. "Show me these injunctions and orders. No, better show me the very first order, the one in the depths of time."

"Now why do you need that?"

"What do you mean, 'why'? You say they stem logically. I don't believe that!"

"Ducky," said Alevtina. "You'll see all that. I'll show you all that. You'll read it all with your dear little short-sighted eyes. But realize, there was no directive day before yesterday and none yesterday if you don't count a petty little order about capturing a machine and that was by word of mouth... What do you think, how long can the Directorate exist without directives? Since yesterday morning it's all been a mix-up: some people are walking around everywhere changing burned-out bulbs, imagine? No, ducky, you do as you like, but the Directive has to be signed. I'm on your side, you know. You just sign it straight off, do the conference with the group leaders, tell them something encouraging, then I'll bring you everything you want. You can read, study, probe ... better if you don't probe though."

Pepper took hold of his cheeks and rocked his head. Alevtina briskly jumped down from the table, dipped a pen into Venus' skull and held the stem toward Pepper.

"Well write, sweetie, just a quick one..."

Pepper took the pen.

"But I'll be able to cancel the thing later?" he asked fretfully.

"Of course, ducky, of course," said Alevtina, and Pepper knew she lied. He hurled the pen away. "No," he said. "No, never. I won't sign that. Why the hell should I sign lunacy like that when there's probably dozens of sensible and useful orders, and instructions, absolutely essential, really necessary in this bedlam..."

"For example?" asked Alevtina briskly.

"Good lord... Well, anything you like ... hell's bells. Well, what about ..."

Alevtina got out her notepad.

"Well, let's say ... let's say an order," said Pepper with extraordinary bitterness, "to the members of the Eradication Group to self-eradicate as soon as ever possible. Yes, indeed! Let them all throw themselves off the cliff ... or shoot themselves ... make it today! In charge - Hausbotcher. Now that really is something more useful..."

"One moment," said Alevtina. "That is, commit suicide with the aid of firearms today before twenty-four hundred hours. In charge - Hausbotcher." She closed her notepad and considered. Pepper looked at her in astonishment. "So!" she said. "It's all right. It's even more progressive... Sweety, understand this: you don't like the directive - don't bother about it. But issue another. That's what you've done and I've no more to ask of you..."

She jumped down to the floor and busied herself arranging plates before Pepper.

"Here's the pancakes, here's the jam... Coffee in the thermos, it's hot - watch you don't burn yourself... Eat up and I'll do the draft quick as a flash and bring it in half an hour."

"Wait," said Pepper, stunned. "Wait..."

"Who's my clever one," said Alevtina tenderly. "You're great, only be a bit nicer to Hausbotcher."

"Wait," said Pepper. "What d'you think you're doing?"

Alevtina ran for the door, Pepper rushed after her shouting: "Are you crazy?" but failed to catch her. Alevtina vanished and in her place, like a ghost, Hausbotcher materialized out of emptiness. Now slicked and cleaned, now a normal color, as before ready for anything.

"A stroke of genius," he said softly, edging Pepper toward the table, "it's brilliant. It will surely go down in history..."

Pepper recoiled as if from a giant centipede, bumped into the table and pushed Tannhauser onto Venus.