Artyom even forgot to smoke. The roll-up went out.
“Your tobacco’s shit,” he told Dietmar.
“Ah, but when the Reich is victorious throughout the Metro, everyone will have excellent tobacco!” Dietmar promised him.” All right. Let’s go to see Homer Ivanich.”
He winked at the sentry. A bolt one meter long with a massively heavy lock on it moved aside, and they were let into Schiller Station.
* * *
Artyom remembered the station as Pushkin: as white and marble-faced as Chekhov next door, even though it was besmirched with hatred for non-Russians. At Pushkin they had showed him to the crowd and explained why he had been condemned to the scaffold: for killing a fascist officer. Artyom had killed the officer quite simply—pointed his automatic at him and squeezed the trigger; it was a spasm of his finger. The spasm cramped his finger when the officer put a bullet through the head of a young boy with Down syndrome. Forgivable. Artyom was young and impressionable. Now he would probably put up with it and turn away. Turn away? He would try to turn away. That tickling in his throat from the noose was far too strong.
But now they weren’t at Pushkin; this was Schiller.
They were nowhere.
The entire station had been taken apart and stripped. Not a single slab of marble was left; it had all been torn off and carried away. There was naked, scraped concrete; there were mounds of earth and rivers of mud, antiquated wooden props; instead of air, there was a fine spray of mist mixed with cement dust—and that made the air concrete too. Searchlights lashed through the vapors, and their beams were visible from beginning to end, like immense clubs.
These clubs drubbed at the backs and faces of hideous, naked people—some concealed their privates with a piece of rag, others didn’t bother; they were all stamped with black, all dripping blood. The ones who were men were overgrown with stubble right up to their eyes. The ones who were women seemed to have no eyes behind their tangled hair. But they were all normal, with two arms and two legs. And only the youngsters were warped and distorted. Twisted spines, fingers fused together, flattened heads; some one-eyed cyclopes, and some with two heads, and some thick-furred like animals. Freaks.
No one was wearing any clothes. There were the naked, and the ones in uniforms.
The automatic riflemen wore respirators: This was bad for the health otherwise. The respirators looked like muzzles, as if without them the guards might fling themselves on the naked prisoners and gnaw on them with their teeth. But the muzzles meant they had to deal with them differently: with chains and whips of barbed wire. And they filled the air with the roaring that Artyom had heard from behind the wall, from the teacher’s toilet.
But the most terrifying thing about the station was that there was no end to it. In all directions, these naked beast-humans were scrabbling dirt out of it—with pickaxes, spades, hammers, and fingernails—desperately scrabbling at the earth and the stone, gnawing out emptiness to the left and the right, upwards and downwards. Schiller Station was already the most cavernous station that Artyom had ever been in; and it was expanding with every minute.
“You use them as slaves?” Artyom asked.
“Why not? More humane than simply liquidating them, isn’t it? Let them do something useful! We’re expanding our living space. Such a huge flood of volunteers from all over the Metro, and nowhere to accommodate them,” Dietmar explained to him, straining to shout over the roaring of the freaks. When the reconstruction work is finished, there’ll be a garden city here! The largest station in the entire Metro! The capital of the Reich! A cinema, a sports hall, a library, and a hospital!”
“So is this where your Führer got his idea about the freaks? So he could have slavery? Not even a quarter of these are freaks!”
“But it’s not up to you, stalker, to decide who’s a freak and who isn’t! The Führer is a genius. It’s stupid to persecute people because they’re Armenians! Or Jews! That has zero effect. If a man was born a Jew, there’s nothing that can be done about it. With some, it’s even written on their faces. Jew. Chechen. Kazakh. And that’s it! He’s your target, he’s your enemy, and he’ll never be loyal to you. But if someone is Russian, does he have immunity now? Is he a chosen one, simply by the fact of birth? Is he free to do whatever he likes? Maybe he has nothing at all to be afraid of now? That doesn’t make sense. But genetic deformity, now? Now that’s a horse of an entirely different color. And mutations! Deformity’s a tricky business. You’re born healthy, and then a tumor starts developing! Or goiter! Or other abnormalities! And perhaps they can’t be seen with the naked eye at all. Only a doctor can say for certain! And so every bastard has to tremble in fear and shit himself when he goes to the doctor for a checkup. And the doctor has to tremble in fear too. And decide in consultation with us, the concilium, who is a freak and who isn’t. And no one can be certain of anything. Ever. And right through his entire life—you understand that?—he has to justify his existence. And vindicate ours. That’s really beautiful! Eh? Incredibly beautiful!”
He set his hand on Artyom’s shoulder. The mole on the bridge of his nose became a third eye, granted to him, as a demon, to allow him to see more clearly into the rotten, soft innards of human beings.
“Where is he? Where’s Homer?” Artyom shouted at him.
“Give me the envelope!”
“We had an agreement!”
A sudden shower of sparks—Artyom’s teeth crunched, and the cave heeled over to one side: Dietmar had swung and smashed the butt of his pistol into Artyom’s face, right against the cheekbone. Then he adjusted his grip on the gun and pressed the barrel against Artyom’s forehead: a lethal pistol, a Stechkin.
“Do you want me to take it off your body?”
Artyom took a step back, wondering how he could manage to destroy the dispatch, but there were guards waiting behind him. They twisted his arms and threw him down, bending him over with his face to the dirt, and tore the envelope out of his hands. They handed it carefully to Dietmar, who twisted it in his fingers, tried to fold it, and looked at it against the powerful beam of a searchlight.
“Photographs, I think,” he said, squatting down beside Artyom.” That’s curious. Photographs that stopped a war. That’s beautiful, eh?”
He put it in his inside pocket.
“They must be damned good photographs. And the Führer must really like them, if no one else is supposed to see them. Right? Who could resist the temptation to take just a little peep at something like that? You, for instance—aren’t you interested?”
“Where’s Homer?”
“He’s here somewhere. Look for him. I don’t have any time for that. I have to get to Teatralnaya. Humanitarian aid, identifying agents … You stay here for a while. Get used to the place … Do a bit of work.”
“They won’t abandon me! Letyaga! And the Order! They’re waiting for me. You’re all done for here! Do you hear me, you scumbag? You lousy bastard? Do you hear me, you dirtbag?”
Artyom tried to jump up, but the guards were well-fed and experienced, and they were holding him tight, so he stayed down on all fours with his face in the dirt.
Before he got up from his squatting position, Dietmar stroked Artyom on the head.
“They’re waiting. Yes, they’re definitely waiting, aren’t they? And now I’ll go and tell them whose little man you are.”
And he gave Artyom an affectionate slap on the backside.
CHAPTER 13
— LIVING SPACE —
He thought the day would come after he had worked through the night; but here there was neither night nor day, and there was only one shift: from the beginning to the end. They gave them water from a hose, counting the swallows; saving water wasn’t allowed. There weren’t any privies. All the tunnels apart from one were completely blocked off with barbed wire, intertwined like cobwebs. It was impossible to run; there was nowhere even to crawl. The beast-people crapped where they stood, without interrupting their work: men in front of women and wom
en in front of men; new arrivals learned to do this during their first day. They were taught with barbed wire whips. They were killed without compassion, as a matter of course: the ones who didn’t want to work, the ones who were dying anyway and couldn’t work, and the ones who tried to be cunning and pretended to be dead already. Workers weren’t spared—new ones were brought twice a day, they had to eat too, and the amount of food wasn’t increased.
Every time the iron door opened and the dumbfounded new arrivals were dragged and shoved into the boundless cave of Schiller Station, Artyom’s guts twisted: Now Dietmar would come in. Artyom’s deception would be discovered at any moment: The Reds would send soldiers to Teatralnaya from Okhotny Ryad through the demolished hermetic gates and the upper vestibule. The blitzkrieg would turn into a war of position, and Dietmar would come back to hang Artyom for treachery.
When would he come? Soon?
They felt Artyom’s body, determined that he still had a lot of strength in him, and gave him a barrow to push. He had to collect from the bearded scrabblers everything that they had scraped and broken off, fling it into the barrow, and transport it into an open tunnel, which led to Kuznetsky Most. A flooring of planks had been laid over the sleepers. He could run something like three hundred meters along it and then dump the earth and stone on a heap that already rose right up to the ceiling.
Artyom had a good job—he realized that immediately. They didn’t hobble his feet, and he wasn’t made to stand till in one spot, he had to walk round the others, looking to see who had accumulated the most soil and rock. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to run. But on the other hand, he did manage to find Homer.
The old man had only spent half a day here, and he was still clothed; but he had already understood what he was allowed to do and what he wasn’t. He couldn’t slack off or shirk. He couldn’t look into anyone’s eyes, no matter who he was talking to. But if you spoke to someone without looking at them, that was forgiven: In this factory of bodies and earth it was impossible to hear anything more than one step away in any case.
Homer might be old, but he was bearing up. He wasn’t groaning and he wasn’t weeping. He struck intently at the ground, not quickly and not slowly, but in no hurry to exhaust his strength. He was soaking wet and smeared with earth, his shoulders were ripped open and stained reddish-brown, and his lips were bitten.
“I came to get you, NikolaI Ivanovich,” Artyom said, looking past Homer.” And now we’ll probably both end up staying here.”
“Thanks. You shouldn’t. Have bothered,” Homer gasped back in time with his blows.” That. Two-faced. Bastard. Scumbag. Won’t let. Anyone. Out.”
“We’ll get out of here somehow,” Artyom promised him.
Their conversation proceeded scrappily: Artyom couldn’t keep going back to the same corner too often; the overseers spotted that sort of thing and lashed people with their whips for it. The whips were springy steel wire, with barbs protruding from them in all directions. Some bit into the flesh when they struck, others when they were tugged away.
“How. About you. Were you. At Teatralnaya.”
“I was.”
“Did you. See Umbach.”
“The Reds arrested him. Someone ratted. Because he. Listened to the radio. They took him and shot him. In front of me. I didn’t. Get a chance. To talk.”
“A pity. Really. A good. Man.”
He collected Homer’s lumps of stone. Then he took a mound of earth from a hunchback at the other end of the station. Then he helped a woman with flabby breasts get up before the overseer could spot her through the stone mist. Then he went back to Homer.
“Umbach wasn’t alone. Others had been in touch. People came to Moscow from a different city, from Polar Dawns, probably.”
“People. Right. People. You say. Where are they? I didn’t meet any.”
“The Reds find everyone and waste them. Shoot them, send them to the Lubyanka, to the KGB. The ones who come, the ones who see them and the ones who hear about them.”
“Maybe. They’re afraid. They’ll help Hansa. Against. Them.”
Artyom took a new load of stones from Homer. Then he ran over to a young guy who was slow, lopsided, and short of fingers, to collect up his scrapings. And then to a skinny Caucasian type, who had flung together an entire mountain in his vicious determination not to croak. Through the haze Artyom thought he saw something familiar, but he didn’t have any reason to go closer.
“So do you believe me? I told Miller, Miller doesn’t believe it. He says it’s crazy nonsense.”
“I heard. Umbach myself. I believe him. I don’t understand it. But I believe him.”
“Thanks, granddad, Thank you.”
“Or. It’s spies. Someone’s. Agents. Eh.”
“I don’t know.”
He cleaned everything up and ran on. Someone waved to him: Come and take my load. An unexpected joy: It was Lyokha the broker. Exhausted and flogged, but smiling.
“So you’ve joined us too!”
“You, alive?” And Artyom smiled at him sincerely, feeling a little better.
“I’m too valuable an employee to be made redundant,” the broker croaked
“So it didn’t work out with the Legion?”
“No, it didn’t!” Glancing round stealthily, Lyokha helped Artyom tip earth into the trolley.” Probably just not my thing. No getting away from your true calling.” He nodded at the dried-up heaps.
An overseer darted over and lashed Artyom and Lyokha for talking.
Artyom pulled his head down into this shoulders to protect it. He ran into the tunnel, tipped out the barrow, came back and looked round: A guard called him over to the woman that Artyom had lifted up of the floor so that she would live a little bit longer. But she had only held up for a little while and then fallen again. They shone a torch in her eyes, but she still saw nothing but darkness. One guard moved Artyom aside with his automatic rifle; another took a firm grip on a steel reinforcement bar, took aim, and split the woman’s head open, smashing it like an egg. Artyom forgot about the automatic and darted forward, taking the reinforcing bar across his shoulder, the gun butt to his chin, and the kicks from boots when he fell. A damp, iron gun barrel was stuck in his mouth, and its foresight scraped his palate.
“Want to try that again, bastard? Do you? Get up!”
They stood him on his feet and dumped that woman in his barrow.” Take her.”
“Where to?”
They smacked him round the back of his head and sent her off on her final journey. The dead went to the same place as the rocks and soil. The woman was uncomfortable in the barrow: Her legs dangled out, and her broken head lolled to one side. Just hang on for a moment.
The first time round they had showed him what to do with cases like this. The dead had to be taken along the planking floor to the mountain of earth blocking off the tunnel to Kuznetsky Most. And then dumped on a mound there, along with the rocks and stones. The mound sometimes slipped down, clothing the naked bodies, filling their mouths and ears with clay and sand. This was their funeral.
After that Artyom didn’t try to approach Homer or Lyokha: The overseers had spotted him. Instead of Homer there were various others who were still strong and some who were already exhausted: Kirgizes and Russians, Russians and Azerbaijanis, Azerbaijanis and Tajiks. They all gave Artyom their stones, and they all took his strength. Soon the minute that he took to load the barrow was no longer enough for his legs to rest, and the minute when he ran with the barrow was no longer enough for his arms to recover. He kept looking round when the door creaked: Was it Dietmar? had he come for Artyom?
He stuck it out until he started to fall. Then he went back to his old man. Homer was waiting for him, completely exhausted too.
“Why. The Reds. Why doesn’t. Anyone know. But them.”
“Maybe they don’t let anyone find out? Do you think they’re in contact with Dawns? And they’re keeping it secret?”
“They’re lying. To Dawns. Holding. Ta
lks. Eh?”
“Talks about what?”
“God only. Knows what. The Reds. Want.”
“They’ve got famine … The mushrooms are rotting. Maybe they want food supplies. Eh? If so, the earth there … is fertile!”
“Sure. Pull the other one.”
An overseer walked past and whistled: You and you and you and you, eat quickly, it’s your turn. They brought a trough of swill and told them to scoop it up with their hands. Artyom couldn’t even bear the smell of it, although the others champed and slurped for as long as they could.
But at least Homer was fed on this shift, so they had ten minutes without a pick and a barrow.
“I’ve been up on top. So far I’ve walked along Tverskaya Street to Teatralnaya. And up there … someone’s hunting everyone who walks along Tverskaya Street. With a genuine armored car and a motorbike. They killed four of their stalkers. And they were going to finish me … For some reason they didn’t touch me. But they found me quickly.”
Homer shrugged. Then he folded his fingers into a cup, scooped up some gruel, sniffed it, and thought.
“And then I walked back … And there was no one there. I got to Polis. Without a suit, not dressed. And you know what? I got caught in the rain.”
“In the rain?” the old man asked, looking up.
“In the rain,” Artyom chuckled.
On all sides people jostled and pushed their way through to the trough like swine. Artyom didn’t see it. Instead he saw tall, slim people in wide-brimmed hats; he saw rain falling from a cloudless sky and those slow flying machines again.
“What an idiot,” he said to himself.” Just imagine it! Walking along in the rain and imagining something like that … Like an airship, or something. Only with transparent wings. Like flies have, only big ones. Like dragonflies. And all in such bright … Festive colors. And the rain as well. I dreamed it.” He lowered his voice in embarrassment: the beast-people were eating; he mustn’t distract them with nonsense like this.
But the beast-people couldn’t give a shit for Artyom’s dreams; their trough was getting shallower, and they still had to live here for some time yet, and without the slops, there was absolutely no way they could possibly do that.
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