When Mirov brought the butt of the gun down, cracking the egg wide open and sending tiny pearls rolling like spilled barley, a shock seemed to ripple along the street and upward to the very stars, which trembled above the city.

Although Mirov probed and pried, in no way could he discover or peel loose any stiffly varnished paper transfers.

When the two sprightly oldsters looked around again, Peterkin had slipped away without a word. The two men scrambled up. Night, and strange streets, had swallowed their escort utterly. Despite Valentin's protests-which even led the men to tussle briefly-Mirov ground the shards of egg to dust under his heel, as if thereby he might obliterate any connexion with himself.

Eventually, lost, they walked into a birch wood where mushrooms swelled through the humus in the moonlight. An owl hooted. Weasels chased mice. Was this woodland merely a park within the city? It hardly seemed so; yet by then the answer scarcely mattered, since they were having great difficulty remembering who they were, let alone where they were. Already they'd been obliged a number of times to roll up their floppy trouser legs and cinch their belts tighter. Their sleeves dangled loosely, their shoes were clumsy boats, while their overcoats dragged as long cloaks upon the ground.

"Kashka? Kishka? Was that her name? What was her name?" Valentin asked his friend.

"I think her name was Grusha… no, Masha."

"Wasn't."

"Was."

Briefly they quarrelled, till they forgot who they were talking about.

Through the trees, they spied the lights of a village which strongly suggested home. Descending a birch-clad slope awkwardly in their oversized garments-two lads dressed as men for a lark-they arrived at a yellow window and peered through.

Beautiful Tanya and Aunt Anastasia were singing to two huge eggs resting on a rug. Eggs the size of the fattest plucked turkeys, decorated with strange ochre zig-zags.

Even as Valentin and Mirov watched, the ends of the eggs opened on brass hinges. From each a bare arm emerged, followed by a head and a bare shoulder. The two women each grasped a groping hand and hauled. From out of each egg slowly squeezed the naked body of a man well past his prime, one with a beet-red face, though his trunk was white as snow.

"How did they fit inside those?" Mirov asked Valentin.

"Dunno. Came out, didn't they? Maybe there's more space than shows on the outside…"

The two newly-hatched men-who were no spring chickens-were now huddling together on a rug by the stove, modestly covering their loins with their hands. Their faces looked teasingly familiar, as if the men might be a pair of… long-lost uncles, come home at last from Siberia.

By now the two boys felt cold and hungry, so they knocked on the cottage door. Aunt Anastasia opened it.

"Ah, here come the clothes now!" Anastasia pulled them both inside into the warmth and surveyed them critically. "Oh, what a mess you've made of those suits. Creases, and mud. Never mind. They'll sponge, and iron. Off with them now, you two, off with them. They're needed. Tanya, fetch a couple of blankets for the boys. We mustn't make them blush, with a chill or with shame."

"Do we have to sleep inside those eggs?" asked Mirov, almost stammering.

"Of course not, silly goose! You'll sleep over the stove in a blanket. Those two other fellows will be gone by the morning; then you'll have a better idea who you both are."

"Koshka!" exclaimed Valentin. "I remember. That was her name."

"Now, now," his aunt said, "you needn't be thinking about girls for a year or two yet. Anyway, there's Natasha in the village, and Maria. I've kept my eye on them for you two. How about some thick bacon broth with a sprinkle of something special in it to help you have nice dreams?"

"Please!" piped Valentin.

When he and his brother woke in the morning a lovely aroma greeted them-of butter melting on two bowls of cooked buckwheat groats. The boys only wondered for the briefest while where they had been the evening before.

Tanya and Anastasia had already breakfasted, and were busy sawing ducks' eggs.

Ian Watson

Born in England in 1943, Ian Watson graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1963 with a first class Honours degree in English Literature, followed in 1965 by a research degree in English and French 19th Century literature. After lecturing in literature at universities in Tanzania and Tokyo, and in Futures Studies (including Science Fiction) in Birmingham, England, he became a full-time writer in 1976 following the success of his first novel, The Embedding (1973) which won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and in France the Prix Apollo, and The Jonah Kit (1975) which won the British Science Fiction Association Award and the Orbit Award.

Numerous novels of SF, Fantasy, and Horror followed, and 9 story collections. His stories have been finalists for the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and widely anthologised. From 1990 to 1991 he worked full-time with Stanley Kubrick on story development for the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence, directed after Kubrick's death by Steven Spielberg, for which Ian has screen credit for Screen Story. He lives with a black cat called Poppy in a small rural village 60 miles north of London.

Previously Ian wrote a number of poems – such as whenever one of his characters was a poet and needed to demonstrate this! – but in the past few years he has become much more prolific, poems sprouting like mushrooms although lasting a bit longer, one hopes. DNA Publications (www.dnapublications.com) released his first book of poetry, The Lexicographer's Love Song, in 2001. This includes his poem "True Love" which won the 2002 Rhysling Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

His recent story collection, The Great Escape (Golden Gryphon Press, 2002; www.goldengryphon.com) was chosen by The Washington Post as one of the 8 best sf fantasy books of the year. Golden Gryphon Press released his latest novel, Mockymen, in Autumn 2003.

In 2001 Ian was a guest of the Semana Negra at Gijón in Spain, of the Aachen Poetenfest in Germany, of Science+Fiction, Festival Internazionale della Fantascienza in Trieste, and was Guest of Honour at the Polish National SF Convention in Katowice.

In 2003 Ian was a guest of the Science Fiction Foundation and the British SF Association at The Goldfish Factor in London. He appeared as himself and also as the "Ghost of Honour" of H.G.Wells during the Second International Week of Science Science Fiction in Timisoara, Romania; was a guest at Hungarocon in Salgótarján, Hungary; visited the Madrid Book Fair to launch the Spanish edition of his novel The Fire Worm; was a guest at the Terni Film Festival in Italy; and he revisited Hungary as guest at ÁtjáróCon in Budapest.