Melnik moved one of them toward Artyom with his boot and said:

‘Here. Shoes, a suit, a backpack and weapons. Change your shoes and get ready. You don’t have to put on any armour, we don’t intend to go to the surface, just bring it along. We leave in half an hour.’

‘Where are we going?’ Artyom asked, half awake, eyes fluttering and trying to restrain a yawn.

‘Kievskaya. If you are OK, then along the Ring to Byelorusskaya and to Mayakovskaya. And there we’ll see. Get ready.’

The stalker took a seat on a stool standing in the corner and, pulling a scrap of newspaper from his pocket, began to roll himself a cigarette, looking at Artyom from time to time. Under this watchful eye Artyom was nervous and fumbled everything.

However, after about twenty minutes, he was ready. Not saying a word, Melnik rose from the stool, grabbed his bag and walked to the platform. Artyom looked round the room and followed him.

They passed through an arch and exited toward the paths. Climbing along the wooden staircase added to the path, Melnik nodded to the sentry and began to walk towards the tunnel. Only now did Artyom notice how strangely the entrances to the lines were arranged. On the side of the platform that led to Kievskaya, half the path was blocked by a concrete weapon emplacement with narrow gun slots. A metal grate obstructed the passage as well. And there were two sentries on duty. Melnik gabbed with them in short, unintelligible phrases, after which one of the guards opened the hinged lock and pushed the grate.

Along one side of the tunnel stretched spooled black insulation wire, from which weak lamps hung every ten or fifteen metres. But even such poor lighting seemed a real luxury to Artyom. However, after three hundred steps, the wire had become detached, and in this place one more sentry awaited them. There were no uniforms on the patrol members, but they looked much more serious than the military at Polis. Knowing Melnik by sight, one of them nodded at him, letting him pass ahead. Stopping at the edge of the lighted space, the stalker took a flashlight from his bag and switched it on.

After another several hundred metres voices were heard ahead and the glows of flashlights appeared. Melnik’s submachine gun slid down from his shoulder and ended up in his hands in an imperceptible movement. Artyom followed his example.

Most likely it was another, long-range patrol from Smolenskaya. Two strong, armed men in warm jackets with fake fur collars were arguing with three peddlers. The patrol had round knitted caps on their heads, and on the chest of each hung night-vision instruments on leather straps. The two peddlers had weapons with them, but Artyom was ready to bet anything that they were just traders. Huge bales of rags, a map of the tunnels in their hands, the special roguish look, the animatedly shining eyes in the beams of the flashlights, he had seen all of this repeatedly. They let peddlers into all the stations usually without any problems. But, it seemed, no one expected them at Smolenskaya.

‘Well it’s OK, pal, we are going by,’ one of the traders was trying to convince a patrol member, a lanky moustached man in a quilted jacket that fit too tightly.

‘We have our belongings here, take a look for yourself, we will be trading at Polis,’ echoed the other peddler, a chunky guy with hair down his eyes.

‘What harm is there from us for you? There’s only good; here, take a look, jeans just like new, your size for certain, brand name, I’ll give them to you for free.’ The third had taken the initiative.

The sentry shook his head in silence, blocking their passage. He answered next to nothing, but as soon as one of the peddlers, taking his silence for agreement, tried to step ahead, both sentries nearly simultaneously clacked the bolts of their submachine guns. Melnik and Artyom stood five paces behind them, and though the stalker lowered his weapon, the tension was felt in his attitude.

‘Stop! I am giving you five seconds to turn around and leave. It’s a secure station, they don’t allow anyone here. Five… four…’ One of the sentries began to count.

‘Well, how are we supposed to get there, through the Ring again?’ One of the peddlers was about to get perturbed, but another, shaking his head resignedly, tugged him by the sleeve and the traders picked up their bales from the ground and dragged themselves back.

Waiting for a minute, the stalker gave Artyom a sign, and they began to walk to Kievskaya right behind the peddlers. When they were passing the sentries, one of them silently nodded to Melnik and put two fingers to his head, as if giving a salute.

‘A security station?’ Artyom was curious, when they themselves had passed the cordon. ‘What’s that mean?’

‘Go back and ask,’ the latter snapped, stopping Artyom from asking any more questions.

Although Artyom and Melnik were trying to hold a bit further back from the peddlers walking ahead, the sound of their voices came ever closer, and then suddenly stopped short. But they hadn’t passed even twenty paces, when the beam of a light struck them in the face.

‘Hey! Who’s there? What do you need?’ someone cried nervously, and Artyom recognized the voice of one of the traders.

‘Calm down. Let us pass, we won’t bother you. We’re going to Kievskaya,’ the stalker answered quietly, but clearly.

‘Pass, we’ll let you go ahead. No use breathing down our necks,’ they declared from the darkness after conferring briefly.

Melnik shrugged his shoulders with displeasure and leisurely moved ahead. After about thirty metres that very same trio of peddlers was waiting for them. Upon Artyom and Melnik’s approach, the traders politely lowered their wares to the floor, parted and allowed them to pass. The stalker, as if nothing had happened, began walking further on, but Artyom noted that his pace had changed. Now he walked silently, as if hoping to muffle the sounds. Although the peddlers immediately followed them, Melnik didn’t look at them once. Artyom himself had been trying to overcome the desire to turn round for a rather long time, about three minutes, but then he looked back anyhow. ‘Hey!’ a tense voice was heard from behind. ‘Wait up there!’ The stalker stopped. Artyom began to feel perplexed. Why was Melnik so obediently responding to some petty traders?

‘Are they so bitter because of Kievskaya or because they are protecting Polis?’ one of the peddlers asked on catching up with them.

‘Naturally because of Kievskaya,’ Melnik replied, and Artyom felt a pang of jealousy: the stalker hadn’t wanted to tell him anything.

‘Yeah, I can understand that. It’s getting scary at Kievskaya now. Well, it’s all right. Soon these neatniks from your guard will have to be hot. Everyone will be running to you from Kievskaya. Do you understand just who will remain living at the station? It’d be better to be shot,’ the lanky peddler mumbled.

‘Have you rushed the guns yourself?’ the other spitefully harrumphed. ‘Pshaw! Don’t pretend you’re a hero!’

‘Well, you haven’t been too hot yourself, either,’ the lanky one responded.

‘And just what’s going on?’ Artyom couldn’t contain himself.

The two peddlers immediately looked at him as if he had asked a question so stupid that even a child knows the answer. The stalker kept quiet. And the peddlers grew silent and they walked for some time in complete silence. Whether because of this or, perhaps, because the prolonged silence was growing spooky, Artyom suddenly no longer wanted to hear any explanation. And when he had decided he was about to give up on them, the lanky one finally and reluctantly pronounced:

‘The tunnels to Park Pobedy are there, right ahead…’

Hearing the name of the station, his two fellow travellers pressed closer to each other and Artyom imagined for a second there was the rush of dank tunnel air and the tunnel walls were collapsing. Even Melnik shrugged, as if trying to warm himself. Artyom had never heard anything bad about Park Pobedy and was not able to recall one tale associated with this station. So just why, suddenly, had he become so uneasy at the sound of its name?