Lighting the collapsed tunnel with the flashlight and not finding any secret trap doors, Melnik shrugged his shoulders and turned toward the lopsided door. He aimed the beam inside and glanced there, but didn’t cross the threshold.

‘Are there no changes on the second line either?’ he asked of Anton, turning towards the stove.

‘It was all like that both ten years ago and now,’ the latter replied.

They were silent for some time. With flashlights extinguished, the light once more came only from the loosely covered stove and from the tiny flame behind the sooty glass of the oil lamp, and the darkness around became dense. All the lookouts had bunched around the stove as close as was possible: the yellow beams blocked out the darkness and cold, and one could breathe more freely here. Artyom had endured as much as he could, but the need to hear at least some kind of a sound forced him to overcome his shyness: ‘I have never been to your station before,’ coughing, he told Anton, ‘I don’t understand, just why do you have duty here if there’s nothing there? You don’t even watch in that direction!’

‘That’s the order of things,’ Anton explained. ‘They say that is why there’s nothing here, since we are on duty.’

‘And what’s up there further, beyond the blockage?’

‘One has to think it’s the tunnel All the way to,’ he stopped for a second, turning back and looking at the impasse, ‘all the way to Park Pobedy.’

‘Does anyone live there?’

Anton gave no reply, only vaguely shaking his head. He was silent for a while, but then asked with interest:

‘Well, generally speaking, don’t you know anything about Park Pobedy?’ and, not even waiting for an answer from Artyom, continued, ‘Lord knows what is still there now, but previously it was a huge twin station, one of those that was built last of all. Those who are older and visited there back then… well… until… Anyhow, they say that it was made very luxuriously, and the station lay very deep, not like the other new construction. And the people there, one has to think, lived in clover. But not for long. Until the tunnel caved in.’

‘But how did it happen?’ Artyom asked.

‘They say,’ Anton glanced at the others, ‘that it collapsed by itself. They designed it poorly, or construction materials were stolen, or something else. But it’s already so long ago that no one remembers for certain.’

‘Well, I heard,’ one of the lookouts said, ‘that the local authorities blasted both lines to hell. Either they were in competition with Park Pobedy or something else… Maybe they were afraid that Park would subjugate them with time. But here at Kievskaya, you yourself know at that time who was in command… Who was trading fruit at the market earlier. The hot people, who are accustomed to dismantling things. A box of dynamite in this tunnel, a box in that, a bit further from their station, and it’s done. Like it’s bloodless and the problem is solved.’

‘But what happened with them later?’ Artyom was curious.

‘Well, we just don’t know, by then we had already arrived here…’ Anton was on the verge of beginning, but the talking lookout interrupted him:

‘And what could happen? Everyone died. You have to understand, when a station is cut off from the metro, you can’t survive there for long. The filters pack up, or the generators, or it begins to flood. And you can’t afford to be on the surface even now. I heard, at first they supposedly tried to dig, but later they gave up. Those who served here in the beginning say they heard screams through the pipes… But soon even that stopped.’

He gave a cough and stretched out his hands toward the stove. Having warmed his hands, the lookout looked at Artyom and added, ‘It wasn’t even the war. Just who fights like that? They had women with them, you know, and there were children. Old folks… A whole city. And for what? Simple, they didn’t divide up any money. It seems they didn’t kill anyone themselves, but oh well. So you were asking, “What’s there, on that side of the blockage?” Death is there.’

Anton shook his head, but didn’t say anything. Melnik looked at Artyom with attention, and nearly opened his mouth, as if intending to add something to the story he had heard, but had second thoughts. Artyom had got really cold, and he also stretched toward the stove. He tried to imagine what it meant to live at this station, the inhabitants of which believe that the rails leaving their home lead directly to a kingdom of death.

Artyom gradually began to understand that the strange duty in this broken-up tunnel was not so much necessary, but more of a ritual. Who were they trying to scare away while sitting here? Who were they able to stop coming to the station, and into the rest of the metro? It became even colder, and neither the cast-iron stove nor the warm jacket given him by Melnik spared him any longer from the chill.

Unexpectedly the stalker turned towards the tunnel leading to Kievskaya and got up from his seat, listening and watching. Even Artyom understood the reason for his concern in several seconds. Quick, soft steps were heard from there, and in the distance the glow of a weak flashlight was being thrown about, as if someone was hurrying, jumping over the ties, hurrying with all his might to get to them.

The stalker jumped from his seat, pressed against the wall and aimed his submachine gun at the spot of light.

Anton calmly stood up, peering into the darkness, and by his easy posture it was clear that he couldn’t imagine any serious danger which would come from that side of the tunnel.

Melnik clicked the switch of his flashlight, and the dark crawled away unwillingly. At about thirty feet from them, in the middle of the track bed, a fragile little figure stood still with his arms lifted.

‘Pop, Pop, it’s me, don’t shoot!’ The voice was a child’s.

The stalker brought his beam to bear in that direction and, shaking himself, lifted himself from the ground. The child was standing by the stove in only a minute, examining his boots with embarrassment. It was Anton’s son, the one who had asked to go on duty with him.

‘Has something happened?’ his father asked worriedly.

‘No… I just wanted to be with you very much. I’m no longer a little boy to be sitting in the tent with Mom.’

‘How did you get here? There’s a guard there!’

‘I lied. I said that Mom sent me to see you. It was Uncle Petya, he knows me. He only said that I mustn’t look into any of the side paths and get here quickly, and he allowed me to pass.’

‘We’ll be talking to Uncle Petya again,’ Anton promised solemnly. ‘And you think for a while how you will explain this to your mother. I won’t let you go back alone.’

‘Can I stay with you?’ The child wasn’t able to contain his delight and began to hop about.

Anton moved to the side, sitting his son on the warm bags. He took off his jacket and was on the verge of wrapping him up, but the child immediately scrambled down to the floor and, taking the stuff brought with him from his pocket, spread it out on a cloth: a handful of cartridge casings and several more objects. He sat beside Artyom, and the latter had time to study all these things.

A small metal box with a handle that turned was the most interesting. When Oleg held it in one hand and turned the handle with the fingers of the other, the little box, emitting ringing metallic sounds, began to play a simple mechanical melody. And it was amusing that it was worth leaning it against another object, because that one began to resonate, amplifying the sound by many times. It came from the iron stove best of all, but it wasn’t possible to leave the device there long, because it got hot too quickly. It had become so interesting to Artyom that he decided to try it himself.

‘What on earth!’ the boy said, giving him the hot box and blowing on his burnt fingers. ‘I’ll show you such a trick later!’ he promised conspiratorially.