The important rat owners approached the starting position, carrying their well-groomed pets in little cages. The chief of Paveletskaya-Ring was nowhere to be seen, and Mark also seemed to have disappeared from the face of the Earth. Artyom was even afraid that he was on patrol again today and wouldn’t come. What in the world would he do then?

Finally, a small procession appeared at the other end of the passageway. Walking with an escort of two morose bodyguards, an old man with a shaved head, lush, well-groomed moustaches, glasses, and an austere black suit, bore his corpulent body along with no hurry, with dignity. One of the security guards held a cushioned red velvet box with a latticed wall, in which something grey was thrashing about. That, most likely, was the famous Pirate.

The bodyguard carried the box with the rat to the starting line, and the moustached old man walked over to the referee sitting behind a little desk, chucked his aide off a chair, sat down heavily in the empty space, and started up a leisurely conversation. The second security man stood nearby, his back to the wall, legs spread wide, and with his hands on the short black automatic hanging around his chest. Such an imposing fellow was not the sort of person with whom to discuss a wager; even to get close to him was frightening.

Then Artyom saw the sloppily dressed Mark, scratching his long-unwashed head, approaching these venerable people and beginning to explain something to the referee. From that distance, all he could hear was the intonation, but he could certainly see that the moustached old man at first flushed with indignation, then grimaced arrogantly, finally nodded with displeasure, took off his glasses, and started to clean them.

Artyom made his way through the crowd to the starting position, where Mark was standing. ‘Everything is hush-hush!’ Mark announced, rubbing his hands with glee.

Asked exactly what he had in mind, Mark explained that he had just thrust a personal bet upon the old chief, that his own new rat would outrun the favourite on the first round. He had to put Artyom up for it, Mark reported, but in exchange, he demanded a visa for all of Hansa for Artyom and himself. The chief, to be sure, rejected the proposal, saying that he doesn’t engage in the slave trade (Artyom breathed a sigh of relief), but adding that such presumptuous insolence would have to be punished. If their rat lost, Mark and Artyom would have to clean the latrines at Paveletskaya-Ring for one year. If the rat won, then, OK, they would get the visa. Of course he was positive that the second option was out of the question, which is why he agreed. He decided to punish the cocky upstarts who had dared to throw down a challenge to his pet.

‘And do you have your rat?’ Artyom asked cautiously.

‘Of course!’ Mark reassured him. ‘A real brute! She’ll tear Pirate to shreds! Do you know how she ran away from me today? I could barely catch her! I chased her nearly to Novokuznetskaya.’

‘And what’s her name?’

‘Her name?’

‘Sure, what’s her name?’

‘Well, let’s say, Rocket,’ Mark proposed.

‘Rocket – does that sound menacing?’

Artyom was not sure that the competition was really intended to see whose rat would tear a rival to pieces, but he kept his mouth shut. When Mark explained that he had only caught his rat today, Artyom couldn’t stand it.

‘And so how do you know she’s going to win?’

‘I believe in her, Artyom!’ Mark proclaimed solemnly. ‘And anyhow, you see, I’ve really wanted to have my own rat for a long time. I used to bet on other people’s rats; they would lose, and I would think to myself: never mind, the day will come when I will have my own, and she’ll bring me luck. But I never decided to do it – after all, it’s not that simple. You have to get permission from the referee, and that’s such a drag… My whole life will go by, some newcomer will gobble me up, or I’ll die all on my own, and I’ll never have my own rat… And then you turned up, and I thought: here we go! It’s now or never. If you don’t take a risk now, I said to myself, then you’ll always be betting on someone else’s rat. And I decided: if I’m going to play, then let me play for high stakes. Of course, I want to help you, but excuse me for saying that that’s not the main thing. And so I wanted to go right up to that old fart,’ – Mark lowered his voice, – ‘and say: I’ll wager myself against your Pirate! He got so enraged that he forced the referee to certify my rat out of turn. And you know,’ he added, barely audible, ‘this moment will be followed by a year of cleaning the latrines.’

‘Because our rat will surely lose!’ Artyom desperately tried to reason with him for the last time.

Mark looked at him attentively, then smiled and said:

‘But what if…?’

Having sternly looked over the audience, the referee smoothed his greying hair, cleared his throat with self-importance, and began to read off the nicknames of the rats taking part in the race. Rocket was last, but Mark didn’t pay any attention to that. Pirate got more applause than any others, and only Artyom clapped for Rocket, because Mark’s hands were occupied, holding the cage. Artyom was still hoping for a miracle that would spare him from an ignominious end in a stinking abyss.

Then the referee fired a blank from his Makarov, and the owners opened the cages. Rocket was the first to break out, and Artyom’s heart leapt with joy; but then, while the other rats charged off along the length of the passageway, some slower, some faster, Rocket, not living up to her proud name, got stuck in a corner five metres from the starting line, and there she stayed. It was against the rules to prod the rats. Artyom glanced at Mark apprehensively, expecting that he would either start getting violent, or on the contrary, would languish, overwhelmed with grief. But the stern, proud expression on Mark’s face reminded him more of that of the captain of the cruiser who gave the order to sink a warship to prevent the enemy from capturing it, a story about some war between the Russians and somebody else that he’d in a beat-up book lying in the library at the VDNKh.

After a couple of minutes, the first rats reached the finish line. Pirate won, second place was some creature with an unintelligible name, Pushka came in third. Artyom cast a glance at the referee table. The old guy with the moustache, wiping the sweat of excitement from his bald pate with the same cloth he had used earlier to clean his glasses, was discussing the results with the referee. Artyom was already expecting that they would forget about them, when the old man suddenly slapped himself on the forehead and, smiling sweetly, beckoned to Mark.

Artyom felt almost like he did at the moment when they took him off for execution, although the sensation was not as strong. Making his way behind Mark to the referee’s table, he comforted himself with the fact that, one way or another, the coast was now clear for him to cross Hansa territory; the only trick was to find a way to escape.

But disgrace awaited him.

Shrewdly inviting them to come up to the dais, Moustache turned to the audience and briefly explained the wager, then loudly proclaimed that both rascals were being sent, as agreed, to clean out the sanitary facilities for one year, starting today. Two Hansa border guards appeared from God knows where, took away Artyom’s automatic weapon, assuring him that his main opponent in the coming year would not be dangerous, and promising to return the weapon at the end of the sentence. Then, suffering the whistling and hooting of the crowd, they were led off to the Ring.

The passage went under the floor at the centre of the hall, just as at the other station of the same name, but there the similarity between the two Paveletskayas ended. The one on the Ring conveyed a very strange impression: on one side, the ceiling was low and there were no real columns at all – arches spanned equal intervals along the wall, with the width of each arch being the same as the width of the gap between them. It seemed as though the first Paveletskaya had been easy for the builders, as if the dirt there was softer and all one had to do was push one’s way across it; whereas at the other Paveletskaya, there was some hard, unyielding rock which was a real pain to chew through.