“You’ve heard everything.” Said the brigadier with a husky voice. “I am continuing. Are you coming with me?”
“Where to?” The old man smiled at the girl tired.
“And she knows”
“Hunter looked at Sasha again with his hard look, then he nodded his head silently and turned back to the old man
“It’s not far from here.” But he made a movement with his head.” I don’t want to go on my own”
“Take me with you.” Yelled Sasha sure.
The bold one sighed, his fingers made a fist and opened up again. “Thanks for the knife.” He finally said.
“I made good use of it”
The girl moved back. Surprised. In the next moment she was already in control of herself again and said: ”You decide what you do with the knife”
“I had no choice”
She was chewing on her lower lip. “Now you have always have it”
“No, not even now. If you knew you would understand. If you would truly …”
“Understand what?”
“How important it is that I get through to the Tulskaya. Important for me. As fast as possible …”
Sasha saw that his fingers were shaking slightly and the dark stain on his shoulder had gotten bigger. She was afraid of this man but she was more afraid for him. “You’ve got to take me with you.” She asked him softly.
“No way.” He answered. “It doesn’t matter who is doing it. Why not me?”
“You’re killing yourself.” She moved closer and carefully took his hand.
He moved back as if she had just bitten him. “I have to do it. The people who are in command here are all cowards. If I hesitated longer, I kill the entire metro”
“But what if there was another way? A cure? If you … Wouldn’t have to do it anymore?”
“How often do I have to repeat myself: There is no cure against the fever! If so If would … I would …”
“What would you choose?” Sasha was still holding his hand.
“I have no choice.” The brigadier took away his hand.
“Let’s go.” He said to homer.
“Why won’t you take me with you?” Yelled Sasha.
Silent, almost whispering, so that nobody could hear it except for her he said: “I am afraid”
He turned around and left. While he was passing Homer he told him that he had ten minutes until they were leaving.
“Is it because of the fever?” It suddenly sounded from behind her.
“What?” Sasha turned around and bumped into Leonid.
The musician was smiling innocently. “If I am not mistaken somebody was talking about the fever”
“You’re mistaken.” She didn’t want to discuss this right now.
“And I already thought that the rumors were true”
Said Leonid in thoughts and to himself.
Sasha’s fore head got wrinkles:”What rumors?”
“Of the quarantine at the Serpuchovskaya. Talks of this apparently incurable disease. An epidemic …” Leonid was looking at her, watching every movement of her lips and her eye brows.
She blushed. “How long have been listening to us?”
He spread his arms. “I never do it because I want to.
I just have the ears of a musician”
“That’s my friend” she explained and pointed with her head into Hunters direction.
“Great” Answered Leonid.
“Why did you say apparently?”
“Sasha!” Homer had risen from his bench and gave a distrusting Leonid. “Can I talk to you for a second? We have to decide how we …”
“Can I talk for a second?” The young man let the old man stand where he was and with a polite smile he made a few steps to the side and waved the girl to him.
Sasha followed him unsure. He felt that she hadn’t lost the fight with the bold one yet and if she just kept on at it Hunter wouldn’t dare to chase her away again. Then she could finally help him, even though she had no idea how.
Leonid lowered his head and whispered: “It could be that I’ve heard about his epidemic before, or not? Maybe it hasn’t been the first time that this epidemic has broken out.
And maybe there are some magical pills for it”
He was looking into her eyes.
“But he’s saying that there is no cure.” Said Sasha.
“That he has …”
“… To destroy all of them? He, your great friend?
That’s no surprise. He probably studied medicine”
“Are you saying …”
“I am saying.” The musician put his hand on Sasha’s shoulder, lowered his head to her and whispered in her ear.
“That there is a cure”
Only the two (chapter 15)
The old man cleared his throat angrily and made one step into the direction of the girl. “Sasha! I got to talk to you!”
Leonid was winking into Sasha’s direction and stepped back, giving Sasha free with over exaggerated humility and distanced himself. But Sasha couldn’t think about anything else. While the old man was trying to convince her that they could still break hunter, was trying to tell her something and to talk sense some into her the girl was looking over his shoulder at the musician. He didn’t look back but the slight smile on his face told her that he had felt it. She nodded her head and told Homer that she was ready for anything if he would just let her alone with Leonid for one more minute. She had to find out what he knew and had to start believing that there was a cure.
“I’ll be back soon.” She cut of the old man when he was in the middle of saying something. She passed him and ran to the musician.
“You’ve got to tell me!” She was sick of playing games. “How?”
“That is the complicated part of the question. I know that you can cure the disease. I know people that have won against it. I can get you to them”
“But you’ve said that you could fight it …”
He shrugged his shoulders. “You understood me wrong. How could I? I am just a flutist, a wandering musician”
“Who are those people?”
“If you want to meet them you can. But we have to take a small stroll first”
“At which station are they?”
“Not far from here. You’re going to see them, if you want”
“I don’t believe you”
“But you would like too. And because I don’t believe you fully as well I can’t tell you everything”
Sasha’s look darkened. “Why do you want me to come with you?”
“Me?” Leonid shook his head. “I don’t care. You want to. I don’t have to save anyone, I couldn’t even. At least not like that”
She hesitated and then she asked: “Can you give me your word that you can bring me to those people? You’re word that they can help?”
“I’ll get you to them.” Said Leonid in a serious tone.
Again the angry Homer joined the conversation:
“What are you planning Sasha?”
“I am not going with you.” She said and turned to the musician. “He says that there is a cure”
“He’s lying.” Said Homer unsure.
“You seem to know about viruses more than me”
Leonid tried to keep hi tone respectful. “Have you explored them? Or gathered you’re on experience with them?
So you think that mass murder is the best way to get rid of the epidemic?”
“Where do you know all this from?” Asked the old man surprised and looked at Sasha: “Did you …”
“And there is our new doctor.” Said the musician when he realized that hunter was approaching and made a step back, just to be sure. “Then the complete first aid team is ready and I can go”
“Wait.” Plead the girl.
“He’s lying!” Whispered Homer. “He just wants to …
With you … Even if he’s telling the truth you won’t make it. Hunter will be back with the men in 24 hours. When you stay with me
you may still be able to change his mind. And that one …”
“I can’t do anything.” Said Sasha with a helpless voice. “I can’t change anything anymore, I feel it. I have only one choice: I have to make him choose. I’ve got to separate …”
“Separate?” Homer raised his eye brows.
“I won’t need twenty four hours.” She said and disappeared.
Why had he let her go? Why had he shown weakness and let it happened that that crazy wanderer stole his heroine, his muse, his daughter? The more the old man thought about Leonid, the less he liked him. Out of the big green eyes of the musician he could see his lusting looks and when he thought that no one was looking at him dark shadows came over his face of an angel …
What did he want from her? Best case scenario was that he just played the fan of her beauty so that she could be another mark on his list. The disappearing charm of her youth, something that you couldn’t photograph, it would fall of like flower dust.
The girl herself, lied to and used would shake it away and would take long time to get pure again but she would forget the betrayal of this Satan.
But why had he let her go? Out of cowardice.
Because Homer hadn’t just not argued with hunter but not even asked him the questions that kept him from finding sleep. Sasha was in love so her courage and her not thinking about anything could be forgiven. Would he have had as much patience with the brigadier if he would’ve asked him?
Homer kept calling him “brigadier” because he was used to it and it calmed him down: That name took the man his cruelty because he was just the commander of the northern guard post at the Sevastopolskaya … But no! The person who cut through the darkness of the tunnel next to him was no longer the same knight. The old man started to realize that his companion was starting to transform himself.
Something terrible was going on inside of him, it was foolish to not want to see it and without hope to tell himself otherwise.
Did Hunter move faster because he wanted to show him the bloody end of this drama earlier? Now he wouldn’t just destroy the Tulskaya but also the sect that was in the other tunnel and the Serpuchovskaya with all its inhabitants and the stationed guards of Hanza. Only because some of them could have gotten sick. And the Sevastopolskaya could maybe have the same fate in front of them. The brigadier didn’t need any cause to kill anymore. He just needed a reason.
Homer wasn’t able to run behind hunter anymore and like a nightmare watch all his crimes and document them. He had a clean conscience that everything which had happened was in the name of rescue of the Tulskaya, had told himself that it had been a necessary evil. The merciless brigadier was like a Moloch and Homer was too much of a coward to fight against fate.
The girl did seem to want to fight it. While Homer had made peace with the Tulskaya and the Serpuchovskaya transforming into Sodom and Gomorrah, Sasha was reaching for straws. Homer could no longer tell himself that some pills or vaccine existed so that Hunter didn’t have to end the epidemic with fire and sword while Sasha seemed to look for a cure till the bitter end.
Homer was no warrior and no doctor and also to old to believe in miracles. A part of his heart dreamt passionately about a possible rescue and exactly that part he had ripped out of body and let go, with Sasha.
Everything he hadn’t dared to do, he had pushed onto the girl. And found peace in his helplessness. In 24 hours it would all be over. After that Homer would dessert and get himself a lonely cell to finish his book. Now he knew about what it would be.
How a smart animal would find a magical star which had fallen from the sky, how it had eaten it and transformed into a human.
How humanity stole fire but couldn’t tame it and how they did not just burn themselves but how they turned the entire world into ashes. How one hundredth years later the star would be taken away again and how that transformed it back into something terrible that had no name.
The guard let the handful of bullets slip into his pocket and shook the musicians hand strongly as the fulfillment of their bargain. “For a symbolic payment you can even come with us on the railcar”
“I prefer romantic strolls in the tunnel.” Answered Leonid.
The guard didn’t give up and whispered to the musician: “Now look, just the two of you can’t go through this tunnel without an escort the tunnel. You get one, no argument. And your lady has no papers. But I could get you to where you want a lot faster, where you too could be alone”
“We don’t need that.” Said Sasha.
The musician bowed before her. “We should act like they are our guards. The prince and princess of Monaco are going for a walk”
“Which princess?” Said Sasha.
“From Monaco. At the Cote d’ Azur …”
“Listen up.” Cut him off the guard. “If you really want to go on foot, then go now. Your magazine in all good faith but the boys got to go back to base. Hey crutch!” He yelled at one of the guards. “Accompany those two to the Kievskaya. Tell the patrol it is a deportation. Get them to the radial line and then back home.” He turned to Leonid.
“Right?”
“Of course.” He answered and saluted jokingly.
The leader of the guard blinked with his eyes and said. “Any time”
How different Hanza was from the rest of the metro!
On the entire line from the Pavelezkaya to the Oktyabrskaya there wasn’t a single spot where it had been completely dark. Every fifty steps there was a cable that crawled along the wall, an electrical lamp which light reached to the next one. Yes even the secret and escape tunnels that separated themselves from the main tunnel from time to time were lit very well so that they lost their horrors.
If it would have been after Sasha they would have ran to save important minutes, but Leonid convinced her that there was no reason for haste. He refused to explain where he was leading her from the Kievskaya. He marched without any haste and was bored. It seemed that he was a common visitor to the tunnels through which normal mortals could pass to the ring line.
“I am glad that your friend always does what he thinks is right.” He said after a while.
Sasha’s forehead got wrinkles: “What are you talking about?”
“If civilians were as important to him as to you we would’ve had to take him with us. Now we’ve separated into groups of two and everybody does what he wants. He kills, you heal …”
“He doesn’t want to kill anybody!” She said sharp and a bit too loud.
“Of course. It just is his job after all.” He sighed.
“Who am I to judge?”
“So what do you want to do when you’re and adult?” Asked Sasha sarcastically. “Play?”
“I am just going to be near you. What else do I need to be happy?”
She shook her head. “You’re just saying that. You don’t even know me. How could I make you happy?”
“I know how. But it is already enough for me to look at a beautiful girl and I am happy. And what …”
“So you’re saying that you know beauty when you see it?” She looked at him.
He nodded his head. “The only thing that I’m good at”. Suddenly the wrinkles on her forehead smoothened.
“What’s so extraordinary about me?”
“You are shining”
This time his voice had almost sounded serious. But at the next moment the musician took a step back and put his look on her. “Just to bad that you’re wearing those rough clothes”
“What’s wrong with my clothes?” She moved slower.
It was irritating her that he was looking at her back.
“Your clothes don’t let any light through. And I am like a moth.” He moved his hands as if they were wings and made a stupid face. “Always flying to the fire”
A slight smile was on her face for a moment. She took part in the game. “So you’re afraid of the dark?”
“Loneliness”. Leonid made a sad face and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
H
e shouldn’t have said that. While he had tuned his instrument, he had thought that the resistance had been weake, and the weakest and softest string had broken with an ugly noise.
The slight movement of the air in the tunnel had blown away all serious thoughts and had Sasha made play with the the musician. But now she had stopped. With one beat the happy feeling that Leonid’s words had created was gone. Now she was sober again and asked herself why she had given in. Had she gone with him because of that and left the old man and hunter?
“Loneliness. You don’t even know about what you’re talking about”
The Serpuchovskaya had sunken into darkness and fear. Soldiers with army issue gasmask blocked the entrance to the tunnel and the passageway to the ring line. The station was humming, with premonition of a catastrophe, like a stirred up bee hive. Hunter and Homer were brought through the hall under guard. Here the inhabitants of the Serpuchovskaya tried to find if they know their fate by looking at their eyes. Homer looked at the ground; he didn’t want to remember their faces.
The brigadier hadn’t told him where they were going but the old man was beginning to suspect. To polis.
Connecting four metro lines it was a real city with thousands of inhabitants. The rest of this underground realm had split into warring stations long ago. Polis was a heaven for science and culture.
The holiest place in the metro that no one dared to attack.
Nobody but the old Homer, that half crazy rider of the apocalypse …
But in the last 24 hours he had felt better. His nausea had gone and the coughing that had forced him to clean his bloody gasmask had stopped as well. Maybe his organism was winning against the epidemic? Or maybe he hadn’t been infected in the first place? Maybe he had just imagined it. He had known that from the beginning but he had still been afraid …
The tunnel behind the Serpuchovskaya was dark and silent and had a bad reputation. Homer kne Until polis they wouldn’t meet a single human soul, the station between the Serpuchovskaya and the Borovizkaya had always a surprise ready for its visitors. Over the Polyanka the only station on their journey, he knew a lot of legends.
Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) Page 25
