Artyom noticed that despite this assurance, the space around the story-teller was empty even though there wasn’t much space at the fire altogether and everyone was sitting close together, shoulder to shoulder.
‘Did it take you a while to get here, brother?’ A thick-set bearded man in a leather waistcoat asked him quietly but clearly.
‘It’s about thirty days since we came out from Aviamotornaya,’ the thin guy replied looking at him uneasily.
‘So I have news for you. There’s plague at Aviamotornaya. There’s plague there - do you hear?! The Hansa have closed it as well as Taganskaya and Kurskaya. They’ve called a quarantine. I have acquaintances there, Hansa citizens. And there’s flame-throwers standing at the passages to Taganskaya and Kurskaya and everyone who comes within range is blasted. They’re calling it disinfection. Apparently, some have an incubation period of a week and for others it takes longer, so you obviously brought the infection back,’ he concluded, viciously lowering his voice.
‘What, oh come on guys? I’m healthy! See for yourself!’ the little guy jumped up from his place and started to convulsively strip off his quilted coat and to show the dirty body underneath it, hurrying, afraid that he wouldn’t convince them.
The tension mounted. There was no one left near the thin man, they’d all crowded at the other side of the fire. People were talking nervously and Artyom heard the quiet clanking of gun locks. He looked at Khan questioningly, pulling his gun from his shoulder to firing position, pointed forward. Khan kept his silence but stopped him with a gesture. Then he quickly got up and walked away from the fire without a sound, taking Artyom with him. At about ten paces he froze and continued to look at what was happening.
Quick and busy movements were visible in the light of the fire and they looked like some kind of primitive reckless dance. Talk in the crowd went silent and the action continued in ominous silence. Finally, the man succeeded in pulling off his undershirt and he exclaimed triumphantly:
‘See! Look! I am clean! I am healthy! There’s nothing there! I’m healthy!’
The bearded guy in the waistcoat pulled a board out of the fire that was burning on one end and carefully approached the thin guy looking at him with disgust. The skin of the overly talkative guy was dark with dirt and glossy with grease, but there was no trace of a rash as far as the bearded guy could see and so after a thorough inspection he commanded him:
‘Raise your arms!’
The unfortunate fellow quickly threw his arms up, giving the people crowded on the other side of the fire a view of his armpits which were overgrown with fine hairs. The bearded man made a show of holding his nose as he got closer, meticulously examining and looking for buboes, but he couldn’t find any symptoms of plague.
‘I am healthy! Healthy! Are you convinced now?’ The little man cried out, almost hysterical now.
There was a hostile whisper in the crowd. Taking stock of the overall mood and not wishing to succumb to it, the thickset man declared:
‘Well, let’s assume that you’re healthy. That still means nothing!’
‘Why does it mean nothing?’ The thin man was taken aback and immediately drooped.
‘That’s right. You might have not got sick yourself. You might be immune. But you can still carry the infection. You had contact with that Rizhii guy? Were you in the same force? Did you talk with him, share the same water? Did you shake his hand? You shook his hand, don’t lie brother.’
‘So what, what if I shook his hand? I didn’t get sick . . .’ The man replied at a loss of what to say. He was frozen powerless, and persecuted by the gaze of the crowd.
‘So. It isn’t impossible that you’re infectious, brother. So, I’m sorry but we can’t risk it. It’s a prophylactic brother, you see?’ The bearded man undid the buttons of his waistcoat, baring a brown leather holster. There were encouraging outbursts and more sounds of snapping gun-locks among the crowd at the fire.
‘Guys! But I’m healthy! I didn’t get sick! Look, see!’ The thin man again raised his arms but now everyone just winced disdainfully and with evident aversion.
The thickset man took his pistol from its holster and pointed it at the guy who it seemed couldn’t understand what was going on and he was muttering that he was healthy, squeezing his quilted coat to his chest: it was chilly and he had already started to get cold.
Then Artyom couldn’t stand it. Pulling at his gun-lock, he stepped toward the crowd, not exactly knowing what he was about to do. There was a lump in the pit of his stomach and one stuck in his throat too so he wouldn’t be able to utter a word. But something in this person, in his empty and desperate eyes, in the senseless, mechanical mutterings, had hooked into Artyom and had pushed him to take a step forward. It wasn’t clear what he was going to do next but there was a hand on his shoulder and God what a heavy hand it was!
‘Stop,’ Khan ordered him quietly, and Artyom was as frozen as a corpse, feeling that his brittle determination had been shattered against the granite of someone else’s will. ‘You can’t help him. You will either be killed or you will bring fury on yourself. Your mission will not be completed in either case and you should remember that.’
At that moment the thin man suddenly twitched, yelled, clinging to his quilted jacket and with a wave he jumped onto the path and dashed into the black trough of the southern tunnel with superhuman speed, squealing, as wild as an animal. The bearded man jerked and was after him, trying to take aim at his back but then stopped and waved a hand. This was already going too far, and all of them stood on the platform knew it. It wasn’t clear if the chased man remembered what he was running into, perhaps he was hoping for a miracle, or maybe fear had wiped everything out of his head.
After several minutes, there was a howl which tore painfully into the dull silence of the terrible tunnel and the echoes of his footsteps went suddenly silent, as if someone had turned off the sound. Even the echo died immediately, and silence reigned again. This was so strange, so unusual to human hearing and reason, that the imagination tried to fill the gaps and it seemed to them that they could hear a far-off cry. But everyone understood that it was an illusion.
‘Jackals always know when one of their pack is sick, my friend.’ said Khan and Artyom almost fell backwards as he noticed the predatory fire in Khan’s eyes. ‘The sick one is a burden to the pack and a threat to its health. So the pack kills the sick one. They tear him to pieces. To pieces,’ he repeated, as though he was relishing what he’d said.
‘But these aren’t jackals,’ Artyom finally found the courage to object to Khan, who he was suddenly believing to be the reincarnation of Genghis Khan. ‘These are people!’
‘And what would you have them do?’ Khan parried. ‘Degradation. Our medicine is at the level of jackals. And there’s as much humanity in us too. So . . .’
Artyom knew how to object to this too but arguing with his only protector at this wild station was not appropriate. But Khan who had been expecting an objection evidently decided that Artyom had given up and he turned the conversation to a different subject.
‘So now, while the subject of infectious diseases and the methods to fight them will dominate our friends’ discussions, we need to forge some iron. Otherwise they might decide not to move ahead for weeks. Even though weeks around here can fly past unnoticed.’
The people at the fire were excitedly discussing what had happened. They were all tense and upset, the spectral shadow of the terrible danger had covered them, and now they were trying to decide what to do next, but their thoughts, like those of lab mice in a labyrinth, were going in circles as they helplessly poked into blind alleys, senselessly rushing back and forth, unable to find the exit.
‘Our friends are very close to panic,’ Khan commented smugly, smiling and looking gaily at Artyom. ‘Furthermore, they suspect that they just lynched an innocent man and this act does not stimulate rational thinking. Now we are dealing not with a collective but with a pack. A perfect mental state for the manipula
tion of their psyches! The conditions couldn’t be better.’
Artyom felt uneasy again seeing the triumphant look on Khan’s face. He tried to smile in response - after all Khan wanted to help him - but the smile came out pitifully and unconvincing.
‘The main thing now is authority. Strength. The pack respects strength, and not logical argument,’ Khan added, nodding. ‘Stand and watch. You’ll be able to go on your way in less than a day’s time.’ And with these words, he took several long strides and wedged himself into the crowd.
‘We can’t stay here!’ His voice thundered and the conversation in the crowd went silent.
People listened to him carefully . . . Khan was using his powerful almost hypnotic gift of persuasion. With his first words, there was an acute feeling of danger hanging above each person, and Artyom doubted that anyone would choose to remain at the station after this.
‘He infected the air here! If we breathe this much longer then it’s over. Bacilli are everywhere here, and we will definitely get hooked by it if we stay here any longer. We’ll die like rats and we’ll rot right in the middle of this hall on the floor. No one will choose to come and help us - there isn’t a hope! We can only count on ourselves. We need to get out of this demonic station, which is seething with microbes, as soon as we can. If we leave now all together then it won’t be hard to get through the tunnel. But we have to do it quickly!’
People made noises of agreement. The majority of them couldn’t, like Artyom, protest against the colossal force of Khan’s persuasion. In following Khan’s words, Artyom obediently worried about all the circumstances and feelings that were proposed in them: the feelings of threat, the fear, the panic, the weak hope which was growing as Khan continued talking about his suggestions for escape.
‘How many of you are there?’
Immediately several people started counting the gathered group. There were eight men, not counting Artyom and Khan.
‘That’s means there’s nothing to wait for! We’re already ten people so we can get through!’ Khan stated and, not allowing the people to come to their senses, he continued, ‘Gather your things, we need to leave within the hour! Quick, let’s get back to the fire, you also need to get your belongings,’ Khan whispered to Artyom, tugging him towards their little camp. ‘The most important thing is that they don’t realize what’s going on. If we delay, they will start to question whether it is worth it for them to leave and go to Chistye Prudy. Some of them were headed in the opposite direction, and others just live here, and they have nowhere else to go. It seems that I’ll have to take you to Kitai Gorod, otherwise, I’m afraid that they’ll lose direction or they’ll just forget where they’re going and why.’
Quickly putting Bourbon’s fancy things into his rucksack while Khan rolled up his tarpaulin and put out the fire, Artyom saw what was going on at the other end of the hall. People who were initially animated and quickly gathering up their households were moving less and less certainly. Someone now was squatting by the fire and another was wandering towards the centre of the platform for something, and there were two people discussing something amongst themselves. Having understood what was going on, Artyom pulled on Khan’s sleeve.
‘They’re discussing it,’ Artyom warned him.
‘Alas, it’s an inherent human feature to discuss things,’ Khan answered. ‘Even if their will is suppressed and even though they are in fact hypnotized, they will still gravitate towards each other and start talking. Man is a social being, and there’s nothing you can do about it. In any other situation, I would accept any human activity as a divine concept or as the inevitable result of evolution, depending on who I was talking to. But in this situation, the fact that they’re thinking is not good. We need to interfere here, my young friend, and to direct their thoughts along the most useful path,’ he concluded, putting his enormous travelling pack on his back.
The fire was put out and the dense, almost tangible darkness squeezed them on all sides. Reaching into his pocket and getting out his flashlight, Artyom pushed on its button. Something buzzed inside the device and the lamp came to life. An uneven, flickering light splashed out from it.
‘Go on, go on, press it again, don’t be afraid,’ Khan encouraged him, ‘it can work better than that.’
When they went up to the others, the stale tunnel drafts had had time to blow through their minds so that they were less than convinced in Khan’s proposition. The strong man with the beard stepped forward.
‘Listen, brother,’ he carelessly turned to Artyom’s companion.
Without even looking at him, Artyom could feel the air around Khan electrify. It seemed that such familiarity had incensed Khan. Of all the people Artyom knew, it was Khan that he would least like to see furious. There was also the hunter, but he seemed to Artyom to be so much more cold-blooded that it was impossible to imagine him in a rage. He would probably kill people with the same expression on his face that other people have when they were washing mushrooms or making tea.
‘We’ve been discussing it and we think,’ the thickset man continued, ‘that you’re chasing snowstorms here. For me, for example, it’s completely inconvenient to go to Kitai Gorod. And those guys are against it too. Right Semenych?’ He turned for the support of the crowd. Someone in the crowd nodded in agreement, though rather timidly. ‘Most of us were going to Prospect Mir, to the Hansa, until the business in the tunnel started up. So we’re waiting here and then moving on. Nothing is left here anyway. We burned his things. And don’t try to get us thinking about the air. This isn’t pulmonary plague. And if we’re infected, then we’re already infected and there’s nothing to be done. It’s more likely that there wasn’t any infection here to start with so you can get lost, brother, with your propositions!’ The bearded man’s manner was becoming even more familiar.
Artyom was a little taken aback by this onslaught. But, stealing a look at his companion, he felt that the guy was in trouble. There was that blazing orange internal flame in Khan’s eyes and there was such savage malice and power coming from him that Artyom felt a chill, and the hair on his head began to rise, and he wanted to bare his teeth and roar.
‘Why did you kill him if there was no infection after all?’ Khan asked insinuatingly, with a deliberately soft voice.
‘It was prophylactic!’ the thickset man answered with an insolent look.
‘No, my friend, this isn’t medicine. This was a crime. What gave you the right to do it?’
‘Don’t call me friend, I’m not your dog, OK?’ the bearded man growled. ‘What right did I have? The right of the strong! Haven’t you heard of it? And you’re not exactly . . . We could get you and your foundling too! As a prophylactic measure! Got it?’ With a gesture already familiar to Artyom, the man pulled open his waistcoat and put his hand on his holster.
This time Khan didn’t manage to hold Artyom back and the bearded man was in the crosshairs of Artyom’s machine gun before he could even unbutton his holster. Artyom was breathing heavily and could hear his heart beating and the blood pounding in his temples, and there wasn’t a reasonable thought in his head. He knew only one thing: if the bearded man said one more thing or if his hand continued on its way to his pistol’s handle then he would immediately pull the trigger. Artyom didn’t want to die like that poor guy had: he wouldn’t let the pack tear him to pieces.
The bearded guy froze in place and didn’t make a move, with evil flashing in his dark eyes. And then something incomprehensible happened. Khan suddenly took a big step forward, looked the man in the eye and said quietly:
‘Stop it. You will obey me. Or you will die.’
The threatening gaze of the bearded man faded, and his hands were powerless, hanging down beside his body. It looked so unnatural that Artyom had no doubt that it was Khan’s words and not the machine gun that had had an effect on the man.
‘Never discuss the rights of the strong. You are too weak to do that,’ said Khan and he returned to Artyom, without even disarming t
he man.
The thickset man stood still, looking from side to side. People were waiting to hear what Khan was going to say next. His control over the situation had been restored.
‘We will consider the matter closed and that consensus has been reached. We leave in fifteen minutes.’ And turning to Artyom he said, ‘People, you say? No, my friend, they are beasts. They are a pack of jackals. They were preparing to tear us apart. And they would have. But they forgot one thing. They are jackals but I am a wolf. And there are some stations where I am known only by that name.’
Artyom was silent, dumbstruck by what he had seen, finally understanding who Khan reminded him of.