"Hell's bloody bells! I've just this second forgotten every goddamned word of Russian that I ever learned in my entire life."

The wagon was nearly on top of them and they all stepped aside to give it passage. Ryan and Krysty tried to keep their faces turned away, both holding a cocked blaster under their long furs.

The old man looked down at them from his high seat, tugging on the reins so that the cart began to slow. Fearing this could indicate the beginning of a lengthy conversation on the price of corn or the recent disease among young pigs, Ryan risked a glance at Rick, who was swaying back and forth like a man entering a deep trance.

"Talk, you triple-stupe bastard!" Ryan growled in a low, urgent voice.

Rick offered, "Good day," in Russian and was greeted only with a suspicious silence. "The sun is warm and the snow is gone."

The wagon was still moving, at barely walking pace. "Too late for the sowing as ever!" the peasant moaned, flicking out at the oxen with the tip of a long whip.

Rick didn't risk any further attempts at social chatter. He stepped to the side of the track and slumped down on a large boulder, shoulders shaking. It wasn't until they reached him, having watched the cart rattle on down the road, that Ryan and Krysty realized the freezie was laughing.

"Sorry. Nervous relief. Felt like a character in a made-for-TV spy movie. I said, 'The sun is warm and the snow is gone.' I had this feeling he was going to reply something like, 'And the count is frying turbot with my grandmother tonight.' Then we'd exchange microfilms. Oh, Jesus! All he did was moan about the fucking weather."

Ryan and Krysty joined in his laughter. It was a good moment.

Major-Commissar Zimyanim was becoming puzzled — puzzled and a little intrigued.

"Who's in command out at Peredelkino, Alicia Andreyinichna?" he asked.

"Lieutenant Ulyanov, I think. Why? Is something wrong out there?"

"No. Yes." He paused. "Possibly. Just these reports he keeps sending me."

"What about them, Comrade Major-Commissar? Is it trouble?"

He shuffled the files. As he looked down at them, the morning sunlight bounced off the top of his polished skull.

"Three men missing. Horses found. No, two found. It's believed wolves took the other one. Bodies found. All shot at medium range by heavy-caliber handblasters. Good observation that! Bright boy. Could go far. Old woman's missing. Never found her. Bones. Figures the wolves again. And her mutie son found dead, standing upright in a doorway."

"Guerrilla band?" the girl suggested.

"No. Food taken, he thinks. And some furs. Why would killers steal furs and food with spring coming in fast? Slay five people? Why? Then the jeep patrol saw a trio of strangers. One-eyed man, redheaded woman, short man in glasses. I checked that. Rimless glasses. They were in furs. Stolen furs, would you say, Alicia Andreyinichna?"

"Could be. But there isn't much out that way now, is there?"

"Now?"

She blushed at the sudden sharp look he threw her. With the pockmarks and the drooping mustache she realized he looked like old pictures of the Tartar gallopers who had ruled the steppes centuries ago.

"Yes, of course. Once, I think, there were many rich houses. Dachas built by the wicked Stalin for his friends. Later used by others. Even the Americans had one there."

Zimyanin picked up a pencil and rolled it between finger and thumb, nodding.

"So? Interesting. And then a kulak driving his ox cart sees three strangers on the road to the city. Man with one eye, tall woman with red hair — very red hair, he says to Lieutenant Ulyanov — and a third person. Pale of face. Dark glasses. He walked slowly with a stick. A sickly cripple, thought the old peasant. But this one spoke a kind of Russian."

"A kind of Russian?"

"Precisely. Not like someone from that region, nor, he thought, like someone from the city. So, it means he could have come from a different part of the land."

"Have you asked the Bureau of Internal Movements if they know of..."

Zimyanin waved a finger at her. "No, no, no. This does not concern them. It is a problem for us. And we will solve it. But it is surely a great mystery. Most odd."

"Most odd," Clerk Second Class Andreyinichna echoed dutifully, knowing that such agreement was essential if she was to rise to the exalted position of Clerk First Class.

"Odder than you would think, my dear," he replied, smiling.

"Why?"

"Many months ago I encountered some of the Americans. You know this?"

"Of course, Comrade Major-Commissar. Everyone knows of the story."

"I met several of them. But among them was a man who had only one eye. His left eye was gone, and his face was scarred. I was threatened by one of the butchers of the Narodniki. My life was spared by a woman of the Americans. She had red hair. Veryred hair."

"But you don't..."

Zimyanin laughed. "The same man and woman! Of course not. Impossible. Americans in Moscow! That's a good joke, Alicia Andreyinichna, is it not?" The laughter ceased as quickly as it had begun. "But, it is certainly very odd."

There was considerable evidence that the Americans in the final, and briefest, world war had used a significant proportion of neutron weapons.

Ryan had a miniature rad counter, but it stayed consistently low in the green-to-yellow margins. Once or twice he noticed it flickered well up into the yellow, but it never went anywhere near the limit of orange.

But the true story lay in the mute evidence of structural damage.

They passed through regions where the nuking had blasted everything out of existence. The devastation had been total. But they also encountered regions where many of the buildings were visibly older. As they began to reach what had been the outer suburbs, they found whole streets of perfectly preserved houses. Occasionally they saw damaged roofs, but most structures were sound. There were few signs of inhabitants. Any they did see were busy about their own business, scurrying along with heads down, avoiding eye contact with anyone else.

"Not many stores," Krysty commented.

"Not like the edges of big villes back home," Ryan agreed.

Rick was exhausted, so they found a house in a quiet side street. Its interior had been stripped, but it was dry and secure. There were so few people around that Ryan didn't bother to keep guard during the night. He bet their lives that nobody had seen them go into the overgrown garden.

While the companions ate a breakfast of smoked fish and dried meat, washed down with some of the spring water, they made plans.

From the front window they could see a tumbled apartment building, rusting strips of iron protruding from the shattered concrete. Window frames of torn iron hung loose from the crumbled walls, and scorch marks etched deep into the south wall indicated where the main blast had come from.

From the side window they could see a towering wall of what must have been some sort of a factory. Still visible, after a hundred years of Russian winters, were the remains of a giant mural. It showed a man, a worker, holding a huge unfurled flag, the crimson toned down to a dusty pink. He seemed to be leading a group of adoring men and women up a hill toward a glittering palace of white stone.

"Art on a heroic scale," Rick observed.

"What's the message?" Krysty asked, flattening her nose against the cold windowpane.

"The original one says something about how the brave workers of Govorovo will forever carry on the fight against the paper tigers of American aggression and imperialism. Kind of catchy, huh?"

"How about the painted stuff underneath?" Ryan pointed to some smeared letters in runny black paint. Rick put his head to one side, trying to make it out.