GLUMOV: Including those who returned later?
KAMMERER: Especially those. Sandro is working on that; I’ll put him on this with you. That’s it.
GLUMOV: A list of inverts, a list of refusers, and a list of the reappeared. Fine. But still, Big Bug…
KAMMERER: Go on.
GLUMOV: Still allow me to talk with Neverov and that couple from Little Pesha.
KAMMERER: For the sake of your conscience?
GLUMOV: Yes. What if it’s just an ordinary volunteer enthusiast…
KAMMERER: Permission granted. (after a brief pause) I wonder what you’ll do if it does turn out to be an ordinary volunteer enthusiast…
[End of Document 12.]
I’ve just played that phonogram over again. My voice then was young, important, confident, the voice of a man who determined people’s fates, for whom there were no mysteries in the past, the present, or the future, a man who knew what he was doing and who was right all around. Now I am simply astounded at what a marvelous actor and hypocrite I was then. Actually, I was on the last of my nerves and willpower then. I had a plan of action, I was waiting and couldn’t wait for the President’s sanctions, and I was trying to build up the nerve to go to Komov without the sanctions.
And for all that, I remember clearly the enormous pleasure I experienced listening to Toivo Glumov and watching him. For this really was his hour of triumph. He had looked for them for E ordinary volunteer enthusiast five years — those non-humans who had secretly invaded his Earth — looked for them, despite constant failure, almost alone, unsupported, tormented by his beloved wife’s disbelief, looked for them and found them. He was right. He was more persistent than the rest — more patient, more serious — than all those wise guys, those lightweight philosophers, the intellectual ostriches.
Actually, I am ascribing that feeling of triumph to him. I don’t think that he felt anything at that moment except pathological impatience — to grab the enemy by the throat at last. For having proved incontrovertibly that his enemy was on Earth and acting, he still had no idea how he had proved it.
But I did. And still, looking at him that morning, I was so proud of him, so delighted in him, he could have been my son. And I would have wanted a son like him.
I loaded him up with work primarily because I wanted to keep him in his office at his desk. There was still no reply from the Institute, and the work on the lists had to be done anyway.
REPORT COMCON-2
No.019/99 Urals-North
Date: 10 May 99
FROM: T. Glumov, Inspector
THEME: 009 “A Visit from an Old Lady”
CONTENTS: Information on the events in Little Pesha was sent to the institute of Eccentrics by O. O. Pankratov.
In accordance with your requests, I conducted conversations with B. Neverov and O. Pankratov and Z. Laydova with the object of determining if any of them sent information to the Institute of Eccentrics about the anomalous behavior of certain people during the incident at Little Pesha on the night of 6 May of this year.
1. The conversation with Basil Neverov, emergency-squad member, took place by videochannel yesterday around noon. The conversation held no operative interest. B. Neverov had certainly never heard of the Institute before I mentioned it.
2. Oleg Olegovich Pankratov and his wife, Zosya Lyadova, I met in the corridors of the regional conference of amateur astroarchaeologists in Syktyvkar. Over a casual cup of coffee, Oleg Olegovich actively and with pleasure picked up the conversation I began on the marvels of the Institute of Eccentrics and, on his own initiative, without any forcing from me, conveyed the following facts:
— For many years now he has been a steady activist of the Institute and even has his own index as a separate and steady source of information;
— It was thanks to efforts that such marvelous phenomena as Tira Glazuzskaya (“Black Eye”), Lebey Malang (psychoparamorph), and Konstantin Movzon (“Lord of the Flies V”) came to the attention of the metapsychologists;
— He was very grateful to me for the information on the amazing Albina and the fantastic Kir, which t had given him so kindly that day in Little Pesha, and which he immediately sent on to the Institute;
— He had been to the Institute three times — at the annual conferences of activists; he did not personally know Daniil Alexandrovich Logovenko, but he had great respect for him as an outstanding scientist.
3. In connection with the above, I feel that my report No.018/99 has no interest for theme 009.
T. Glumov
[End of Document 13.]
REPORT To Head of UE Dept — M. Kammerer
From Inspector T. Glumov
Please give me a leave of absence for six months because I need to accompany my wife on a long business trip to Pandora.
10/5/99
T. Glumov
RESOLUTION: Permission denied. Continue your assignment.
10 May 99
M. Kammerer
[End of Document 14.]
DOCUMENT 15: Unusual Events Department: 11 May.
DOCUMENT 16: Theme 101 “Rip Van Winkle.” Mtbevari, Inspector.
DOCUMENT 17: The Head of the UE Department from the President
DOCUMENT 18: Charles Laboraut to Mac!
DOCUMENT 19: Memorandum from 17; Interlocutors 13 May 99.
DOCUMENT 20: T. Glumov: Theme 009 “A Visit from an Old Lady”
UNUSUAL EVENTS DEPARTMENT. ROOM “D.”
11 MAY 99
On the morning of May 11, a grim Toivo came to work and saw my resolution. He must have calmed down overnight. He did not protest or insist, but hunkered down in room D and started working on the list of inverts, soon coming up with seven, only two of whom were named, the rest given as “patient Z., servomechanic,” “Theodore P., ethnolinguist,” and so on.
Around noon, Sandro Mtbevari showed up in room D, haggard, yellow, and frazzled. He sat down at his desk and, without any preamble or the usual jokes (when he came back from long trips), told Toivo that on Big Bug’s orders he was reporting to him, but would first like to finish his report on his trip. “What’s the holdup?” Toivo asked warily, rather surprised by the man’s appearance. “The holdup,” Sandro answered irritably, “is that something happened to him and he wasn’t sure whether it should be included in the report or not, and if so, then in what light.”
And he began to tell him, choosing his words with difficulty, getting the details confused, and laughing convulsively at himself throughout.
This morning he got out of the zero-cabin at the resort town of Rosalinda (not far from Biarritz), covered some five kilometers down an empty, rocky path through vineyards, and appeared at his goal around ten o’clock: there was the Valley of Roses. The path led down to the Bon Vent, whose pointed roof stuck out through the thick foliage below. Sandro automatically noted the time — it was ten to ten, just as he had planned. Before starting the descent to the house, he sat down on a round black boulder and shook the pebbles from his sandals. It was already very hot, and the sun-warmed boulder burned through his shorts, and he was very thirsty.
Apparently, at just that moment he felt sick. There was ringing in his ears, and the sunny day grew dark. He thought that he was going down the path, walking, without sensing his legs, past a cheery gazebo that he had not noticed from above, past a glider with an open top and a topsy-turvy engine (as if entire sections had been removed), past a huge shaggy dog that lay in the shade and indifferently watched him, its red tongue lolling. Then he went up the steps to the veranda, entwined in roses. He definitely heard the steps creaking, but he still did not feel his legs. In the depths of the veranda there stood a table covered with strange objects, and at the foot of the table leaning on widespread arms, was the man he needed.
The man raised his tiny eyes, hidden beneath gray eyebrows, and a look of regret crossed his face. Sandro introduced himself and, almost not hearing his own voice, told him his cover story. But before he got out a dozen sentences, the man wrinkled up his face and said, “I can’t believe it, you’re really here at the wrong time!” Sandro came to his senses, surfacing from semiconsciousness, covered in sweat and holding his right sandal in his hand. He was sitting on the boulder, the hot granite was burning through his shorts, and the time was still ten to ten. Well, maybe fifteen seconds had passed, no more.
He put on the sandal, wiped his sweaty bee, and then had another attack, apparently. He was going down the path again, not feeling his own legs; the world looked as if he was seeing it with a neutral filter on his eyes, and only one thought was going though his mind: “I can’t believe it, how I’m really here at the wrong time!” And once again on his left was the cheery gazebo (a doll without arms and only one leg lay on the floor), and he passed the glider (a lively imp was drawn on the side), and there was a second glider, farther back, also with the hood up, and the dog had pulled in its tongue and was dozing, its heavy head on its paws. (What a strange dog; was it a dog at all?) The creaky steps. The coolness of the veranda. And once more the man looked at him from beneath his brows, wrinkled his face, and spoke in a fake threatening tone, the way you talk to a naughty child: “What did I tell you? Inconvenient! Shoo!” And Sandro woke up again. But now he wasn’t on the boulder, but next to it on the dry prickly grass, and he was nauseated.