‘Hah!’ Borowitz grunted, and to the speaker: ‘Boris? Boris Dragosani? Can you hear me? Is all well?’
In the other room the man on the floor jerked, stretched, lifted his head and stared about. Then he shuddered and quickly stood up. He seemed much more human now, less like a deranged automaton, though his colour was still grey as lead. His bare feet slipped on the slimed floor so that he staggered a little, but he quickly regained his balance. Then he saw the heart still clutched in his hands, gave a second great shudder and tossed it away, wiping his hands down his thighs.
He was like (Borowitz thought) someone newly awakened from the turmoil of a nightmare . . . but he must not be allowed to come awake too rapidly. There was something Borowitz must know. And he must know it now, while it was still fresh in the other’s mind.
‘Dragosani,’ he said again, keeping his voice as soft as possible. ‘Do you hear me?’
As Borowitz’s companions finally got themselves under control and came to join him at the large screen, so the naked man looked their way. For the first time Boris Dragosani acknowledged the screen, which on his side was simply a lightly frosted window composed of many small leaded panes. He looked straight at them, almost as if he could actually see them, in the way a blind man will sometimes look, and answered:
‘Yes, I hear you, Comrade General. And you were right: he had planned to assassinate you.’
‘Hah! Good!’ Borowitz balled a meaty fist and slammed it into the palm of his left hand. ‘How many were in it with him?’
Dragosani looked exhausted. The greyness was going out of him and already his hands, legs and lower body had taken on a more nearly fleshly tint. Only flesh and blood after all, he seemed on the point of collapse. It was a small effort to right the steel chair where he had thrown it and to seat himself, but it seemed to consume his last dregs of energy. Placing his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, he now sat staring at the floor between his feet.
‘Well?’ Borowitz said into the speaker.
‘One other,’ Dragosani answered at last without looking up. ‘Someone close to you. I could not read his name.’
Borowitz was disappointed. ‘Is that all?’
‘Yes, Comrade General.’ Dragosani lifted his head, looked again at the screen, and there was something akin to pleading in his watery blue eyes. With a familiarity Borowitz’s juniors could hardly credit, he then said: ‘Gregor, please do not ask it.’
Borowitz was silent.
‘Gregor,’ Dragosani said again, ‘you have promised me -‘
‘ Many things,’ Borowitz hurriedly cut him off. ‘Yes, and you shall have them. Many things! What little you give, I shall repay many times over. What small services you perform, the USSR shall recognise with overwhelming gratitude – however long the recognition is in coming.
You have plumbed depths deep as space, Boris Dragosani, and I know your bravery is greater than that of any cosmonaut. Science fiction to the contrary, there are no monsters where they go. But the frontiers you cross are the very haunts of horror! I know these things . . .’
The man in the other room sat up, shuddered long and hard. The greyness crept back into his limbs, his body. ‘Yes, Gregor,’ he said.
For all that Dragosani could not see him, still Borowitz nodded, saying, ‘Then you do understand?’
The naked man sighed, hung his head again, asked: ‘What is it you wish to know?’
Borowitz licked his lips, leaned closer to the screen, said, Two things. The name of the man who plotted with that eviscerated pig in there, and proof which I can take before the Presidium. Not only am I in jeopardy without this knowledge, but you too. Yes, and the entire branch. Remember, Boris Dragosani, there are those in the KGB who would eviscerate us – if only they could find a way!’
The other said nothing but returned to the trolley carrying the remains of the corpse. He stood over the violated mess, and in his face was written his intent: the ultimate violation. He breathed deeply, expanding his .lungs and letting the air out slowly, then repeating the procedure; and each time his chest seemed to swell just a little larger, while his skin rapidly and quite visibly returned to its deep slate-grey hue. After several minutes of this, finally he turned his gaze upon the tray of surgical instruments in its case.