AND STILL THE whiteout wrapped the Retreat.

"Oh, and let's not forget how Konstantin fucking Tsiolkovsky is bound to invent the Geiger counter just as soon as he gets to Tunguska!  Do I really have to be the amanuensis of this rot?  Why don't we just collar a couple of bottles, and all get pissed."

"I do sympathize," Tisha said to Igor, "but why don't you look at it this way: suppose we just shitcan the original plan for the movie?"

"Are you as daft as he is?"

"Half a tick daft!  Just listen.  Suppose we made a different movie---i.e., this other movie that Arthur is handing us on a silver platter.  It could be highly original, very imaginative!  It would put our names on the map: as Soviet artists of the first caliber!"

"It could just as easily land us in a political prison.  If some Physics boffin in Academgorodok or Krasnoyarsk, unquote, happens to be scribbling secret equations for "time-flux" travel!"

"Oh, I hardly think that's very likely.  Don't forget, too:  this new movie would be anti-Imperialist---the Americans only use their temporal technology for military purposes.  Whereas those who come after us use it to colonize the stars.  Then their Shield buggers up everyone's hopes of the stars and causes the Tunguska explosion instead.  It could be a cutting-edge parable that would make Stanislaw Lem jealous."  Tisha turned to Bragin. "What do you think, Leo?"

Bragin was appalled.  "But this would present the split-hypnosis technique in entirely the wrong light!  It would show the subject splitting into two separate fantasy personae!  No, no, and no!"

"What would you have us do, then?  Scrap the whole thing, after running our Delko Lookalike Contest?  We'd be the laughingstock of all the U.S.S.R.  I say we should make the very best of what's happened---and we'll knock everyone sideways with it!"

"I think we ought to get pissed," said Igor.  "Maybe we'll see our way out through the bottom of a glass, or six.  In vodka veritas!---or is that your kind of line, Tolkachyov?"

Arthur ignored him.  He was glancing from the cotton wood outside the window to Diana, and back, as if to prompt her.  

"And what's the climax of this new movie, pray tell?"

"I've no doubt Arthur will tell us presently.  As soon as he finds one himself."

"I don't suppose the old story matters very much!  Pretty stupid idea, really!  Kind of simple-minded, yes? What kind of blockhead could ever have dreamed it up?"

"Oh, please!" said Tisha.  "This'll be an experimental movie....and it'll be a thoroughly committed one in the bargain."

"Committed?  It's us lot who should be committed---to the nearest nuthouse!" Igor glared at Bragin.  "Oops, the nuthouse is here already."  He jumped up.  "I refuse to have any more to do with this farcical distortion of an honest project----into sheer fantasy.  I'm walking out, in fact.  Right now!"  

"You can't do that" Arthur said softly.

"Oh, so now he's the bloody scriptwriter and security man and everyone else, is he?"

Diana hesitated, then nodded to Arthur.  "Yes, go on:  tell them."

Arthur spoke in a jolly way.  "Well, I'm sorry to spoil your weekend, Igor old bean, but it's physically impossible to get away from this place.   When we went out for a little walk back, Diana and I tried to go down the hill---and we found ourselves right back where we started.  I might add, we were walking in a perfectly straight line, too!"

"What?  Cuddling and smooching and you had time to watch where you were walking?"

Diana started up, as if to slap him.  "I suggest," she said icily, you try it yourself, Mr. Pig."

"Oh, I will."  Igor hauled out of his pocket the keys to the Film Unit's battered old Volga, garaged around the back of the building.

"You'll end up in a ditch," said Igor. "And where does that leave the rest of us if you run off with the car?"

"I'm sure you'll amuse yourself passably."

"Igor, I will not be bullied.  We need to explore this other option.  Let's keep an open mind, shall we?  We can always revert to your idea later on."

Igor jingled the keys.  "Forget it!"

Tisha pursed his lips.  "How very egocentric."

"He's quite the prima donna," Diana gladly added.

"All right. Look, dammit:  I've been challenged, haven't I?"  Igor flushed.  "So I'll drive down the hill, and I'll find somewhere and report our phone out of order.  Then I'll drive straight back up here again, right?  I swear to you, either I get out of this madhouse for a breather---or I hit the bottle!  Preferably on top of Arthur's skull!  In fact, if I don't leave this minute, I'm going to vomit!"

"Maybe a little hypnosis could help you?" Bragin pointed placatingly at the dusty sofa.

"Fuck off with your hypnosis."  Igor wrenched the door open and fled.

Bragin went over to close the doors.  "I do seem to recall that having me here was his idea to begin with."

"How can I apologize properly?"

Bragin shrugged Tisha's excuses away.  "I think Igor's notion of having a stiff drink wasn't a bad one at all."  He wandered across the window, but there was nothing whatsoever to be seen from it.

"First rate idea! Art, tell Alex to dig out a bottle and some glasses, will you?"

Arthur chuckled.  "Won't it look as if we're having a party to celebrate his absence?"

"Who gives a shit?" Diana said. "Besides, he's going to need a stiff drink as soon as he gets back."

"He will?" asked Bragin.

"Because he's not going to be able to drive down that hill. Because right now it isn't there!"

"Now, now, Diana, you know full well that the mind plays tricks on itself when there's reduced sensory input. Why, the very basis of hypnosis---"

Bragin didn't finish, nor did Arthur even reach the doors on his errand, for they burst open, and in stumbled Alex, gray with fright.

He headed for Tisha. "Comrade!  I must talk to you!"

"What's wrong, man?  The car hasn't crashed already, has it?"

"Car? What car?  I managed to phone out, that's what's wrong.  See, I've been testing the phone every now and then."

"I'll just bet you have," said Arthur.  "Who did you get? Yourself?"

Alex stared around, uncomprehending. "I dialed somebody I know.  But the guy on the other end was a total stranger.  'Who gave you this number?' he wants to know.  And: 'Why are you calling me on a Sunday for?' 'Eh, Comrade?' I say, reasonably, 'it's only Saturday afternoon.' So he starts in threatening and heaping abuse and calling me a capitalist fool and a silly joker---and next he says OGPU'll sort out the likes of me.  I ask you:  OGPU!  That's years and years ago."

Muffled by double glazing and the fog, they heard the engine of the Volga revving, choke full out....

"Are you sure about this, Alex?"

"I'm sure as Lenin was Lenin, Comrade Tolkachyov.  He said OGPU."

"He wasn't having you on."

"Not on that number, he wasn't."

They heard the car drive off very slowly, maybe there was a faint glow from its headlights, maybe there wasn't.

"Dear old Alex," Arthur draped an arm about the caretaker, nearly affectionately.  "Join the club."

"What club would that be?  What's going on here?   You two used the phone!  You called your own number---I saw you!  I say, what was the big idea behind that?"

"To see if it would ring.  And it did."

"Is that so?" Bragin asked Diana.  "You mean you phoned the same phone you were using, and you got it?  That's impossible!"

"And Alex phoned out," she said, "and he got somebody years and years ago, long before the KGB was even thought of.  I think we can all avoid asking Alex why he was phoning his favorite number."

"Yup," said Arthur. "We're all in the same boat now. We're riding out the time-storm."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Tisha cried.

"Well, it's what Diana and I discovered on our little stroll together..." Arthur cupped a hand behind his ear.  "Aha! And here he comes driving back, I do think.  Oh, man, I just can't wait to see the look on his face!"

"Shouldn't it be getting dark?" Bragin consulted his watch.  "Good Lord, it should be pitch black out there!  Ah---our lights must be illuminating the fog.  Weird effect."

"No night, nor day, muttered Diana. "Not anymore, time's gone away."

Somewhere around the corner, outside, a car engine roared and died.

"You know," said Arthur to her, "that means there isn't any secret funny business going on in physics labs.  The center of the thing's right here.  It's in this building.  It's us.  It's what we're doing!"

Feet came running down the hallway.  Igor appeared in the door.  His eyes bulged, as if he'd met the wicked Baba Yaga herself.

"It won't go down."

"What won't?  Your Volga?"

"The bloody hill won't go down!  It's not there.  I nearly drove into this building!   I had to jump on the brakes so I wouldn't crash!"

Arthur groaned. "You couldn't by any chance have skidded around in a full circle?  No, I guess not."  He relented. "Sorry, old boy---pardon my mockery?  Alex, be a good comrade and fetch a bottle of vodka? We all need a drink.  You do, too---come and join us."

"Why couldn't I drive away?" bleated Igor.287Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnarvIwJZ6A

"Because there's nowhere to drive to.  There's nothing out there at the moment. We can't leave till it's all over."

Igor subsided into an armchair.

With extraordinary dispatch, Alex fairly bustled in only a few moments later bearing a tray of glasses, with two half-liter bottles of Stolichnaya booked between two of his fingers.  Crashing the tray onto the table, he tore the caps off both bottles and poured shakily.  Igor hauled himself up, sniffing and snorting like a camel approaching an oasis.  Maybe this was just to clear the whole fog out of his nostrils.  Or it might have been to stop him from bursting into tears.