'clouds' to play down stocks. Or preachers proclaming the end of the world. Or perhaps film producers putting out things like 'Bob Merrile Vanquishes Horsemen From Nowhere'. All of that is nothing more than a broken sewage main. I have something quite different in mind...." "War?" "With whom? The 'clouds'? I'm not an idiot to think that mankind is sufficiently armed to combat a civilization that is capable of creating all manner of atomic structures. I spoke of chasing out the 'clouds', more precisely of the necessity to find ways and means of contributing to this aim." The Admiral added: "Powerful as this civilization is, it might have a weak spot, an Achilles heel. Then why shouldn't we seek it? It seems to me that our scientists are not energetic enough in making contacts, and not so much in the sense of reaching an understanding between us human beings and the strangers, but in the sense of a direct, immediate, so to say, spatial approach to the cosmic visitors in order to study and observe them. Why is it that their terrestrial base has not yet been located? I would send out a number of expeditions, one of the aims being to locate the weak spot that I am sure they have. The problem is one of vulnerability. Then everything would take on quite a different aspect." In this rather loud and outspoken interview the Admiral did not appear to me to be either a maniac or an eccentric, but simply not a very clever person. Yet I felt that his consistent, fanatical prejudice might, in the future, be still more dangerous than the as yet undeclphered actions of our visitors from space. This was slightly hinted at by the interviewer when he cautiously pointed out that to include Admiral Thompson in the American scientific delegation to the Paris international conference might complicate coordination of its efforts. I passed on both the clippings together with Martin's letter to Zernov in the plane. We occupied what amounted to a separate compartment because it was isolated by the high backs of seats in front and in back. Osovets and Rogovin were to arrive in Paris in two days, just as the congress got underway. We had left earlier so as to take part in the press conference of eye witnesses and to meet the Americans from MacMurdo who did not share Admiral Thompson's views and who had acquired a certain amount of fresh experience with the cosmic visitors after the Admiral had left. We had just had breakfast after taking off from the Moscow airport at Sheremetievo. It was cool in the plane and all the little local sounds like rustling newspapers and conversation were drowned out by the subdued roar of the jet engines. This was just the time for a talk about Martin's letter. While Zernov was reading and rereading the pages of the letter I whispered to Irene: "You remember the letter of course. Try to recall all unclear places and formulate some questions. Zernov is like a professor at the lectern who does not like imprecision, misunderstanding." "Why? Is there such a thing as precise misunderstanding?" "Naturally. What I don't understand I doubt. The imprecise kind is when you can't determine the chief unclear point, a stupid question and wide-open know-nothing eyes." I hid behind the newspaper preferring not to hear the reply. Anyway, I would have to formulate all the obscurities by myself. What is the difference between Martin's werewolves and the memorable doubles? I grouped them mentally: empty eyes, lack of understanding of many questions addressed to them, automatic movements and actions, confused ideas about time, vision unlike human vision; they were not able to see the sun, the blue sky and were not surprised at the electric light on the street in the daytime. They did not appear to have any human memory: Martin's girl did not simply fail to recognize Martin, she did not remember him. The bullets from Martin's pistol penetrated these people without causing any bodily harm. Hence, the inner Structure of their bodies differed from human beings. Apparently, the "clouds" did not copy people in this case but only set up externally similar robots with a restricted programme. Thus, we have the first absurd feature: why was the method of simulation changed and within what limits was it changed? But the clouds built models of things too, not only humans. The duplicate of our tracked vehicle was real. So were all the things in Martin's city. The drinks could be drunk, the cigarettes smoked and the cars driven in. And the bullets of the police-guns even went through brick walls. The houses had real windows and doors, and real cafes dealt in real coffee and hot dogs, the owner of a real gas station sold real oil and gasoline. At the same time, real automobiles appeared like phantoms on the highway that went through the city. They appeared out of nothing, out of emptiness and disappeared at the other end just as mystically and into the same emptiness or nothing, into the cloud of dust that had just been raised by the passing car itself. Not all the doors in the houses led somewhere. Some of them did not lead anywhere, for beyond was a void-a nonpenetrable and black void like compressed smoke. So there was some other system of model-building surrounding things that restricted it in some way. Let us now formulate the second unclear point: Why another system, for what purposes and in what way restricted? Another puzzling thing: Zernov had already allowed for a different system of simulation in the building of the duplicate airplane on the way to Moscow from Mirny. Did this coincide with what Martin had described? "To some extent," replied Zernov, after thinking. "Apparently, the clouds create different models in unlike ways. Remember the crimson fog in the plane when you couldn't see across the aisle? In Sand City it isn't even known exactly whether the fog reached that thickness. The paper writes that the air was transparent and pure but coloured or lighted red. The type of model should be connected with the density of the gas. I think that the people in Martin's phantom city were still less human beings than the passengers of our duplicate plane. Why? Let's try to figure it out. You remember, at Karachi, I told you that the people in our airplane were not modelled to the full extent of their biological complexity but only so far as their specific functions go. The entire complicated psychic life of the human being was disconnected, crossed out because the makers of the model did not need it. But the passengers of our plane were not merely Aeroflot passengers. You wouldn't say that, socially speaking, they were only linked by their specific trip, would you? And there were a lot of other things besides: the year spent together, work, friendly or unfriendly relations with one's neighbours, plans for the future, musings about coming reunions. All these factors expanded and complicated their function as passengers. That is why the creators of the model probably had to refine it and retain some cells of the memory, certain mental processes. I think that life in the duplicate plane was very much like our own." "Or was repeated like a tape recording," I added. "Hardly. They build models not patterns. Even in Martin's city, life did not repeat what was occurring in the real Sand City. For example, the police pursuit. But note that people in this model of the city are still farther removed from human beings. Only the function is reproduced: the pedestrian walks, the driver drives a car, the salesman sells or offers goods, and buyers buy or refuse. That is all. Yet they are not puppets. They can think, reason, and act, but only within the limits of the function. Tell the waitress in a cafeteria of the modelled city that you don't like the hot dogs. She will straightway say that canned hot dogs do not spoil, that the can was opened hardly fifteen minutes ago, but that if you would like to have her give you a beefsteak instead, well done or with blood, as you like, she'll see to it. She can flirt, wisecrack if she's smart, since that too comes within her professional function. That is why she did not recall Martin: he was not associated with her work." "But why did the policemen remember him?" Irene asked. "He didn't rob a bank, or pick any pockets or get drunk and fight on the street. Where is the connection with the function?" "You remember the clipping from the newspaper? During the fog a New York lawyer was beaten up. The police were late and, unfortunately, did not find the culprits. You noticed the 'unfortunately', didn't you? The police of course knew who was to blame but did not plan to find them. But why not find somebody in place of them? Some kind of drunkards or bums? That was the purpose of the police at that moment. In the real Sand City they did not find anyone. In the modelled city, they came upon Martin and his friends. "I would have liked to be in his place," I said with envy. "And get a bullet through your head? The bullets were real." "And Martin's were too. Maybe he did miss after all?" "I don't think so," said Zernov, "it is simply that wounds dangerous to human beings are not dangerous when it comes to these bio-golems. Their bodies were hardly very much like the human organism." "And the eyes? They saw Martin." "Like a crossword puzzle," Irene laughed. "The words fit, but they're not the words. Certain things dovetail, but a lot doesn't." "Certainly a crossword puzzle," Zernov added smiling. "What else could it be? You can't get hold of the policeman and put him on the operating table to find out what makes him tick. Of course, then we would find out whether he has the same innards as we. What do we have to resolve the problem with? A slide rule? A microscope? X-rays? It's a joke. We haven't got anything so far, except our logic. And words. Incidentally, the eyes are not the same," he said, referring to my remark. "They saw Martin but they didn't see the sun. They are not our eyes. Because they were programmed to exist only within the limits of a certain modelled hour. Time itself was simulated. And the cars on the highway were modelled in motion within the limits of the same interval of time and the same region of space. That is how it came about that they entered the twin city from nowhere and vanished into no one knows where. A real puzzle," he smiled. "Camouflage," I added. "Something like our houses. The outside wall is a real wall and the inside empty, a void, a black nothingness. I'd like to see it through," I said, sighing. "We're supposed to be eye-witnesses, but what have we. seen? Not much." "We'll see some more," put in Zernov mysteriously, "you and I and Martin too are labelled. They'll show us something new yet, perhaps accidentally but maybe purposely. I'm afraid they will." "You're afraid?" I asked in surprise. "Yes, I'm afraid," Zernov said and fell silent. The plane had cut through the clouds and was descending towards the distant city shrouded in haze with the familiar, from childhood, silhouette of the delicate lacework of the Eiffel Tower. From a distance it looked like an obelisk made of the finest nylon thread.  * PART THREE. JULIET AND SPECTRES Chapter XVII. PRESS CONFERENCE AT THE HOTEL "HOMOND" In connection with the coming congress, Paris was flooded with tourists. Our delegation stayed at the Homond Hotel, a small first-class establishment that was proud of being old-fashioned. The wooden staircases creaked, the heavy draperies were dust covered and elegant ancient chandeliers reminded one of Balzac's day. Candles were alight on the tables, windowsills, at hearth places-not as a tribute to fashion, but as stubborn competitors of electricity, which was something they had to put up with, nothing more. The Americans did not like that arrangement, but we did not seem to feel it. Perhaps because we hardly stayed inside for more than a few minutes. Irene and I spent the two hours before the press conference taking our first sights of the city. I gaped at every architectural wonder while she condescendingly explained when and for whom it was built. "How come you know Paris so well?" I asked in surprise. "This is my third visit, and then I was born in Paris. My baby carriage travelled these very streets. I'll tell you about it some day," she said mysteriously and laughed out loud. "Even the doorman at the hotel greeted me like an old acquaintance." "When?" "When you paid off the taxicab. Zernov and I went in to the lobby and the doorman-an old bald-headed lord, you might say-looked us over with professional indifference, and then suddenly opened his eyes wide, stepped back and looked at me intently. 'What's the trouble?' I asked in surprise. But there he stood looking at me, silent. So Zernov asked: 'You probably recognize mademoiselle?' 'No, no,' he said collecting his wits, 'mademoiselle is simply very much like one of our clients.' But he seemed to recognize me, though I've never stayed at that hotel. Strange." When we returned to the hotel, the doorman did not even look at Irene, but he smiled and said that we were expected. "Go straight to the rostrum". The conference was indeed just about to begin in the restaurant hall of the hotel. The Americans had already arrived and took up the greater part of the concert stage. Television operators were racing about with their black boxes. Correspondents and newsmen with cameras, notebooks and tape recorders were set up at desks. Waiters were offering bottles with multicoloured labels. We had a table on the stage too, and it had already been well supplied with all manner of drinks by the Americans. Irene remained in the hall; no translation was needed since all, or nearly all, present spoke both French and English. True, my French was not much. I understood fairly well, but couldn't speak very well, but I figured Zernov's presence would relieve me of most of the conversation. I was wrong on that score, though. The newsmen were out to squeeze every ounce of us "witnesses of the phenomenon". And what is more, I was the author of the film that was making a great impression on Parisian audiences for the second week now. The conference was chaired by MacEdou, an astronomer from MacMurdo. He was already used to the reporters wisecracks about MacEdou from MacMurdo and "much ado about MacEdou." But he was hard to embarrass. He steered our ship in the conference storm with the skill of an experienced helmsman. Even his voice was that of a captain-loud, imperative especially when the questions got too insistent. It was not by accident that I referred to the storm. Three hours previously, journalists met in another Parisian hotel with another "witness of the phenomenon" and a delegate to the congress, Admiral Thompson. He refused to take part in our press conference for reasons which he preferred to tell newsmen in a private talk. The import of the reasons and the gist of his pronouncements became clear after the first queries were posed. The delegates specifically questioned gave their answers, all other queries were handled by MacEdou. I didn't remember everything, but what I did went like a tape-recording. "Do you have any information about the press conference of Admiral Thompson?" That was the first tennis ball thrown into the hall and it was tossed back by the chairman as follows: "I'm sorry to say I know nothing, but honestly speaking, I am not very worried." "But that's a sensational statement the Admiral made." "Very possible." "He demands preventive measures against the rose clouds." "You print that in your papers. I would like questions." "What will you say if some of the UN delegates demand punitive measures against the newcomers?" "I am not the minister for war, I can't say anything about such demands." "But if you were the minister what would you say?" "Haven't been thinking along those lines for a career." Laughter and applause was the reply of the hall. MacEdou made a wry face, he didn't like theatrical effects. Not even smiling he took his seat without a word, since the man who had asked the question gave up. But he was quickly followed by a second one. He did not risk a collision with the eloquence of MacEdou and picked another victim. "I would like to ask Professor Zernov a question. Do you agree that the actions of the rose clouds might endanger humanity?" "Of course not," Zernov responded at once. "So far the clouds have not done any harm at all to human beings. Reduction of the terrestrial ice mass will only improve the climate. No damage has been inflicted either on nature or on the work of man." "Do you insist on that view?" "Absolutely. The only harm done was to a stool that disappeared in Mirny together with my duplicate, and an automobile that Martin left in the duplicated Sand City." "What automobile?" "When?" "Where's Martin?" "Martin's coming tomorrow evening." That was MacEdou. "Was he in Sand City?" "Ask him yourself." "How does Professor Zernov know about Martin's car that vanished?" MacEdou turned round to Zernov and looked questioningly at him. Zernov said: "I have the news directly from Martin himself. I am not empowered to give the details, however. But I think that one old stool and a second-hand car is not so much damage to humanity." "A question for Professor Zernov!" came several cries from the hall. "What is your attitude towards the Admiral's statement that doubles represent a 5th column of the invaders and a prelude to a future galactic war?" "I feel that the Admiral has been reading too much science fiction of late and he takes it all for reality." "A question to Anokhin, author of the film. The Admiral believes that you are a double and that your film was taken by a double, whereas the episode of the death of your double in the film was actually the death of Anokhin himself. Have you proof that this is not true?" I could only shrug my shoulders. How could I prove it? MacEdou answered for me: "Anokhin doesn't need to offer any proof. In science we have the inviolate principle of 'presumption of an established fact'. Scientists do not need to verify and prove the falsity of some groundless assertion, let the author prove that his assertion is true." There was some more applause. But this time the lanky MacEdou interrupted the hand-clapping: "This is not a show, gentlemen." "What does the chairman think about Mr. Thompson?" someone cried out. "You worked with the Admiral for a whole year in an Antarctic expedition. What is your impression of him as a scientist and as a man?" "That's the first reasonable question so far," MacEdou grinned. "Unfortunately, I cannot satisfy the curiosity of the questioner. The Admiral and I worked in the same expedition and at the same geographical site, but in different spheres. He is an administrator and I am an astronomer. We hardly ever came into contact. He never displayed the least interest in my astronomical observations and I do not care a bit for his administrative abilities. I'm pretty sure he himself lays no claim to scientific titles, at any rate I am not acquainted with any of his scientific papers. As a person, I hardly know him at all, though I am convinced that he is honest and is not acting in the interest of politics or in self-interest. He has not made an oath to anticommunism nor is he taking part in the presidential campaign. What he preaches is, I believe, based on a false prejudice and on erroneous conclusions." "What is your opinion about how humanity should act?" "Recommendations will be given by the Congress." "Then I have a question that concerns you as an astronomer. Where do you think these monsters have come from?" MacEdou laughed out loud for the first time and quite sincerely. "I don't find anything so monstrous in them. They resemble horsemen or the delta-wing of an airplane, sometimes a very large and pretty flower, and at other times a rose-colour dirigible. Probably aesthetic views differ, theirs and ours. We'll find out where they have come from when they themselves desire to answer that question, if of course we are able to pose it. It may be they are from a neighbouring stellar system. Perhaps the Andromeda Nebula, or from the nebula in the Triangle constellation. It's senseless to guess." "You said: when they answer themselves. So you think contact is possible?" "So far not a single attempt at contact has yielded any results. But it is attainable. Of that I am convinced if they are living intelligent beings and not biosystems with a specific programme." "Do you have in view robots?" "I do not refer to robots. I have in view programmed systems in general. In that case, contact depends on the programme." "But what if they are self-programming systems?" "Then everything depends on how the programme varies under the effects of external factors. Attempts at contact are also an external factor." "May I ask Anokhin a question? Did you observe the actual process of model construction?" "It can't be observed," I remarked, "because the person is in a comatose state." "But a copy of the tracked vehicle appeared right before your eyes. A huge machine made of metal and plastic. Where did it come from? Out of what materials was it made?" "Out of the air," I said. There was laughter in the hall. "There is nothing to laugh about," Zernov put in. "That's exactly what it is: from the air, out of elements unknown to us and delivered in some kind of novel manner." "A miracle?" came the question with a measure of mockery. But Zernov was not taken aback. " 'Miracles' has been the label, at one time or another, for anything that could not be accounted for at the given level of knowledge. Our level likewise allows for the unaccountable, but it also presumes that explanations will be forthcoming in the course of subsequent development of scientific progress. And its momentum at present already allows us to predict, roughly of course, that in the middle or towards the end of next century it will be possible to reproduce objects by means of waves and fields. What waves and what fields is a matter for the level of future knowledge. But I am personally convinced that in that corner of the cosmos, whence these beings came, science and life have already reached that level." "What kind of life is it?" asked a woman's voice, or so it seemed to me, with a hysterical ring to it and obvious horror. "How can we converse with it if it is a liquid, what sort of contact is possible if it is a gas?" "Here, drink some water," MacEdou calmly took over. "I don't see you, but it seems to me that you are overexcited." "I am simply beginning to believe Mr. Thompson." "I congratulate Mr. Thompson on another convert. As to thinking structures consisting of a liquid or colloid, I can say that we exist in a semiliquid state. The chemistry of our life is the chemistry of carbon and aqueous solutions." "And the chemistry of their life?" "What is the solvent? Ours is water, and theirs?" "Maybe its fluorine life?" The answer came from an American on the extreme right. "Everything that I am going to say is hypothetical. Fluorine life? Don't know. In that case the solvent might be hydrogen fluoride or fluorine oxide. Then it's a cold planet. For fluorine creatures a temperature of minus one hundred degrees is pleasantly cool. To put it mildly, in that coolish medium, ammonium life is possible too. It is even more realistic since ammonia occurs in the atmospheres of many of the major planets, whereas liquid ammonia exists at a temperature of thirty-five degrees below zero. Almost terrestrial conditions, you might say. And if one gives thought to the adaptability of the guests to our earthly conditions, the ammonia hypothesis will appear to be the most probable. But if one presumes that the strangers themselves create the necessary conditions for their life, any other hypothesis, even the most unlikely, is possible." "A question for the chairman as a mathematician and astronomer. What was the Russian mathematician Kolmogorov referring to when he said that upon an encounter with extraterrestrial life we might even be unable to recognize it? Isn't this a case?" MacEdou replied without a smile. "He undoubtedly had in mind questions that are sometimes asked at press conferences." There was again laughter in the hall and again the reporters, sidestepping MacEdou, attacked from the flanks. The next victim was the physicist Vierre, who had just taken a drink of whiskey and soda. "Mr. Vierre, you are a specialist in elementary particle physics, aren't you?" "Let's say yes." "Well, if the clouds are material, that means they consist of familiar elementary particles, isn't that true?" "I don't know, it might be otherwise." "But most of the world we know consists of nucleons, electrons, and quanta of radiation." "And if we reside in the smaller part of the known world or of a world that we do not know anything about? And suppose that world consists of totally unknown particles that have no counterparts in our physics?" The questioner was floored by the sudden supposition of Vierre. At this point somebody else remembered me. "Couldn't the cameraman Anokhin say what he thinks of the hit song of his film in Paris?" "I don't know it," I said, "and what is more I haven't even seen my film in Paris." "But it's been shown all over the world. In the Pleyaut Hall Ive Montan sings it. In the United States, Pete Seeger. In London, the Beatles have a version. Perhaps you've heard it in Moscow." I could only shrug. "But it was written by a Russian. Csavier only made the arrangement for jazz." And then he rather musically sang the familiar words in French: "the horsemen from nowhere...." "I know," I cried out. "The author is a friend of mine, also a member of the Antarctic expedition, Anatoly Dyachuk." "Dichuk?" someone asked. "Not Dichuk, but Dyachuk," I corrected. "Poet, scientist and composer. ..." I caught Zernov's ironic glance, but I paid no attention: here was Tolya getting famous. I was tossing his name to the newspapers of Europe and America and not fearing to be out of tune, I took it up in Russian, "The horsemen from nowhere... What is it, a dream or a myth?..." I was no longer singing alone, the whole hall had picked up the song, some in French, others in English and still others without the words. When everything quieted down, MacEdou delicately rang his bell. "I think the conference is over, gentlemen," he said. Chapter XVIII. A NIGHT OF TRANSFORMATIONS After the press conference we went to our rooms and agreed to meet in an hour for dinner in the same restaurant. I was more tired after that session than in some of the most exhausting Antarctic treks. Only a good sleep could clarify my thoughts and bring me out of the dull apathy that I was in. But sleep, the thing I most needed, wouldn't come no matter what I did. I tossed from side to side on the couch. Finally, I got up, put my head under the cold-water faucet and went to the restaurant to finish off the day so loaded with impressions. But the day was not yet over, and impressions were still to come. One of them passed fleetingly without attracting my attention, though at first it appeared rather strange. I was going down the staircase behind a man in a brown military uniform. Wasn't it, with square shoulders? The grey whiskers and the crew cut emphasized still more the military in him. Straight as a ramrod, he passed the French doorman without turning his head, and then suddenly stopped, turned and asked: "Etienne?" I got the impression -that the cold official eyes of the doorman flashed a sign of real fear. "I beg your pardon, sir?" he said with professional readiness. I slowed down. "Remember me?" the whiskered man asked smiling slightly. "Yes, sir, I do," the Frenchman said in almost a whisper. "That's good," the other replied, "it's good when people remember you." And he went down to the restaurant. Purposely stamping hard on the creaky steps, I went down the stairs, and with an innocent face asked the doorman: "You don't know that gentleman who just entered the restaurant, do you?" "No, Monsieur," replied the Frenchman looking me over with the same indifference of the official. "A tourist from West Germany. If you want me to, I can find out in the registry." "No, no," I replied and went on, forgetting almost at once about what had occurred. "Yuri," said a familiar voice. I turned around. There was Donald Martin coming towards me in an absurd suede jacket and brightly coloured sports shirt with open collar. He had been sitting alone at a long table drinking some kind of dark brown beverage. He embraced me and the heavy odour of liquor hit me in the face. But he wasn't drunk, the same old Martin, big bear-like and decisive. This meeting somehow brought me back to the icy wastes of the Antarctic, to the mystery of the rose clouds and the secret hope, warmed by Zernov's words, that "you and I and Martin are labelled. They'll show us something new yet. I'm afraid they will." Personally, I wasn't afraid. I was waiting. We reminisced for only a short time before dinner was served. Zernov and Irene appeared. Our end of the table livened up right away. We became so noisy that a young lady and a little girl in glasses got up and went to the far end of the table. The little girl put a thick book in a colourful binding on the table; opposite them a kind looking provincial cure took a seat. He looked at the girl and said. "What a little girl and already wearing glasses!" "She reads too much," her mother complained. "And what's that you're reading?" asked the cure. "Fairy tales," the girl answered. "Which one do you like best?" "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." The cure was indignant: "You shouldn't let a child that age read stories like that." "What if she has a vivid imagination?" "She'll have nightmares?" "Oh, that's nothing," said the lady indifferently. "She'll read and forget it." Irene distracted me from the cure and the girl. "Let's change places," she suggested. "I'd rather that guy over there looked at my back." I turned around and saw the man with the whiskers, the acquaintance-and an unpleasant one it must have been-with whom the doorman decided not to reveal. The whiskers were looking intently at Irene, too much so in fact. "You have the luck," I grinned. "Another old acquaintance of yours?" "The same as the lord in the office. Never seen him before." At this point a journalist from Brussels took a seat near us. I had seen him at the press conference. He had come here a week ago and knew practically everyone. "Who's that gentleman over there?" I asked him nodding in the direction of the whiskers. "Lange," said the Belgian screwing up a face. "Herman Lange from West Germany. I think he has a law firm in Dusseldorf. An unpleasant character. And next to him, not at the table d'hote, at the next table, do you see the man with jerking face and hands? The famous Italian Carresi, film producer and the husband of Violetta Cecci. She's not here right now, she's finishing a film in Palermo. They say he got a smashing script for her in a new film. Variations on historical themes, cloak and dagger stuff. Incidentally, the man opposite him with the black eye-bank, he's a well-known figure too, in the same line: Gaston Mongeusseau, the first swordsman of France... ." He continued to name celebrities around the hall, giving details that we immediately forgot. It was only when the first dish was served that he came to a halt. Then, no one knows why, everybody stopped talking. A strange silence gripped the hall, one could hear only the clinking of knives and forks on dishes. I looked at Irene. She too was eating in silence, rather lazily, with half-open eyes. "What's the matter?" I asked her. "Want to sleep," she said, hiding a yawn, "and my head aches. I'm not going to wait for the dessert." She got up and left. Others followed. Zernov, after a few minutes of silence, said that he too would probably leave to look over the materials of his speech. Then the Belgian left. Soon the restaurant was practically empty, only the waiters were still mooning about like sleepy flies. "What's this desertion about?" I asked one of them. "An unexplainable desire to sleep, Monsieur. Don't you feel that way yourself? They say the atmospheric pressure has changed sharply. There'll probably be a thunderstorm." Then he too left, dragging his feet, practically asleep. "Are you afraid of a thunderstorm?" I asked Martin. "Not on the ground," he said laughing. "Let's take a look around to see what Paris is like at night." "What's happened to the light?" he asked suddenly. It had grown dim all of a sudden and had taken on a mirky reddish hue. "I can't make it out." "The red fog of Sand City. D'you get my letter?" "You think it's they again? Nonsense." "They might have taken a dive down here." "Is it at Paris as such or this hotel in particular?" "Who knows?" Martin said with a sigh. "Let's go out," I suggested. When we passed the office of the doorman, I noticed that it was somehow different from what it had been before. Everything had changed. The draperies weren't the same, the lampshade in place of a chandelier, a mirror that hadn't been there. I told Martin but he was unconcerned. "Don't remember. You're thinking up things." I looked at the doorman and was still more surprised. This was a new man. Very much like the other one, but still not the same. Much younger, no baldness and dressed in a striped apron he didn't have on before, as far as I could remember. Maybe his son had taken over. "Come on, come on," Martin called. "Where you going, Monsieur?" the doorman stopped us. There was-or it seemed to me-an ominous note in his voice. "Does it make any difference to you?" I asked in English. Let him show some respect, that's what 1 thought. But he did not respond, he only said: "Curfew, Monsieur. You can't go out. You run a risk." "What's got into him, mad or what?" I said to Martin. "The hell with him," Martin replied. "Come on." And we went out into the street. But we stopped stock still and reached out for each other so as not to fall. The darkness was complete, no shadows, no light, only an even dense ink-like darkness. "What's this," Martin said hoarsely. "Paris without light?" "Don't know what it is." "Jesus, there's not a light, nothing." "The power mains must have broken." "No candles even, nothing!" "Maybe it'd be better to go back, what do you think?" "No," said Martin stubbornly, "I'm not giving up so soon, let's see what's up." "At what?" Without answering, he went ahead. I followed holding on to his pocket. Then we stopped. A star flashed high up in the black sky. Another flash shot out to the left of us. I tried to catch the light and touched glass. We were standing near a shop show-window. Without separating from Martin, and drawing him along after me, I felt my way forward. "This wasn't here before," I said stopping. "What's that?" asked Martin. "This show-window. And the shop too. Irene and I walked this way. There was an iron fence. It's not here now." "Wait a minute," Martin was apprehensive. It wasn't the fence or the window that bothered him. He was listening. In front of us something crashed a couple of times. "Sounds like thunder," I said. "More like a burst of submachine-gun fire," Martin objected. "You sure?" "You think I don't know the difference between thunder and gunfire?" "I guess we ought to go back." "Let's go on for a while. Maybe we'll meet somebody. Where the hell have all the people of Paris gone to?" "Listen, that's shooting. Who? Where?" As if to confirm my words, the gun gave another burst. Then the noise sank into that of an approaching car. Two beams of light bit into the darkness, licked the stone pavement. I shuddered. Why stone pavement? Both streets around our hotel just hours ago were asphalt. Martin poked me in the dark suddenly and pressed me to the wall. A truck with men in the back raced past us. "Soldiers," said Martin/They're in uniform and helmets. With submachine-guns." "How did you find out?" I was surprised. "I didn't notice anything." "Training." "You know what," I thought out loud, "I don't think we're in Paris, and the hotel is not ours, and the street's different too." "That's what I've been telling you." "What?" "The red fog. Remember? They've dived in, that's definite." At that moment somebody up above us opened a window. We could hear the squeak of the frame and the shaking of a poorly nailed down window pane. There was no light. But from the darkness over our heads, a hoarse squeaky voice- typical of a French radio announcer-a radio was on the windowsill. "Attention! Attention! You will now hear the report of the commandant of the city. The two British pilots that landed by parachute from a plane shot down are still hiding out in St. Disier. In one quarter of an hour, the search will begin. Every block will be combed, house by house. All men found in the house with the enemy parachutists will be shot. Only immediate release of the hiding enemies will halt this operation." Something clicked in the radio and the voice died out. "Get that?" I asked Martin. "I guess so, they're looking for some kind of pilots.'" "English." "In Paris?" "No, in some kind of St. Disier." "They're going to shoot somebody?" "All the men in the house where they find the parachutists." "What for? Is France at war with England?" "We must be delirious or under hypnosis, or asleep. Try pinching me." Martin pinched me so hard I yelled out. "Hey, don't yell, they'll take us for the English pilots." "Listen, that's right," I said. "You're almost English. And a pilot too. Let's go back, it isn't far from here." I walked into the darkness and found myself in a brightly lit room. Actually, only part of it was illuminated, like the corner of a film set caught in the beam of a searchlight: the window was blacked out with a drapery, the table was covered with a flowery oilcloth, there was an enormous multicoloured parrot on a perch in a high wire cage, and an old woman cleaning out the cage with a rag. From behind I heard Martin whisper, "What's all this?" "Haven't the slightest idea." Chapter XIX. THIS MAD MAD MAD WORLD The old woman lifted her head and looked at us. In her yellow parchment-like face, grey curls and prim Castilian shawl there was something artificial, almost unreal, improbable. Nevertheless, she was a person and her gimlet eyes seemed to screw into us with cold unkindness. The parrot too was real and alive and