When the train reached the end of the line, Lom stayed aboard and came all the way back, continuing on south past Dukhonin Square till he was near the place where he was to meet Florian. Back on the emptying streets the freezing air smelled of engine fumes. Lighted windows shone with a bleak electrical brilliance. From everywhere Foundation Mountain was visible, a darkened wall against the northern sky. Lom thought he could hear a long freight train rumbling through the town, making the pavement tremble. But he wasn’t sure.
The Magnetic Bakery was still open but there was no sign of Florian. Office workers were drinking tea and reading newspapers. The radio played band music. Lom ordered an aquavit and grabbed an abandoned paper from the next table. The Vlast True Reporter. It was yesterday’s edition. He started to read it, just to pass the time till Florian came.
The man called Fohn, whose name he’d seen on various announcements in Mirgorod and who was now apparently the president of the Vlast, had made a speech in the new capital, Kholvatogorsk. So Mirgorod wasn’t the capital any more? And where the fuck is Kholvatogorsk? Lom had a dizzy feeling that the whole world had changed and shifted while he’d been flying across the landscape in Gretskaya’s Kotik.
Fohn’s speech was full of dull good news: industrial targets would be exceeded in the coming quarter, despite the recent upheaval of relocation, and steel production was heading for an all-time high. Shock workers had risen to the challenge. Lom skimmed the rest of the paper. Working hours were to be increased again. About the war there was almost nothing: inconclusive skirmishes on the southern front; Seva recaptured from the Archipelago yet again. There was a small inside paragraph about the stalwart resistance of encircled Mirgorod, with extracts from a fierce speech of defiance from a General Rizhin, who was Commissar for City Defence. Reading between the lines, it seemed that Mirgorod was doomed and the Vlast had decided it didn’t care. The piece was accompanied by a smudgy photograph of Rizhin. Lom almost ignored it, but something about the long narrow face caught his attention. His heart missed a beat.
It was Kantor. General Rizhin, Commissar for Mirgorod City Defence, was Josef Kantor.
When Florian came, Lom was nursing his untouched aquavit and watching his own reflection in the darkened window. Florian sat opposite Lom and put his astrakhan hat on the table between them. He looked worried. A waitress bustled over but he waved her away.
‘Chazia is here already,’ he said. ‘The train arrived last night. Late. We must have heard it pass. It didn’t stop in the town. They went straight through and into the mountain. Travelling at speed.’
For the second time in an hour Lom felt the bottom drop out of his world.
‘Maroussia?’ he said. ‘What about Maroussia?’
‘I don’t know. Somebody said there was a woman travelling with Chazia. It could be her.’
‘We have to get into the mountain,’ said Lom. ‘We have to do that now. Tonight.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘We haven’t got time to figure this out for ourselves,’ Lom continued. ‘We need some assistance here.’
‘Yes,’ said Florian.
‘Someone who can get us past whatever security they have out there. Someone who can take us right to Chazia.’
‘The name of such a person,’ said Florian, ‘is Yakov Khyrbysk. Professor Yakov Khyrbysk, director of the Foundation for Physico-Technical Machines. Professor Khyrbysk spends his days working inside Foundation Mountain but he has an apartment in the Sharashka district, in a building called the Foundation Hall. It’s not more than a mile from here. By this time of the evening he will be at home. He is not married and lives alone. I have his address. He is not expecting us. I do not suggest we telephone ahead.’