Kaliinin left the skimmer with a lively jump and motioned to Morrison, who emerged more sedately.
He said, "What happens to the skimmer now?"
She answered carelessly, "I'll pick it up on my return and take it back to the Grotto field if the weather holds. Come, let's go around to the front and I'll get you into your room, where you can rest a little and where we can plan the next step."
"The room with the soldiers watching me, you mean."
She said impatiently, "There'll be no soldiers watching you. We're not afraid of your trying to escape now." Then, with a quick glance around, she added, "Though I'd rather have the soldiers, actually."
Morrison looked about, too, a bit anxiously and decided he'd rather not have the soldiers. It occurred to him that if Konev came to reclaim him, as Kaliinin clearly feared he might do, he might easily come with soldiers at his back.
And then Morrison thought: Or is this really something to fear? She has a thing about Yuri. She'll believe anything of him.
The thought did not quiet him, however.
Morrison had not seen the hotel in broad daylight from outside; he had not had the leisure to study it in any case. It occurred to him that it was probably used only by visiting officials and special guests - such as he himself, if he could lay claim to the category. He wondered if, small as it was, it was ever full. Certainly, the two nights he had spent here had been quiet indeed. He recalled no noise in the corridors and the dining room, when he had eaten there, had been all but empty, too.
It was at the moment he thought of the dining room that they approached the front entrance and there, to one side, sitting in the sun and poring over a book, was a stoutish woman with reddish-brown hair. She was wearing half-spectacles, perched low on her nose. (Morrison was surprised at that bit of archaism. It was rare to see glasses in these days when eye-molding was routine and normal vision had truly become normal.)
It was the glasses and the studious look on her face that changed her appearance so that Morrison might easily not have recognized her. He would not have, perhaps, if he had not just thought of the dining room. The woman was the waitress to whom he had appealed for help three evenings before and who had failed him - Valeri Paleron.
He said austerely, "Good morning, Comrade Paleron." His voice was stiff and his expression unfriendly.
She did not seem discomfited by this. She looked up, removed her glasses, and said, "Ah, Comrade American. You are back safe and sound. Congratulations."
"For what?"
"It is the talk of the town. There has been an experiment that was a great success."
Kaliinin, her face like thunder, said sharply, "That should not be the talk of the town. We need no wagging tongues."
"What wagging tongues?" said the waitress with spirit. "Who here does not work at the Grotto or have a relative there? Why should we not know of it and why should we not speak of it? And can I fail to hear? Must I stop my ears? I cannot carry a tray and put my fingers in my ears, too."
She turned to Morrison. "I hear that you did very well and are greatly praised for it."
Morrison shrugged.
"And this man," the waitress said, turning to the frowning and increasingly impatient Kaliinin, "wished to leave before he had the chance to participate in the great deed. He turned to me for help in his scheme to leave - to me, a waitress. I reported him at once, of course, and that made him unhappy. Even now, see how he glares at me." She wagged her finger at him. "But consider the favor I did you. Had I not prevented you from doing whatever it was they were trying to have you do, you would not now be the great success you are, the toast of Malenkigrad and perhaps even of Moscow. And the little Tsaritsa here surely loves you for it."
Kaliinin said, "If you do not stop this impudence immediately, I shall report you to the authorities."
"Go ahead," said Paleron, her hands on her hips and her eyebrows lifting. "I do my work, I am a good citizen, and I have done nothing wrong. What can you report? - And there is a fancy car here for you, too."
"I saw no fancy car," said Kaliinin.
"It is not in the parking lot, but on the other side of the hotel."
"What makes you think it is for me?"
"You are the only important persons to approach the hotel. For whom, then, should it be? For the porter? For the desk clerk?"
"Come, Albert," said Kaliinin. "We are wasting our time." She brushed past the waitress, doing this so closely that she stepped on her foot - perhaps not by accident. Morrison followed meekly.
"I hate that woman," muttered Kaffinin as they walked up the flight of stairs to Morrison's second-floor room.
"Do you think that she is an observer of this place on behalf of the Central Coordinating Committee?" asked Morrison.
"Who knows? But there is something wrong with her. She is possessed by a devil of impudence. She does not know her place."
"Her place? Are there class distinctions, then, in the Soviet Union?"
"Don't be sarcastic, Albert. There are supposedly none in the United States, either, but you have them surely. And so do we. I know what the theory is, but no person can live by theory alone. If Arkady's father didn't say that, he should have."
They walked up one flight of stairs to what had been Morrison's room earlier in the week and apparently still was. Morrison viewed it with mild distaste. It was a room without charm, though the sunlight made it seem less gloomy than he remembered it to be and, of course, the prospect of returning home was enough to add glitter to anything.
Kaliinin sat in the better of the two armchairs in the room, her legs crossed, the upper leg swinging in short arcs. Morrison sat down on the side of the bed and watched her legs thoughtfully. He had never had good occasion to admire his own calmness under pressure and it seemed to him rather unusual to watch someone be more nervous than he himself was.
He said, "You seem greatly troubled, Sophia. What is wrong?"
She said, "I told you. That woman Paleron troubles me."
"She can't upset you that much. What's wrong?"
"I don't like waiting. The days are long now. It will be nine hours until sunset."
"It's amazing that it's only a matter of hours. The diplomatic maneuvering could have continued for months." He said so lightly enough, but the thought gave him a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Not in a case like this. I've seen it work before, Albert. The Swedes are involved. It's not an American plane that's coming. Having an American plane land deep in Soviet territory is still something our government shies away from. But the Swedes - Well, they serve as an intermediary between the two nations by common consent and they tend to work hard to defuse any possibility of friction."
"In the United States, we consider Sweden lukewarm toward us at the best. I think we'd prefer to have Great Britain -"
"Oh come, you might as well say Texas. As it is, Sweden may be lukewarm toward you, but she is considerably less than that toward us. In any case, it's Sweden and their principle always is that if it is necessary to defuse a situation, it is best to defuse it swiftly."
"It seems quite swift to me. Certainly, I'm the one who should be in the greater hurry, since it is I who am most anxious to leave. Why should a few hours matter to you?"
"I've told you. He is after us." She ground out the pronoun.
"Yuri? What can he do? If your government is giving me up -"
"There are elements in the government who might easily not wish to give you up and our - friend - knows some of these well."
Morrison raised a finger to his lips and looked around.
Kaliinin said, "Are you worried about being bugged? That's another American spy novel myth. Bugs are so easily detected these days and so easily scrambled - I carry a small detector myself and I've never spotted one."
Morrison shrugged. "Then say what you wish."
"Our friend is not a political extremist himself, but he finds he can use those in high office who are. There are extremists in America, too, I suppose. "