“Cheecago … is it close to Milwaukee?”
“Practically next door. There are shuttle flights every hour. I mean, there used to be. Maybe they’re still operating, but I can’t promise you. Everything is a mess.”
“Yes, big mess. I take the ‘by stand.’”
“Standby.”
“Yes, that one.”
The clerk explained to him how it worked, and Kuryakin carefully counted off some of the American bills he had been given for the trip. It left him with very little money, but if he got where he was going, that would not matter.
The lounge where the standby passengers waited was extremely comfortable by Moscow standards. There were individual padded chairs for sitting, a huge window through which one might watch the planes taxiing by outside, and an immaculate public rest room. But what seized his attention was a fascinating machine into which young Americans fed an unceasing stream of coins.
The machine featured a televisionlike screen on which a voracious little head sped through a maze gobbling up white dots and blobs of various shapes until an even more voracious creature caught the tiny head and gobbled it up in turn. The progress of the gobbling head was apparently controlled by whoever put the coin into the machine, while the opposing blobs seemed to operate on whim. The whole process was accompanied by melodious electronic bleeps, blats, boops, and honks — altogether an amazing device. A microcosm of the capitalist system.
“Mr. Karloff, you may board Flight eight-fifty-nine for Chicago immediately at Gate Twenty-one.
So intent was Kuryakin on the machine that he almost did not hear his name called over the speaker. More specifically, the name he had chosen to use for concealment purposes. It was the first American name that popped into his head when the ticket agent asked. It pleased him to travel under the name of his favorite American motion-picture actor. Moreover, one whose name was pronounceable.
He found the behavior of the flight crew admirably calm, considering the emergency situation. Kuryakin had thought a self-indulgent society such as the United States would rapidly come apart when faced with imminent destruction. Although he generally considered Westerners to be weak and indecisive, he was not a man to withhold approval where it was due.
One of the female attendants leaned down over him suddenly, and Kuryakin thought for a moment he had been discovered.
“Would you like something to read, Mr. Karloff?” She fanned a display of American magazines.
She was an attractive young woman with a husky voice. Rather like his daughter, Natalia, back in Moscow. Thoughts of Natalia and home tightened his throat for a moment, making it difficult to speak.
“Sir?”
“No, thank you,” he said. “Nothing to read.” He did not want to be distracted from his thoughts during the flight.
“We will have sandwiches once we’re under way,” the young woman said. “I’m sorry, but due to the emergency there will be no hot meal on this flight.”
“Is all right,” he said.
“But I’ll be around with the cart if you’d care for something to drink. They’re free this flight.”
“Good.” Kuryakin made himself smile. Americans, he had observed, smiled at one another constantly without reason. Maybe not so much now as before the brain eaters came.
There was a delay of half an hour before the United flight was cleared for take-off. Kuryakin sat tensely all the while, expecting at any moment to be grasped by rough hands and pulled off the plane. It still amazed him that it was so easy to travel in this country without so much as being asked for one’s papers. How could the Americans possibly keep track of their people?
He had a momentary pang of conscience about leaving Raslov. Viktor would have to do some powerful explaining about the disappearance of his countryman. Kuryakin would gladly have included Raslov and even the KGB thick necks in his plan if he thought they would be amenable. He knew, however, that his thinking in that matter was unorthodox, and he was not likely to find any support from the others.
The decision to act had been made impulsively when he saw the opportunity offered by the confusion in the airport. Once he had decided what he must do, there was no question in Kuryakin’s mind of where to go. The American authorities were out of the question. He had heard of the prisons into which people like him were thrown. The political authorities there were no more to be trusted than they were in Russia. They were as bad as the police or the army.
The only people he felt free talking to were other men of science. Theirs was an international language that transcended politics. They could be trusted. True, there were scientists who had gone bad. Nazi Germany was a prime example. It was possible that he was making a mistake, but he had made his choice, and there was now no turning back.
When they were airborne, the young woman came as promised, pulling a cart loaded with liquor. Kuryakin selected a tiny bottle of vodka. The name sounded Russian, but it was an American product. Nevertheless, Kuryakin felt it was a small gesture of loyalty on his part.
Eddie Gault woke up feeling better. Much better. He decided he had not had the flu after all.
He got out of bed, pulled on a bathrobe, and went looking for Roanne. He found her in the living room watching TV with the sound turned low. She snapped off the picture when he came into the room.
“Well, you’re looking chipper,” she said.
“Feel fine.” He nodded toward the blank television screen. “Was that the news?”
“News is about all that’s on nowadays. Just the same old stuff.”
“What’s happening at the plant?” he asked. “Have they opened up again?”
Roanne eyed him strangely. “No. They’re going to be closed a long, long time.”
“You mean they shut everything down?”
“Almost. They say Kitzmiller is back. He and a few others are staying out there and doing something in the laboratories. Nobody else except security.”
“What’s he doing there? — Dr. Kitzmiller?”
“The television says he’s trying to find an antidote for the brain eaters.”
“Brain eaters? Oh, God.” Eddie moaned and sank into a chair. “For just a minute there I forgot about them. It seemed like a fever dream.”
“No dream, Eddie,” she said.
“Oh, God. God.”
“It won’t do you any good to carry on that way. What’s done is done.”
“What’s been happening the last couple of days? I felt so lousy I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Some people were killed at the plant.”
“Jesus, how did that happen?”
Roanne told him about the Biotron massacre as gently as she could, minimizing the role of the brain eaters as the cause of it all.
As she spoke, she watched Eddie carefully.
He sucked at a raw hangnail on his thumb.
“Are you sure you feel all right, Eddie? Do you think you should be up?”
“I told you, I feel fine. I’ve got to think. I’ve got to do something.”
“You’ll just give yourself a headache.” Roanne’s expression changed suddenly. “You don’t have a headache, do you?”
“No.” He eyed her suspiciously. “Why do you ask that?”
“I’m just worried about you.”
“Did you think maybe those things, those brain eaters, had gotten to me?”
“No, of course not.”
“Might serve me right if they did.”
“Don’t talk that way.”
“I mean it. I’m the one let ‘em loose. Serve me right if they got into my brain, too.”
A sharp retort formed in Roanne’s throat, but she swallowed it. She went over and stood in front of Eddie’s chair. In a voice that caressed him, she said, “Baby, I don’t want to hear you say that. You’re too important to me.”