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Dad giggled. “Children…” he said. “Remember that saying: ‘If your child disobeys you…’? How does it go on, Egghead?”

My God, my God! “…wipe him off the face of the earth.” That was what he said that time: “Wipe him off the face of the earth,” and then Wanderer picked up a heavy black pistol off the table, slowly raised it, and fired two shots, and the child clutched his shattered bald head in his hands and toppled over onto the carpet…

“Lost your memory?” Dad asked. “Oh, Egghead. What are you going to do, Egghead?”

“I made a mistake…” the prosecutor wheezed. “A mistake. It was all because of Twitcher…”

“You made a mistake… All right, then, think, Egghead. Ponder on it for a while. I’ll call you back…”

And that’s all. He’s gone. And I don’t know where to call him to weep and implore… That’s stupid, stupid. That has never done anyone any good… OK… Hang on… Just hang on, will you, you bastard!

He swung his open hand and smashed it hard against the edge of the desk—to make it bleed, to make it hurt, to make it stop trembling… That helped a bit, but he still leaned down, opened the lower drawer of the desk with his other hand, took out a flask, tugged out the cork with his teeth, and took several swallows. He felt a rush of heat. That’s the way… Calmly, now…

We’ll see about this. This is a race—we’ll see who runs faster. You can’t do away with Egghead that easily; it will cost you a bit more effort than that. Egghead can’t instantly be summoned just like that. If you could have summoned him, you would have… It’s all right that he called. He always does that. There’s still time. Two days, three days, four days… “There is still time!” he shouted at himself. “Don’t get jittery.” He got up and started walking around the office in circles.

I do have a hold over you. I have Mak. I have a man who is not afraid of the radiation. For whom no barriers exist. Who wishes to change the order of things. Who hates you. A man who is pure and, therefore, open to all temptations. A man who will trust me. A man who will want to meet with me… He already wants to meet with me as it is—my agents have told him many times that the state prosecutor is benevolent and just, a great expert on the laws, and a genuine guardian of law and order, that the Fathers dislike him and only tolerate him because they don’t trust each other… My agents have shown me to him, in secret, in advantageous circumstances, and he liked my face… And, most important of all, they have hinted to him, in the strictest secrecy, that I know where the Center is located. He has excellent control of his face, but it was reported to me that just at that moment he gave himself away… That’s the kind of man I have—a man who really wants to seize the Center and who can do it—the only one out of all of them… That is, I don’t actually have this man just yet, but the nets have been cast, the bait has been swallowed, and today I’ll strike and hook him. Or I’m finished. Finished… Finished…

He abruptly swung around and glanced in horror at the yellow telephone.

He couldn’t control his imagination any longer. He saw that cramped room, upholstered in dark red velvet, a stifling, musty room, with no windows, a dingy, bare desk, and five gilded chairs… And the rest of us were all standing there: me, Wanderer, with the eyes of a ravenous killer, and that bald butcher… that bungler, that blabbermouth, he knew where the Center was, didn’t he, he destroyed so many people to find out where the Center was, and then—the windbag, the drunk, the braggart—how could he go talking to anybody about such things? Let alone to relatives… And especially to relatives like that. And he was the head of the Department of Public Health, the eyes and ears of the Unknown Fathers, the armor and the battle-ax of the nation… Dad scowled as he said, “Wipe him off the face of the earth,” Wanderer fired twice at point-blank range, and Father-in-Law grumbled, “Now the upholstery’s all splattered again…” And they started arguing again about why the room stank like that, and I stood there with my legs turned to rubber, thinking, Do they know or don’t they? and Wanderer stood there, grinning like a hungry predator, and looking at me, as if he could guess…

He didn’t guess a damn thing. But now I understand why he always took such pains to make sure nobody could penetrate the mystery of the Center. He always knew where the Center was and was just looking for a way to take it over himself… Too late, Wanderer, too late… And you’ll be too late as well, Dad. And you, Father-in-Law. And as for you, Twitcher, you’re not even in the running…

He jerked open a curtain and pressed his forehead against the cold glass. He had almost smothered his fear. And in order to finally trample it underfoot, to extinguish the final spark, he pictured Mak bursting into the instrument room of the Center and taking it by storm…

Blister could have done that too, with his personal bodyguard, with that gang of his brothers, cousins, nephews, blood brothers, and protégés, with those appalling scum who have never even heard of the law, who have only ever known one law—shoot first… Wanderer had had good reason to raise his hand against Blister—that very evening he had been attacked right outside the gates of his mansion, his car was riddled with bullets, his driver and secretary were killed, and in some mysterious way the attackers were all killed themselves, right down to the last man, all twenty-four of them with two machine guns… Yes, Blister could have burst into the instrument room too, but he would have gotten bogged down there, without going any farther, because then comes a barrier of depressive radiation, and maybe now there are even two barriers, although one would be enough. No one can get through there: a degenerate will collapse in a faint from the pain, and a simple, loyal citizen will just drop to his knees and start quietly weeping in mortal anguish…

Only Mak will get through there, and he will sink his skilled hands into the generators, and first of all switch the Center, and the entire system of towers, to a depressive field. And then, entirely unopposed, he will walk up into the radio studio and put on a tape with a previously recorded speech for cyclical repeat transmission… The entire country, from the Hontian border to beyond the Blue Serpent, will be in a state of depression, millions of fools will be just lying there in floods of tears, with no desire to even to stir a finger, and the loudspeakers will be roaring at the tops of their voices that the Unknown Fathers are criminals, reviling them for this and castigating them for that, and saying they are here, and they are there, kill them, save the country, it is I who am telling you this, Mak Sim, a living god on earth (or something else, like the legitimate heir to the imperial throne, or the great dictator—or whatever he likes the best)… To arms, my guardsmen! To arms, my army! To arms, my subjects! And meanwhile he’ll go back to the instrument room and switch the generator to a field of heightened attention, and then the entire country will listen open-mouthed, straining not to miss a single word, learning the message by heart, repeating it to themselves, and the loudspeakers will keep roaring, the towers will keep working, and it will go on like that for another hour, and then he will switch the radiation emitters to enthusiasm, just half an hour of enthusiasm—and that’s the end of the broadcasts…

And when I come around—massaraksh, an hour and a half of hellish agony, but I’ll just have to put up with it, massaraksh—there won’t be any more Dad, none of them will be left, there will only be Mak, the great god Mak, and his faithful adviser the former state prosecutor, now the head of the great Mak’s government… Ah, never mind about the government, I shall simply be alive, and nobody will be threatening me, and then we shall see… Mak isn’t the kind to abandon useful friends—he doesn’t even abandon his useless friends—and I’ll be a very useful friend. Oh, what a friend I shall be to him!