“I don't want to be put out,” Lora said abruptly. Danty and Sheklov looked at her hard.
“No,” she emphasised. “If it's true that-that my father brought a Russian agent into . . . 7” It turned into a question, and died away. Danty nodded vigorously.
“Whatever Ivan saysl” he insisted.
“Then lie lied to me all my life,” Lora whispered. “I don't want to see him again as long as I live. And that's not crazy talk. I'm cold sober again, and I mean it.”
In which case . . .
Sheklov felt as though he were going over the edge of a cliff into deep, icy water. But he said, “My name isn't Ivan. It's Vassily.” . acv , Lora huddled away into the corner of the rear seat and could be heard faintly crying-not sobbing. simply snuffling. Headlights on the other half of the road shot towards them like tracer-bullets. Sheklov thought: Regarding success and failure alike. . .
Well, at the moment he was compelled to, whether or not he had-achieved detachment. Because he had absolutely no inkling which had overtaken him. Either he had failed, spectacularly and monstrously, and was going to have to kill himself and his companions in order to avoid exposure of Turpin. or else he had succeeded in some manner he did not understand.
Danty knew 1 was due to come ashore. He was there when 1 arrived watching me. He saw Turpin's car take me away.
He had turned ofl the site. How did he know the way to do # safely? Turpin said he would hardly dare to try the job without a schematic.
He appeared to be claiming that he foresaw the submarine being blown up if the site were not switched ofl. Then he left it switched off, thereby ensuring-he said as much-that we would be here, in this mess.
The whole thing is crazy! And so am 1!
Yet, behind all these surface thoughts, there was a kind of echo: recollection of what Magda had said, twice.
“Danty was born at the wrong end of time.”
A joking commentl Must bel But it had a-a ring to it. An overtone. Some all-important hidden meaning. Tantalising, like having a word on the tip of your tongue and being unable to utter it.
There had been silence in the car, except for Lora's soft weeping, for many miles. It was as though his admission concerning his identity had been a minor climax in the course of events, and, it being passed, Danty was content to wait for some new pattern to develop. Magda, at the wheel, was patently too depressed to talk; she wore an expression of unspeakable sadness, revealed flick-flick-flick by the oncoming headlamps.
From all the various directions in which his mind had been scattered, Sheklov forcibly pulled himself back together. He reviewed what had to be said; having organised it, he spoke.
“Dantyl”
“Yes?”
“I probably don't need to tell you that this-this talent of yours has completely blown my mind. I don't believe it, but I've been driven to accept it.”
“That figures,” Danty said dryly, and added: “Vassilyl By the way, what kind of a name is that? Is it Russian?”
“Yes. Though it was Greek originally. Funny, you knowl” Sheklov gave a short, harsh laugh. “It means 'king.' Not the ideal name for a good third-generation Party man.”
“But you're not one,” Danty said.
“I-” Sheklov began, and broke off. After a moment, 'he admitted, “No, in some ways I guess not.”
“You're too independent,” Danty said with assurance. “Like Magda, or me, come to that. You can quote the Gita, for example, as though you took it seriously. My guess would be you have it by heart:”
“When you wormed that out of me, I almost had a heart-attack,” Sheklov said. Was it only last night? It feels like a year agol But that was a good illusion to be under. It lent the comforting impression of distance in time to his borderline panic. He didn't want to be reminded right now that he was capable of panic. He had to keep his mind at its finest pitch, to reason out and plan this ridiculous journey they were committed to.
“Yes, I'm sorry about that.” Danty muttered. “But . . . well, this talent of minel I'll try to explain how it works, as far as I understand it myself-which isn't very well.” He hunched forward and rested his unhurt arm on the back of Sheklov's seat; staring past him at the cars on the superway.
“Since I was-oh-sixteen, seventeen, I guess, now and then I've felt a funny pressure at the back of my head, a sensation that belongs in the same group with hunger and thirst, because it means I have to do something to satisfy it. It makes me grope around like a blind man, or sometimes just wander from one place to another until I feel the pressure fading a little and I realise I'm on the right track. Now and then I can tell quite clearly that I have to be at some special place at some special time. Like the morning of your arrival. I knew a direction I had to go in, I knew I'd recognize the spot when I reached it.”
“And you knew how to shut down the site,” Sheklov said, marvelling.
“That was the same process,” Danty said. “I got through the fences around the site by-by picturing an action in my mind and waiting to find out whether the pressure in my head got better or worse. Then I did the same thing with the lock on the control bunker, and then with the switches. I was asking this talent of mine, 'Is it safe to close this one? Is it safe to close that one?' And all the time I knew I had to get this right, because otherwise there was going to be a great crashing disaster. Like I told you, I figured out later that the sub that put you ashore would have triggered the detectors.”
“Thank you,” Sheklov said soberly. “1 wouldn't have cared to be a mile from the explosion of one of those missiles.”
“Nor would I,” Danty said, with his regular crooked smile. “And then there's one other thing about my talent. I can sense, in the same general way, how to-to inveigle people into doing things they didn't intend to. I can sort of time words that prompt them to react.”
“Like making me quote the Gita.”
"Right. I can't pull the trick all the time, only when something has built up the pressure in my head to a particular pitch. When I'm sensing something terribly important." Danty passed his hand across his eyes. "And I never felt anything a fraction as important as-as you.4'
“How do you feel about me, then?” Sheklov countered.
“It's hard to describe. Say huge. Say vast. Say colossal. You still aren't within miles of hitting the idea. It's like looking up into the sky and thinking yourself into a state where you can actually understand a million light-years. Feeling in your guts a gulf that takes light all that time to crawl across. Something that makes the whole of history; the whole story of life on Earth, the age of the Earth it. self, tiny!”
A shiver trembled down Sheklov's spine. He began to dare to think that he might, just might, have succeeded in his mission. He still didn't see how, but the possibility was now credible.
Magda, unexpectedly, spoke up. She said, “Danty, what point of the border should we make for?”
“I'm still not quite clear on that,” Danty said. “Keep heading north, that's all. I should be able to tell you in a little while what the safest zone will be.”
“Are we going to keep driving through the day, or lie up somewhere, or what?”
“Now that's odd,” Danty said, biting his lip. “I was thinking we ought to worry about this car, because obviously the licence number can be recognised, and you'd expect that if Lora doesn't show at home it'll be reported. But I have this absolute conviction that we're safe if we go on driving. I have this crazy idea that even if the car has been-oh-reported stolen, say, it's not going to be taken seriously.” He hesitated. “And I can only think of one explanation for that.”
“What?” Magda demanded.
“Well . . .” Danty licked his lips. “I think because the person who would report it is 'Iurpin, and he's in trouble.”