we’re headed south.”
“We are,” she told him.
“B-but, but the enemy has that part. Our people, they’re in the north end of town.”
“I know.” She took his elbow and hurried him onward. “I have my orders. Turn back if you wish. I doubt you’ll get far. Or you may come with me if you can. If you can’t, I’ll have to leave you. If you make a noise, or any kind of trouble for me, I must kill you. But I do believe it’s your only chance.”
He clenched his usable fist. “I’ll try,” he whispered. “Thank you, comrade.”
She wondered whether Zaitsev would thank her. This mission was .worth more lives than a single cripple’s. Well, sharpshooters must rely on their own judgment oftener than not. And supposing she did get this private back to his unit, her superiors needn’t know. Unless he really could tell something worthwhile—
The street ended at Krutoy Gully. On the opposite side of the ravine, buildings were equally damaged but more high and massive than here. That was where the central city began. “We have to get across,” Katya said. “No bridge. We crawl down and creep up. You go first.”
He nodded, jerkily, nevertheless a nod. Stooping, he scuttled over the open space and wriggled out of sight. She had been prepared to let him draw any fire. She hadn’t wanted a stalking horse, but there he was, and if he proved hopelessly clumsy she couldn’t let him destroy her too. Instead, he did well enough. So he’d been rather lightly shocked, and was shaking that off with the vitality of youth.
Rifle in hand, every sense honed, she followed. Dirt gritted, leafless bushes scratched. After they started up, his strength flagged. He scrabbled, slid back a way, sank together and sobbed for air. She slung her weapon and went on all fours to his side. He gave her a desperate look. “I can’t,” he wheezed. “I’m sorry. Go on.”
“We’re nearly there.” Her left hand clasped his. “Now, work, damn you, work.” She clambered backward, boot heels dug into soil, straining like a horse at a mired field gun. He set his teeth and did what he was able. It sufficed. They reached the top and found shelter by a heap of bricks. Her tunic was dank with sweat. Wind chilled her to the bone.
“Where ... are we ... bound?” coughed from him.
“This way.” They got to their feet. She herded him along, keeping them next to walls, halting at each doorway or corner to listen and peer. A couple of fighters flew sentinel well above. Their drone fell insect-faint over the desolation. She began to hear a deeper rumble, artillery. A duel somewhere out on the steppe? Mamaev remained quiet. The whole city did, it seemed, one great graveyard that waited for the thunders of doomsday.
Her destination wasn’t far. That would have been madness. She would not have been sent even this deep into the German-held sector, had she not repeatedly shown she could get about unseen as well as any commando —and, she knew, those expert killers were less expendable than she. If the recommended site proved unduly dangerous and she couldn’t quickly find a better,,she was to give up and make her way back to the Lazur.
From behind one of the trees that still lined a certain boulevard, she gazed across a bomb crater and two crumpled automobiles. The building she wanted did appear safe. It belonged to a row of tenement houses, slab- sided and barrack-like. Though in sorry shape, it rose above what was left of its neighbors, a full six floors. The windows were blind holes.
Katya pointed. “Yonder,” she told the young man. “When I signal, get over there and inside fast.” She took her binoculars from the case hung about her neck and searched for signs of enemy. Only broken panes, smudges, pockmarks came into view. Snow whirled dry on a gust that whistled. She chopped her hand downward and led the sprint. In the empty doorway she whirled about and crouched ready to fire at anything suspicious. The snow flurry had stopped. A scrap of paper tumbled along before the wind.
Flights of concrete stairs went steeply upward. Their wells were full of gloom. On the lower landings, doors blown off hinges lay in a chaos of things and dust. Above, they remained shut. On the top floor, she tried a knob. If necessary, she would shoot out the lock, but that door creaked faintly as it yielded.
Here the dimness was less. Smashed windows admitted light as well as cold. The apartment had been fairly good, two rooms plus a kitchen alcove. To be sure, the bathroom was a flight down, shared by the tenants of three floors. Concussion had cracked plaster off lath and spread chunks and powder across furniture and threadbare carpet. Rain blowing in had made a slurry, now hardened, under the sills. Mildew speckled what was left on the walls. The stains also marked drapes, bedclothes, a sofa. Blast had acted as capriciously as usual. A Stakhanovite poster clung garish and two framed photographs were likewise unfalien: a young couple at their wedding, a white- bearded Uncle Vanya who might be the grandfather of bride or groom. Three or four others had crashed. Some strewn books and magazines moldered. A small radio lay among them. A clock had gone silent on its table. Flowers in pots were brown stalks.
Apart from utensils and the like, Katya didn’t notice more personal possessions. Maybe they had been meager enough for the family to take along at evacuation. She had no wish to investigate, when she might turn up a little girl’s doll or a little boy’s bear. She could merely hope the owners had escaped, all of them.
She went through the rooms. People had slept hi both. The first faced approximately north, the second east. With the door open between them, she could scan a full half circle, springing from window to window. That vision covered a dozen streets in both directions, because most of the vicinity was a crumbled wasteland. Yet it had never occurred to the enemy either to occupy or to dynamite such a watchpost. Well, everybody got stupid now and then, especially in war. This time Soviet intelligence had spied a Nazi blindness.
Returning to the room of entry, she found the infantryman hunched on the sofa. He had taken off his helmet and outer coat. The sweat in his shirt was rank. (Well, Katya thought, I’m scarcely a rose garden myself. When did I last have a proper bath? Ages ago, that night in the forest when I went to earth in a peasant’s hut—) His hair was curly. A hint of color had risen in his face.
“Beware taking a chill, comrade,” she warned. “We’ll be here a while.” She set her rifle down and unshipped her canteen. “You must need water worse yet than I do, so you first, but don’t take much. Swish it around in your month sfore you swallow. It has to last us.”
While he did, she squatted, took his injured hand in both hers, shook her head and clicked her tongue. “Nasty,” she said. “Those bones are a mess. At least no major blood vessel was cut. I can do something for it. Hold still. This will hurt.”
He caught his breath repeatedly when she cleaned and wrapped the wounds. Thereafter she gave him a piece of chocolate. “We’ll share my rations too,” she promised. “They’re scant, but hunger is a joy set beside our real problems, no?”
The bite revived him somewhat. He managed a shaky smile. “What is your name in Heaven, you angel?” he quavered.
She checked both the windows. Nothing, except the distant cannon fire. “Me an angel?” she replied meanwhile with a grin. “What kind of Communist are you?”
“I’m not a Party member,” he said humbly. “I should have joined, my rather wanted me to, but— Well, after the war.”
She put a chair in front of him and settled down. There was no sense in constantly staring ouU She’d hear any important movement, as quiet as things were. A glance every few minutes would serve. “What are you, then?” she asked.
“Pyotr Sergeyevitch Kulikov, private, Sixty-Second Army.”
A tingle passed through her spine. She whistled softly. “Kulikov! What a perfectly splendid omen.”
“Eh? Oh ... oh, yes. Kutikovo. Where Dmitri Donskoi smote the Mongols.” He sighed. “But that was ... six hundred years ago, almost.”
“True.” I remember how we rejoiced when the news reached our village. “And we aren’t supposed to believe in omens any longer, are we?” She leaned forward, interested. “So you know the exact date of that battle, do you?” Even now, exhausted, in pain, penned up to wait for possible death. “You sound educated.”
“My family in Moscow is. I hope someday to become a professor of classics.” He tried to straighten. His voice took on a ghost of resonance. “But who and what are you, my rescuer?”
“Ekaterina Borisovna Tazurina.” The latest of my names, my serf-created identities.
“A woman soldier—”
“We exist, you know.” She mastered her annoyance. “I was a partisan before the fighting swept me here. Then they put me in uniform—not that mat’s likely to make any difference if the Germans catch me—and when I’d passed Lieutenant Zaitsev’s course, they raised me to sergeant because a sharpshooter needs some freedom of action.”
