Roadside Picnic

We stuffed the empty into the boot and fixed it so that it wouldn't move around. There it was, the pussycat, shiny new and clean, the copper gleaming in the sun. Its blue filling sifted cloudily in slow streams between the disks. We could see that it wasn't an empty at all, but something like a vessel, like a glass jar with blue syrup. We looked at it some more and then clambered into the boot and set off on the return trip without messing around.

These scientists sure have it easy! First of all, they work in daylight. And second, the only hard part is getting into the Zone. On the way back, the boot drives itself. In other words, it has a mechanism, a coursograph, I guess you'd call it, that controls the boot and drives it exactly along the course it took coming in. As we floated back, it repeated all our maneuvers, stopping and hovering for a bit, and then continuing. We went over each of my nuts and bolts. I could have gathered them up if I had wanted to.

My greenhorns were in a great mood, of course. They were turning their heads every which way and their fear was almost all gone. They started gabbing. Tender was waving his arms around and threatening to come right back after dinner to lay the road to the garage. Kirill plucked at my sleeve and started explaining his graviconcentrate phenomenon to me—that is, the mosquito mange spot. Well, I set them straight, but not right away. I calmly told them about all the jerks who blew it on the way back. Shut up, I told them, and keep your eyes peeled, or the same thing will happen to you that happened to Shorty Lyndon. That worked. They didn't even ask what had happened to Shorty Lyndon. We floated along in silence and I only thought about one thing. How I would unscrew the cap. I was trying to picture my first gulp, but the web kept glistening before my eyes.

In short, we got out of the Zone, and we were sent into the delouser—the scientists call it the medical hangar—along with the boot. They washed us in three different boiling vats and in their alkaline solutions, smeared us with some gunk, sprinkled us with some powder, and washed us again, then dried us off and said, OK, friends, you're free! Tender and Kirill dragged the empty. There were so many people who had come to gawk that you couldn't push your way through them. And it was so typical. They were all just watching and grunting words of welcome, but not one was brave enough to lend a hand to the tired returnees. All right, that was none of my business. Now nothing concerned me any more.

I pulled off my special suit, threw it on the floor—let the bastard sergeants pick it up—and headed straight for the showers, because I was sopping wet from head to toe. I locked myself in a stall, got my flask, unscrewed the cap, and attached myself to it like a lamprey. I sat on the bench, my knees empty, my head empty, my soul empty. Gulping down the strong stuff like it was water. Alive. The Zone had let me out. It let me out, the bitch. The damn, treacherous bitch. I was alive. The greenhorns could never appreciate that. Only a stalker could. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, from the booze or what, I don't know. I sucked the flask dry. I was wet, and the flask was dry. It didn't have that one last gulp that I needed, of course. But that could be fixed. Everything could be fixed now. Alive. I lit a cigarette. I sat there and felt that I was coming round. The bonus pay came into my mind. That was a good deal we had at the institute. I could go right now and pick up the envelope. Or maybe they'd bring it to me here in the showers.

I started undressing slowly. I took off my watch, and saw that we had spent five hours in the Zone. My God! Five hours. I shuddered.