his father. Everyone wanted to know about the great Yurievich, this brilliant, irascible man whose mere name frightened the leaders of the Western world. It was said that Dimitri Yuri Yurievich carried the formulae for a dozen nuclear tactical weapons in his head; that left alone in a munitions depot with an adjacent laboratory he could fashion a bomb that could destroy greater London, all of Washington, and most of Peking.
That was the great Yurievich, a man immune to criticism or discipline, in spite of words and actions which were at times intemperate. Not in terms of his devotion to the state; that was never in question. Dimitri Yurievich was the fifth child of impoverished peasants from Kourov.
Without the state he would be behind a mule on some aristocrat's land.
No, he was a Communist to his boots but like all brilliant men he had no patience with bureaucracies. He had been outspoken about interference and he had never been taken to task for it.
Which was why so many wanted to know him. On the assumption, Nikolai suspected, that even knowing the great Yurievich would somehow transfer a touch of his immunity to them.
The lieutenant knew that was the case today and it was an uncomfortable feeling. The "guests" who were now on their way to his father's dacha had practi--ally invited themselves. One was the commander of Nikolai's battalion in Vilnius, the other a man Nikolai did not even know. A friend of the commander from Moscow, someone the commander said could do a young lieutenant a good turn when it came to assignments. Nikolai did not care for such enticements; he was his own man first, his fathees son second. He would make his own way; it was very important to him that he do so. But he could not refuse this particular commander, for if there was any man in the Soviet Army who deserved a touch of "immunity," it was Colonel Janek Drigorin.
Drigorin had spoken out against the corruption that was rife in the Select Officer Corps. The resort clubs on the Black Sea paid for with misappropriated funds, the stockhouses filled with contraband, the women brought in on military aircraft against all regulations.
He was cut off by Moscow, sent to Vilnius to rot in mediocrity. Whereas Nikolai Yurievich was a twenty-oneyear-old lieutenant exercising major responsibility in a minor post, Drigorin was a major military talent relegated to oblivion in a minor command. If such a man wished to spend a day with his father, Nikolai could not protest. And, after all, the colonel was a delightful person; he wondered what the other man was like.
Nikolai reached the stables and opened the large door that led to the corridor of stalls. The hinges had been oiled; the old entrance swung back without a sound. He walked down past the immaculately kept enclosures that once had held the best of breeds and tried to imagine what that Russia had been like. He~could almost hear the whinnies of fiery-eyed stallions, the impatient scruffing of hooves, the snorting of hunters eager to break out for the fields.
That Russia must have been something. If you weren!t behind a mule.
He came to the end of the long corridor where there was another wide door.
He opened it and walked out into the snow again. In the distance, something caught his eye; it seemed out of place. They seemed out of place.
Veering from the comer of a grain bin toward the edge of the forest, there were tracks in the snow. Footprints, perhaps. Yet the two servants assigned by Moscow to the dacha had not left the main house. And the groundskeepers were in their barracks down the road.
On the other band, thought Nikolai, the warmth of the morning sun could have melted the rims of any impressions in the snow; and the blinding light played tricks on the eyes. They were no doubt the tracks of some foraging animal. The lieutenant smiled to himself at the thought of an animal from the forest looking for grain here, at this cared-for relic that was the grand dacha's stables. The animals had not changed, but Russia had.
Nikolai looked at his watch; it was time to go back to the house. The guests would be arriving shortly.
Everything was going so well, Nikolai could hardly believe it. There was nothing uncomfortable at all, thanks in large measure to his father and the man from Moscow. Colonel Drigorin at first seemed ill-at-ease-tbe commander who had imposed himself on