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to him, Dieter Schmidt realized. He should have left long ago, but he hadn't. And now part of him wanted to keep arguing, to make this KGB flunky see reason—but that part seemed to be shriveling inside him, like a tumor that had been miraculously cured. He fought against the cure, but he finally realized that this was perverse. Why fight against health, against reason? Finally there was no strength left to fight; there was only a kind of exhausted understanding. He has experienced something brutal. He has experienced something wonderful.
    He is a new man.
    * * *
    Fedorchuk gazed at Dieter Schmidt. His face was bathed in sweat, and his eyes were dull. "This is not what I expected," Schmidt whispered.
    "I know," Fedorchuk replied, almost gently. "But what you expected would not have been a good idea. Don't you agree?"
    Schmidt seemed to consider. "I agree," he said at last. "What now?"
    "Now? Nothing. Your life goes on as before. Return to Germany, take up your new job. If we need your help, we will be in touch. This has been enough for one day."
    "Yes," Schmidt said. "Shall I go, then?"
    Fedorchuk poured some vodka into the glasses on the table. "Have a drink first. A toast to your new life."
    Schmidt took his glass and swallowed the vodka, gasping at its strength.
    He'll get used to it, Fedorchuk thought. He'll get used to a lot of things. He'll have to. "You can go now," Fedorchuk said.
    The German put his glass down, then got up and walked heavily out of the dim apartment. Fedorchuk watched him leave, then poured himself another drink.
    * * *
    She leaves him, lying motionless on the bed . She stares at him from the doorway for a long moment, then closes the door on him and on the hatred. Only then does she feel the exhaustion, the pain, the horror. It is time to get out.
    Time to walk back along the endless corridor, past the doors that hide so many other secret horrors. She thinks about each door as she passes it, feels the aching aftermath of every battle she has fought and won. She wonders if the door will open and the battle will begin again. None does—this time.
    She staggers down the staircase to the entrance hall, then across it to the front door. She puts her hand on the knob and twists. The door is locked.
    She had known it would be. She closes her eyes. This is the most terrifying part. She knows how to make this world exist, she knows how to walk down the corridor, find her enemy, and defeat him; but she does not know how to get out. The door is locked; there is no other, and there is no key. The windows, she knows, are barred. The only escape is through her mind, but by now her mind is barely functioning.
    She must try. She cannot stay here, because then the horror would go on forever; then her enemies would surely rise from their beds and come out from behind the closed doors and attack her. Then she would surely wish for a death that surely would not come.
    She leans against the door, her forehead touching the cold wood, and she tries to will this door, this world, out of existence. Time passes, but nothing happens—this world will always be there, around her, inside her, her triumph and her torture. There is no escape, there will never be any escape, and at last there is nothing to do but scream and scream and scream.
    * * *
    It took two shots of the tranquilizer to stop the screaming. And even then she writhed on the cot as if possessed (as she certainly was), her hands clutching at Doctor Chukova's lab coat as if it were her only hope of escape. Each time was worse for her, and Doctor Chukova didn't know what to do about it.
    They had rolled the cot outside the pyramid. The earphones and the table-tennis balls and the sensors had been removed. The job was done. As the orderlies rushed the woman off to the clinic, Chukova found some courage and went up to Colonel Rylev. "If you put her through this again, she will die," she said.
    Rylev considered her statement for a moment, then turned away, apparently