Metro by Dmitry Glukhovsky

Author:Dmitry Glukhovsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General

CHAPTER 16

The Songs of the Dead

‘There are no secret entrances there, and there never were. Really, don’t you know that yourself?’ Tretyak had raised his voice with displeasure, and his words flew at Artyom.

They were returning from duty - back to Kievskaya. The stalker and Tretyak walked a little behind the others and animatedly discussed something. When Artyom also fell back to take part in their conversation, they began to whisper, and he was left to join the main group again. The young Oleg, who was skipping along, trying not to drop behind the adults, and refusing to climb onto his father’s shoulders, immediately and happily grabbed him by the hand.

‘I’m a missile man, too!’ he announced.

Artyom looked at the boy with surprise. He had been alongside when Melnik introduced Tretyak to him and most likely had heard this word by chance. Did he understand what it meant?

‘Only don’t tell anybody!’ added Oleg hurriedly. ‘The others aren’t allowed to know it. It’s a secret.’

‘OK, I won’t tell anyone.’ Artyom played up to him.

‘It’s no shame, quite the opposite. You should be proud of it, but others might say bad things about you out of envy,’ the boy explained, although Artyom hadn’t even intended to ask anything.

Anton was walking about ten paces ahead, lighting the path. Nodding at his frail figure, the child loudly whispered:

‘Papa said not to show anyone, but you know how to keep secrets. Here!’ He took a small fragment of cloth from an inside pocket.

Artyom shined his flashlight on it. It was a torn tab - a circle of a thick, rubberized substance, about seven centimetres in diameter.

On one side it was completely black, on the other was portrayed the intersection of three incomprehensible oblong objects on a dark background, not unlike one of the six-pointed paper snowflakes with which they decorated VDNKh for the New Year.

One of the objects was standing upright and Artyom recognized it as a cartridge from a machine gun or a sniper’s rifle, but with wings attached to the bottom. But he did not recognize the other two identical, yellow ones, with rings on both sides. The mysterious snowflake was enclosed in a stylized wreath, such as on old cockades, and there were letters around the circle of the tab. But the colour on them was faded so that Artyom was able to read only, ‘. . . troops and ar . . .’, and also the word ‘. . ussia’, which was written below, beneath the figure. If he had had a little more time, he might have been able to understand what the boy showed him, but he didn’t.

‘Hey, Olezhek! Come here, there’s something for you!’ Anton called to his son.

‘What is it?’ Artyom asked the boy, before he grabbed the tab from him and concealed it in his pocket.

‘RVA!’ Oleg carefully articulated, beaming with pride, then he winked at him and ran to his father.

Having climbed to the platform by stepladder, the outlook members began to disperse and go home.

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