Part 11 (1/2)
Without looking up, Hand nodded.
”Follow me, slowly.”
No one from the Progressive Tours group was in sight. Hank wandered after the guard, looking into display cases as he went. Finally the other turned a corner into an empty and comparatively narrow corridor.
He stopped and waited for the American.
”You're Kuran?” he asked anxiously in Russian.
”That's right.”
”You're not afraid?”
”No. Let's go.” Inwardly Hank growled, _Of course I'm afraid. Do I look like a confounded hero?_ What was it Sheridan Hennessey had said?
This was combat, combat cold-war style, but still combat. Of course he was afraid. Had there ever in the history of combat been a partic.i.p.ant who had gone into it unafraid?
They walked briskly along the corridor. The guard said, ”You have studied your maps?”
”Yes.”
”I can take you only so far without exposing myself. Then you are on your own. You must know your maps or you are lost. These old palaces ramble--”
”I know,” Hank said impatiently. ”Brief me as we go along. Just for luck.”
”Very well. We leave Orushezhnaya Palace by this minor doorway. Across there, to our right, is the _Bolshoi Kremlevski Dvorets_, the Great Kremlin Palace. It's there the Central Executive Committee meets, and the a.s.sembly. The same hall used to be the czar's throne room in the old days. On the nearer side, on the ground floor, are the _Sobstvennaya Plovina_, the former private apartments of Nicholas First. The extraterrestrials are there.”
”You're sure? The others weren't sure.”
”That's where they are.”
”How can we get to them?”
”_We_ can't. Possibly _you_ can. I can take you only so far. The front entrance is strongly guarded, we are going to have to enter the Great Palace from the rear, through the Teremni Palace. You remember your maps?”
”I think so.”
They strode rapidly from the museum through a major courtyard. Hank to the right and a step behind the uniformed guard.
The other was saying, ”The Teremni preceded the Great Palace. One of its walls was used to become the rear of the later structure. We can enter it fairly freely.”
They entered through another smaller doorway a hundred feet or more from the main entrance, climbed a short marble stairway and turned right down an ornate corridor, tapestry hung. They pa.s.sed occasionally other uniformed guards, none of whom paid them any attention.
They pa.s.sed through three joined rooms, each heavily furnished in Seventeenth Century style, each thick with icons. The guide brought them up abruptly at a small door.
He said, an air almost of defiance in his tone, ”I go no further.
Through this door and you are in the Great Palace, in the bathroom of the apartments of Catherine Second. You remember your maps?”
”Yes,” Hank said.