METRO 2033 Read Free Page B

and legend had it that it was precisely from this station that the pigs had entered the metro: back at the very beginning of things when certain daredevils had made their way to the ‘pig-breeding pavilion’ at the Exhibition and managed to herd the animals back down to the station.
    ‘Listen, Artyom - how are things going with Sukhoi?’ asked Andrey, drinking his tea with small, cautious sips and blowing on it carefully.
    ‘With Uncle Sasha? Everything’s fine. He came back a little while ago from a hike down the line with some of our people. An expedition. As you probably know.’
    Andrey was about fifteen years older than Artyom. Generally speaking, he was a scout, and rarely stood at a watch nearer than the four hundred and fiftieth metre, and then only as a cordon commander. And here they’d posted him at the three-hundredth metre, with good cover, but all the same, he felt the urge to head deeper, and made use of any pretext, any false alarm, to get closer to the darkness, closer to the secret. He loved the tunnel and knew its branches very well but, at the station, he felt uncomfortable among the farmers, the workers, the businessmen and the administration - he felt unneeded, perhaps. He couldn’t bring himself to hoe the earth for mushrooms, or, even worse, stuff the fat pigs at the station’s farms with mushrooms, standing up to his knees in manure. And he couldn’t be a trader either - he’d been unable to stand traders from the day he was born. He had always been a soldier, a warrior, and he believed with all his soul that this was the only occupation worthy of a man. He was proud that he had done nothing his entire life but defend the stinking farmers, the fussy traders, the administrators who were business-like to a fault, and the women and children. Women were attracted to his arrogant strength, to his total confidence in himself, to his sense of calm in relation to himself and those around him (because he was always capable of defending them). Women promised him love, they promised him comfort, but he could only feel comfortable beyond the fiftieth metre, beyond the turning point, where the station lights were hidden. And the women didn’t follow him. Why not?
    Now he’d warmed up nicely as a result of the tea, and he removed his old black beret and wiped his moustache, damp from the steam, with his sleeve. Then he began to question Artyom eagerly for news and rumours from the south, brought by the last expedition, by Artyom’s stepfather - by the very man who, nineteen years ago had torn Artyom from the rats at Timiryazevskaya , unable to abandon a child, and had raised him.
    ‘I myself might know a thing or two, but I’ll listen with pleasure, even for a second time. What - do you mind?’ insisted Andrey.
    He didn’t have to spend any time persuading him: Artyom himself enjoyed recalling and retelling his stepfather’s stories - after all, everyone would listen to them, their mouths agape.
    ‘Well, you probably know where they went . . .’ began Artyom.
    ‘I know they went south. They’re so top-secret, those “hikers” of yours,’ laughed Andrey. ‘They are special missions of the administration, you know!’ he winked at one of his people.
    ‘Come on, there wasn’t anything secret about it,’ Artyom waved his hand dismissively. ‘The expedition was for reconnaissance, the collection of information . . . Reliable information. Because you can’t believe strangers, the traders who wag their tongues at us at the station - they could be traders or they could be provocateurs, spreading misinformation.’
    ‘You can never trust traders,’ grumbled Andrey. ‘They’re out for their own good. How are you supposed to know whether to trust one - one day he’ll sell your tea to the Hansa, and the next he’ll sell you and your entrails to someone else. They may well be collecting information here, among us. To be honest, I don’t particularly trust ours either.’
    ‘Well, you’re