The five minutes during which Hora reached the second sector were filled with deep thoughts: the people really need freedom as much as sunlight, which they are not allowed to see enough of, and the most important thing is that one day they will get it. Gabriel kept tying his son and daughter-in-law to all this: he wanted them to be free, and his grandson to know no slavery at all.

Sector number two was the office. Here everything is counted, everything is reported, and there was a separate room, though entirely empty, for separate meetings, which were very few (A1 really rarely went downstairs – it was difficult to breathe for the unaccustomed).

When Gavriil and his deputy arrived, everyone else was already there, including Pavel Pozharin himself. All but A1 nodded respectfully, Volin even smiling: a nice man after all.

"Well now that everyone's gathered, I can tell you what's the matter…" everyone could see how difficult it was for him to speak, and how he was greedily gulping for air. – I'm ready to take ten of your men upstairs with me. I was wrong about them. The plagues are bastards, they must die. They…"

Dominic was the first to speak: "You'd better explain what's going on today. My men are working like hell, and at night they can't sleep and they're thrown out to work. We need rest. Does this have to be explained in writing?"

Of course, his deputy Peter added oil: "They should not be explained in writing, but in a practical form. You should hit them between the eyes!"

Golushko and Preskovich, commander and deputy commander of Soma No. 647, had a friendly swearing, but to the

point.

"How much do you want us to load? Twenty-four tons? – Dubrovsky was perplexed. – Do you understand this

figure? Or is this someone joking?"

"Nah… They're devoid of a sense of humor. – Georgie intervened. – I've already tried to tell them a couple of jokes.

They thought I was crazy… I can tell them the Stirlitz joke now.

"It's Manhr," Pozharin tried to stop the onslaught against him. – It's all him."

Volin laughed from the bottom of his heart: "No, Stirlitz's name was Max von. Only he was Russian… Anyway, you're not used to such subtleties. Except that he was Russian from birth. And you became a plague in the process." The others, except Gora, told Pozharin in brief everything they thought of him. The "brief" was enough to make him wish to vaporize – the truth can be kept out for a long time, but once it's out, it won't come back.

"Explain his fault?" – After Gora's words, everyone fell silent.

"He… Ah, he…" Pozharin stiffened from his knees to his neck. – He got a message from the broz. With an accusation."

As each word was squeezed out as a confession, and few wanted to wait, Dominic began to encourage him with exclamations of "Well done," "Well," "Come on more," "Don't give up," and "Go ahead."

It went like this: "Well, well, go ahead. – Corruption. – Well done. Do more. – He's been told to… uh… – Give more. Don't give up. – To give it back. Give it all back. – More. More! That's it. – Well, no.

At the end of his mad speech, Dominic gave a look of extreme displeasure, and Peter folded his lips and nodded sympathetically.

"Yeah we should soak him," Dominic said as if drawing a conclusion from his part of the dialog. "Why, he's not a Jew," the deputy deduced.

"I'm sick of him too," Dubrovsky confirmed.

"Maybe…" – A1 started to say, but then Golushko interrupted him: "Shut up. You're not being asked," – in another way, ashamed to admit, I couldn't say it.

Pozharin shut up. He looked at his patch, which had a number in black and white, with "A1" at the end, and shut up like that. He could have called the guards right now, as he had done before, and told them to shoot anyone for disobeying him, for disobeying the hierarchy, which in the plague empire was akin to heresy, for thinking of killing a karak, which, though he had submitted – anything; because they would listen to him, he was "A1," above them. But he didn't. Couldn't. He saw their faces: scarred, dirty, tense with worry for his subordinates, and knew that his face was not haggard, not dirty, and really didn't deserve to be. Pozharin had never been loved, and knowing this, he raved about the plagues who hated him, even more than other people. And when the plagues turned their backs on him, showed that he was a tool for them, he decided to "change sides." But who needs such a man but his mother.

Now almost everyone in the office was disgruntled, half asleep and angry about it. They had only had three hours of sleep after their hard work.

Try to wake up a person, and then ask him about his attitude to you at a given time – if it is not your closest relative, the answer will most likely be "negative". Wake up a bear early, and he will go around and kill everyone who gets caught, and not because he is so bad, but because you broke his regime. You break the regime, you break the system. You break the system in one place, you break it everywhere.

Those present were also in charge of several hundred people, all of whom they thought about without ceasing. Pozharin felt it all perfectly, especially now that he was alone with them. In private, reality itself, without challenge,

comes out.

After two minutes of exclamation of all but Gabriel about what was going on, everything was stopped by Volin with the question: "Gora, why are you silent?".

Gabriel looked at Dominic, "You're right. He should be killed."

Everyone knew the commander of the 381st Soma perfectly well, and even better knew his instructions about not killing chums now, because for each of them they would kill a dozen of ours, toughen the regime and God knows what else; nobody expected such an answer.