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"And furthermore, Modest Matveevich," I said sternly, "I must respectfully object to the way your staff continually obstructs the work of my laboratory. The brownies alone—"
Kamnoedov glared at me from behind his desk. "The brownies are part of the Maintenance staff, Privalov, and not of my department. Also, if your laboratory followed the proper procedures, there wouldn't be any problems. I continually receive reports on you failing the follow the health and safety regulations not only within the rooms of the laboratory itself but on the entire floor!"
"I wish Vybegallo would keep his nose out of my laboratory!" I exclaimed without thinking.
Kamnoedov seemed to grow in size, looming like a small mountain in a suit. "You will desist casting aspersions on the senior members of this Institute," he said hotly. "Because of your negligence and inattention to the rules you keep disturbing the work of not only your own laboratory, but also other departments of the Institute. In fact—"
"We can't work if they keep moving the furniture all the—"
"You will desist!" he bellowed and stood up. "I have had enough of this, Privalov, and you may be sure I shall mention this matter to Janus Poluektovich. Now return to your work!"
His secretary gnome shot me a commiserating wince. I stood up and walked out into the corridor, too angry to look where I was going, which promptly resulted in me bumping into Roman Oira-Oira outside. I'd almost sent us both crashing to the floor, but Roman managed to levitate me just in time.
"Thanks," I said, raining pencils onto the linoleum floor.
Roman watched me critically as I dangled near the ceiling. "Picking a fight with Modest, Sasha?" he asked cheerfully. "That's not like you."
"It took us half the night to go through Fyodor Simeonovich's last batch of programmes because his brownies keep barging in and rearranging everything to suit his health and safety nonsense," I complained. "He took me to task because apparently the computer being turned on is an auto-combustion risk!"
Roman snapped his fingers and I floated to the floor to land on the pile of assorted debris from my pockets. "Have you been skipping lunch again?" he asked.
"And breakfast," I said glumly from the floor. "There is no time to get anything done in the first place, and Kamnoedov—"
"Is being himself," Roman said reasonably. He conjured a cheese sandwich and offered it to me. "Here, and get yourself to the dining hall."
I got to my feet and looked at the sandwich, hungrily and enviously. Roman, as an adept, had effortlessly created not only bread, butter and cheese, but also slices of tomato and cucumber as well as a sprig of parsley.
"It's not going to bite you. Or grow a tail," Roman said with a deceptively deadpan expression. Apparently he remembered my last attempt at conjuring sandwiches, this past New Year's, all too well. "You'll get there, Sasha," he added kindly.
"Fyodor Simeonovich is helping me study," I said, chewing. "So are you, so is Eddie, so is Volodya Pochkin, and even Victor, in between shouting how stupid I am and that I'll never make a decent mage. I just need to survive your combined goodwill."
"Most of us have managed the bachelor exams at some point," Roman pointed out.
I didn't remind him of that one aspirant who had disappeared without a trace, possibly into another dimension, or of any other stories the older undergraduates told to scare us. Even Stella, who was one of the sweetest girls I knew and one of the most promising young witches at the Institute, was nowadays prone to telling tongue-in-cheek tales that turned out to be more frightening than funny. In her case, though, it might have been because she was still working in Vybegallo's laboratory and not allowed to transfer to Fyodor Simeonovich's Department of Linear Happiness, or even Cristobal Joseevich Junta's Meaning of Life Department. I understood her desire to get away from Vybegallo all too well, but one had to be wary of somebody who actually wanted to work for Junta. I deeply respected the man and his work, but that didn't stop me being just as deeply and instinctively afraid of him.
"Come on," Roman said decisively. "You need to be fed before you start gnawing on Modest again." He all but took me by the sleeve and marched me off to the dining hall.
By the stairs (the lift wasn't working again) we ran into Victor Korneev, who was passionately arguing with Volodya Pochkin about a Mu-field transmutation. I couldn't follow even half of the math, which didn't make me feel any happier.
"Ah!" Roman said. "Just who I was looking for. Come on, Sasha needs to be fed."
"Roman, tell this ignoramus that alpha squared equals less than twenty in every one of the variations," Victor said, not taking any notice of me. Volodya, being technically Roman's employee, turned and smiled at us cheerfully.
"Food," Roman said decisively, taking Victor and Volodya by a shoulder each, and turning them to face the stairs. "Victor, you will desist corrupting my workforce."
The dining hall was surprisingly full, but we managed to find a table in the corner. At the next table down, Eddie Amperian was sweet-talking one of Fyodor Simeonovich's new interns, a pretty young witch. We exchanged cheerful nods.
Victor didn't even turn to look. "Roman, you are encouraging ignorance in your children. They will grow furry ears. And tails."
Volodya looked indignant, but then just brushed bread crumbs from his beard and ate his salad.
Roman put a hand on Victor's shoulder. "The children need to learn the basics before they can jump three steps ahead and solve Mu-field equations in their heads. Sasha, how are your pears coming along?"
Caught unprepared I tried to conjure a pear. It hovered over the table for a second before smashing into a handful of splitters that first looked like crystal but suddenly started liquefying and merging with my soup.
"…yeah," Victor said. "Sad. Very sad indeed."
Roman sighed, his lips twitching suspiciously, and waved a hand, making the entire mess disappear.
"You'll get better, Sasha," Eddie said suddenly over my shoulder, and pulled up a chair. He looked excited. "There is a very strange rumour going about."
"We," Victor declared grandly, "do not care about rumours. We care about requisition forms for seven-league boots, mark eight."
"I have given the forms to Modest Matveevich. I'm afraid it will take some time," Eddie said politely. "But listen; is it true that Vybegallo has Naina Kievna as a new consultant?"
All four of us turned to look at him: Roman with pursed lips, Volodya with wide eyes and Victor with a nasty little smile. I don't know what my own face looked like, but I dropped my spoon.
"Naina Kievna is an employee of the Institute, same as we all," Roman said carefully.
This was true, of course. Naina Kievna Gorynych was the curator of the Izba on Hen's Legs museum that was a part of the Institute. I had stayed at the Izba when I had first come to Solovetz, and it was not an experience I thought I would ever forget. Of course, Victor and his couch-cum-translator had been part of the problem, but that was another story entirely.
"She has been coming over recently because of her husband," Volodya volunteered unexpectedly.
"She's married?" I asked. My brain had trouble more trouble with that concept than with Vybegallo's projects.
Roman turned to me, frowning. "She is married to Zmey Gorynych, of course. You didn't know?"
"But," I said helplessly, "he lives down in the vivarium. He eats whole sheep." I looked at the guys, who were looking at me with different levels of surprise and (in Victor's case) sardonic amusement. "He is a dragon!"
"I think that technically he is more closely related to the diplodocidae than to dragons," Eddie corrected me politely.
"But," I said again. Sometimes I felt like the greenest youth all over again, being surprised by things that were so familiar to them all.
Victor brushed me off, turning to Volodya. "What about her husband?" he asked.
Eddie cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. We turned to look at his expectantly.
Unfortunately I never found out what he was going to say, because just then one of the girls from my Electronics Department rushed up to me, her lab coat askew. "Sasha, come quick," she said breathlessly. "It's the brownies again!"
I spent the next few hours less than productively: arguing with the brownies and harassing Modest Matveevich's poor secretary gnome, who was now cowering at the mere sight of me.
The next day started without moved furniture, however, and, energised by that small victory, I threw myself into work until one of the girls almost fell off her desk trying to open the window.
"It's the smell," she said, righting herself. "Can't you smell that?"
I sniffed. There was a distinctly unpleasant stench in the air, sulphur and something else. "The guys from Meaning of Life fooling around again?" I asked.
"Yeah," she said, not sounding convinced. "Or maybe Defensive Magic?"
That was so ridiculous that we all had to grin. The Department of Defensive Magic did nominally exist, of course, but the mere idea of them having produced anything offensive enough to even smell was laughable.
Nevertheless, the stench did not abate. If anything, it intensified. By lunchtime, all our windows were open and the girls were using perfumed handkerchiefs. I could barely breathe myself.
"Right," I said, standing up and adjusting my tie. "You will desist."
The girls turned to me expectantly.
It did not take me long to decide what to do. I went to find Roman.
He wasn't in his lab, but a harassed looking and red-nosed Volodya said I could find him at the director's. Taking a deep breath – and regretting it instantly – I headed towards the director's reception room.
I knocked at the door, but there was no answer, save for a cacophony of loud and angry voices coming from beyond the reception room. Emboldened by the stench, which was now as heavy as smoke, I opened the door and inched inside.
Facing each other in the reception room were a red-faced Fyodor Simeonovich, a pale and tight-lipped Cristobal Joseevich, a stone-faced Roman, a puffed-up Ambrosi Ambruosovitch Vybegallo and Naina Kievna, so deeply hidden beneath her headscarf that her expression was impossible to read. I stepped back into a corner to watch; somehow I was entirely unsurprised that Vybegallo was behind yet another disgusting disaster.
"The s-stupidity of it!" Fyodor Simeonovich raged. He pointed at Vybegallo. "Criminal s-stupidity, and inhumane experimentation! It was b-bad enough with your cadavers—"
"You shall not malign an important step in science, comrade Kivrin, by—" Vybegallo began, puffing himself up even further.
"We shall draw the line at inhumane, I think, Theodore," Junta said very coldly, "but I am entirely in agreement when you speak of criminal stupidity."
"Human or not," Roman said, and it I almost jumped, because I'd never before seen him so openly angry, "it was entirely unethical. You have gone too far, Ambrosi Ambruosovitch. And you, Naina Kievna!" He whipped around to her. "Your own husband, too!"
"The trade relations to China are a great economic boost to our country," Vybegallo said importantly. "What you saying, Roman Petrovich, amounts to negligence, criminal negligence, even, if I may be so bold, treason! You, Roman Petrovich, entirely fail to see—"
"Indeed, I entirely fail to see how you and Naina Kievna could have even considered—"
"The p-plain idiocy of it—"
"Excuse me," I said.
All of them turned to look at me and I swallowed. There were three incredibly powerful magi in the room, and the air was almost sizzling from their anger.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," I said, "but we were all wondering if something could be done about the smell?"
"Hah!" Cristobal Joseevich tossed his head at Vybegallo. "From the mouth of babes."
Vybegallo turned to me with renewed vigour. "You, Aleksandr Ivanovich, as a very new employee, are of course not yet aware of the importance of our work and its connections to the international trade—"
"What international trade?" I asked. This was getting surreal even by Vybegallo's standards.
"Why, the duck egg trade! Our country depends on us to sell duck eggs to China. I am afraid you have not been listening in at the last meeting, Aleksandr Ivanovich!"
"No, Ambrosi Ambruosovitch," I said politely. "I was not. Because, Ambrosi Ambruosovitch, I was busy repairing the computer which was broken by some nonsensical programme that came to us from your laboratory."
Vybegallo's beard was bristling at me belligerently when the door to the director's office opened.
"So," said Janus Poluektovich and I instantly stood at attention. Roman straightened up and even Fyodor Simeonovich lost some of his ire. This was Janus-U, not Janus-A, and I had very good reasons to be both incredibly respectful and incredibly wary of him, and only one of those reasons was that he was the director of our Institute.
"So," he repeated again. "Fyodor Simeonovich, Cristobal Joseevich and Naina Kievna will please accompany me to discuss the matter. Ambrosi Ambruosovitch will please refrain from conducting similar experiments without the full cooperation of the Academic Senate. Thank you, gentlemen."
Roman and I looked at each other. We both knew that despite the word 'please' in his speech, Janus Poluektovich was not making a request but stating a fact. It would indeed be as he said – or rather, he said it, because it would indeed be so. I wondered if Fyodor Simeonovich and Cristobal Joseevich knew about Janus-U. Judging by the brief look they had exchanged, it was very likely.
Taking me by the arm, Roman steered me out into the corridor, ignoring Vybegallo. I noticed that the dreadful stench was abating. The Institute was starting to smell of dust and ozone, as usual.
"Eggs?" I asked Roman when we were out of earshot.
He rubbed his face wearily. "There is a kolkhoz near Solovetz that has a duck farm. Vybegallo's project involved increasing the duck egg production." He sighed. "They actually do sell them to China, I think."
"And where does Naina Kievna come in?"
"Come on," Roman said wearily.
We went down the stairs and Roman led me, to my bemusement, to the vivarium.
Alfred, the supervisor vampire, was for once not drinking what everyone kept hoping was tea, but perusing a thick volume. A stack of books on veterinary medicine was on the table.
"How is he?" Roman asked.
Alfred looked up, looking uncharacteristically worried. "Sleeping it off, the poor bugger. His pulse is down to normal, though."
Roman nodded and motioned me forward the boiler room. I looked through the little double glass window. Naina Kievna's husband was asleep, curled up on himself, his three heads snorting smoke.
"You remember about the needles, right?" Roman asked.
I nodded. "His death is in a needle, the needle in an egg, the egg in a hare, and so on."
Roman sighed again. "They should have divorced years ago. But the old snake still loves her."
I was beginning to get a very bad feeling about this. "The needle in an egg... Not a duck egg?"
Roman's lips were pressed together tightly. "It's a survival instinct that if his life is in danger, all ducks in the vicinity start laying more eggs; decoy eggs."
"Vybegallo didn't—?" I asked with mounting horror and disgust.
Roman nodded tightly. "With Naina's full cooperation. They've been at it for days. They would have kept at it, too, except that it turns out the decoy eggs go bad faster than the normal ones."
Hence the stench. I felt sick, and it had nothing to do with rotten duck eggs. "Let's get out of here," I said.
Upstairs, Roman turned towards his laboratory, then paused, and turned back, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Sasha, don't worry about the exam. It's not the degree that makes a good mage. Vybegallo has degrees. You – you'll be fine."
And I was.
I passed the exam, too. But that's really an altogether different story.