All human settlement in this area was part and parcel of the Narodnii Kommisariat Atomnovo Razvitiya. Once he made contact with human beings, he had to be prepared to undertake a definite role and to play it to the bitter end. No longer would it be useful to play the Jew tortured into frenzy by the Germans, or the amiable Asiatic half-wit who loved his glorious Soviet comrades. He either had to be a believable person in the Soviet system, or else he had to stand exposed as an intruder.
At that moment, while he stood at the cliff edge getting his bearings, the first outlines of his final plan began to flash into his mind…
He sighed and quoted a wise American Indian saying to himself, something which an old Osage had once taught him. It was, peculiarly, a quotation from a mussel:
Behold these rushing waters. I have not made them without a purpose. I have made them to be the means of reaching old age.
The lake-bed mussel-spirit had seemed an odd authority for an Osage to be citing, but the usefulness of reaching old age had impressed Dugan many years ago and here, on the forested brow of a Siberian cliff, he remembered the more-than-ancient wisdom of the New World.
Trotting almost dogwise, he set off uphill into the forest.
By mid-morning he had reached the spine of the little sub-range of hills. He saw that the valley ahead of him probably drained into the Doubikhe, which ruled it out as the site of innermost Atomsk. But he saw something else which made his heart beat faster. A small train, far smaller than it should have been with all allowances for distance, climbed in a curious uneven obstinate way up an abnormally steep grade.
This made Dugan almost race along the mountain side. Twice he found himself crossing paths. Each time he listened as carefully as a wild beast before he trusted himself to cross the tracks of man. He stopped to eat more of the bread and ham: his stock was running low but he had more things to worry about than eating. He counted on being able to live in the woods if he had to.
The sun had dropped down toward afternoon before Dugan saw what he wanted. There, ahead of him, were the roofs of a factory and assembled outbuildings. Renewing his caution, he approached.
A few minutes brought him to a clearer view. The power lines, sure enough, marched in from civilization and ended at the curiously quiet plant. Open and unconcealed tracks showed the rail link to the main Soviet system, but there was no sign of the narrow-gauge tracks which carried the small train he had seen.