Soon a commotion was heard ahead. Aleksandr's voice, which had been tender to the point of sheepishness, now brayed across the hillside as he gave orders to the sentries at the gate. There were sounds of men running hither and yon. Underneath all this uproar, Dugan luckily caught the sound of Irina stepping off the path and into some bushes. He did likewise.
Apparently the troops of the guard detachment had been taught to run the paths blindfolded. It was still so dark that Dugan could not see his own hands, but the measured trot of soldiers was even. Four men jogged up the path, passed Irina, passed Dugan, and went on.
A low whistle sounded from downward and ahead. Dugan heard Irina's quick light footsteps on the path. Hoping desperately that he could follow the sound without falling over obstacles or down steps, Dugan followed, just as lightly and even more quickly.
An almost imperceptible change in the cadence of Irina's steps warned him of paving or stairs. He hesitated long enough to feel flagstone beneath his feet and then followed downward, probing for each step with his toes. Desperately in haste, he almost did a frantic ballet dance getting down to the entrance to Atomsk.
Dugan reached a hand probingly ahead of him and felt unfamiliar material. It was Irina's hair. He drew his hand back as if her head had been red-hot. He was rewarded by a whisper from Aleksandr, who sounded mere inches away. Dugan almost feared that he would get kissed by Aleksandr, who would thereupon be surprised to find his sweetheart with a week's stubble of beard.
"This way," whispered Aleksandr, "and you will stay out of the black light. You know we make a picture of everything that goes through the main door."
"Yes," she breathed.
This was no time for half-measures. Dugan hoped that Irina was wearing a scarf or, at the least, a rather loose dress. He reached out, his fingers attuned to an incredible sensitiveness; this was one of the psycho-physical tricks which his Japanese teachers had shown him. He made the very skin on his fingertips become as aware as his eyeballs or his tongue-tip, but at the same time he moved his hand rapidly, not slowly, forward into the dark — ready to stop instantly at a resistance of one two-hundredth of an ounce. He touched cloth and stopped.
Hoping that it was her shoulder he had reached, he moved his hand back and forth. It seemed the back of a dress. There was no motion to account for breathing. Something brushed his knuckles; it was the tip of a scarf. He let his fingers, lighter than moth's wings, explore the shape of the scarf and then he seized the corner.
Irina whispered to Aleksandr, "I must be getting chilly. I feel gooseflesh all over."