Is she the home owner’s relative?

But it was tactless to ask such a question aloud. Dan Mortimer would introduce her himself if he wanted to.

Barkov stopped before the escalator. “Is Dan upstairs?”

“No, he had to leave for an urgent matter,” the girl answered as she locked the front door.

“Why? He doesn’t hold classes at the conservatory, does he? We agreed by mindphone… What’s happened?”

“Nothing, it’s no big deal, but he won’t be back for at least two hours. I’ll teach you today.”

At first, Andrew thought she was joking. “Are you a singing master?”

“Naturally. My name is Emily.”

Her facial expression was quite serious now. She isn’t joking. Obviously, she was Mister Mortimer’s colleague. It was strange that he hadn’t warned Andrew about the replacement.

“Nice to meet you. My name’s Andrew.”

“I know. Follow me.”

The girl pronounced words quickly and, as it seemed to Barkov, was a little nervous. An inexperienced teacher, probably.

Not turning onto the escalator, she began to go up the steps slowly, moving her hips from side to side with an unnaturally large swing. Did she work as a model before this?

On the second floor, in the biggest room, there was an ancient black piano and a brown leather sofa. The room had two windows, both of which were soundproof.

Usually Andrew rehearsed standing between the sofa and a window. Mortimer didn’t allow him to sit because “lungs work badly in such a position.”

“Sit down, please,” Emily offered, pointing at the sofa, and opened the piano cover as she curved her back with affected grace. “Let’s begin with a scale: do, re, mi, fa, sol.” She sat down on a swivel chair and started to poke her finger abruptly into keys starting for some reason with note “la’ of the contra octave. Reaching “re’ of the small octave, she stopped and turned to Andrew. “You know what? Let’s become better acquainted with each other for a start. Are you married?”

The behavior of this damsel was strange at the very least. Did she like him so much that she lost the sense of propriety?

“No. I’m single.” A sudden thud was heard in Dan’s bedroom adjoining the study. “Who is there?”

“No one. A cat, I think. My God, it’s so hot in here!” She rose and unbuttoned her jacket, revealing her thin top fitting close to her round breasts with protruding nipples. “Why don’t we go down to the kitchen and drink some coffee?”

What is going on? he thought. Perhaps the girl was nutty. If so, why had Mortimer invited her? And since when did Mortimer have a cat?

“No, thank you. I’m tired. Think I’ll go home.”

The thud in the bedroom repeated, but this time it was louder.

Suddenly Barkov felt tingling in his stomach. It was a signal that a blow was going to be struck in that place. The threat emanated from Emily. Andrew felt it as clearly as the aroma of jasmine in the street a few minutes ago or the softness of the sofa he was sitting on. Muscles of his body strained involuntarily.

Wasn’t his sixth sense mistaken this time? There was not a hint of aggression in the girl’s facial expression.

Emily stood up slowly and went behind the piano as she threw off her jacket. Did she decide to undress completely?

Going around the instrument, she suddenly rushed towards Barkov. She had a pointed crowbar in her hands, which was targeted at Andrew’s stomach. It was easy for him to dodge. The bar ripped the upholstery open and stuck into the sofa back.

“Are you crazy?” he asked as he jumped two steps aside.

The girl pulled the weapon out from the back and pointed it at Andrew’s breast. “I will not let you lock my father up! Die!”

She made another attack.

Barkov bent his trunk to the right side letting the bar go past him. He snatched the weapon out of her hand and pushed her so that the girl flew over the back of the sofa and fell down on the floor with a crash.

“Who is your father?” he demanded as she was getting up.

“Eddy Housman,” the “teacher’ forced herself to speak holding her hip with her hand and grimacing with pain.

Andrew started to understand what was going on. “So Eddy Housman is your father?”

“Yes.” Her lips began to quiver, and tears welled into her eyes. “I beg you to testify that he’s innocent. That it wasn’t him who fired a shot at you. Except for you, there were no witnesses.”

“No. He will be put into prison – not only for the attempted murder, but also for cultivation and sales of GMO.”

“What’s the proof? Maybe he didn’t know what was going on in the cellar! Help us, please. He mustn’t go to prison – he’s suffering from radiculitis!”

Barkov bit his lower lip. He saw now this slight bit of a woman shuddered with not just pain from him tossing her but from an inner desperation. Her face had the pale anguish of worry over events beyond her control.

“Sorry,” he said, “I hope you’ve got good health. Because you will have to do time, too!”

“I’m not worried for myself. Release my father, please!”

“I’ll give you some advice. Next time, before asking something from someone, don’t try to thrust a crowbar into him.”

Rubbing tears on her cheeks, she started to sob loudly. “I tried to make friends with you, I even flirted with you, but you’re wooden. And I don’t have time. My father’s behind bars already. He must not be there!”

“Even if I stated that your father was innocent, the court wouldn’t believe me. Genetically modified organisms grow in his cellar. How could he be ignorant of that? Nonsense! And who fired a shot at me if not him?”

“Another man! Then he ran away out the emergency exit. Couldn’t you say that?”

“I couldn’t. That’s not true.” A thud resounded in the adjacent room. “Who is in the bedroom? My teacher?”

She nodded and hid her face in her palms. Her shoulders started to shudder.

He jumped over the sofa, grasped Emily’s hand and pulled her after himself. She didn’t resist.

Reaching the bedroom door, he opened it. Andrew saw his teacher, Dan Mortimer, an elderly thin man with the sparse gray hair, dressed in a housecoat and barefooted, lying on the floor near the bed. His arms and feet were tied, his mouth secured with an adhesive tape, and his neck was strapped up with a belt wound around a bed leg.

Seeing Andrew and Emily, the teacher rounded his eyes. “Hm-m-m!”

He banged on the floor with his feet. There was fear in his eyes. Poor old man. He suffered because of me.

“I’ll set you free, don’t worry,” Andrew said and pushed Emily forward so that she couldn’t escape while he untied the teacher.

All of a sudden he felt that his whole body became heavier. The bar slipped from his hand and fell on the parquet floor with rattle. It didn’t bounce but stuck to the parquet as if drawn up by a magnet. For a couple of seconds Andrew tried to keep his balance. Then he released Emily’s hand and dropped down on his knees. How could even a small stress like avoiding her attack and tossing her cause such a shameful weakness in him?! That hadn’t ever been the case before. Am I good for nothing anymore?

Instead of running away, Emily, too, fell on her side clumsily on the floor. Looking at Barkov with her tear-stained and horror-struck eyes, she croaked, “What’s wrong with me? Help!”

Unable to keep a vertical position even on his knees, Andrew propped up on his arms. His limbs, trunk, head – everything became too heavy. Muscles trembled from tension. Seeing that resistance was useless, he fell on his stomach.

Emily kept lying nearby. She was groaning as she tried to raise her arms alternately and dropping them at once. At last, she rolled over on her back and started to breathe through her open mouth noisily.

“Give me air! Air!”

Obviously, it was not a sham. Andrew had a feeling of suffocation, too. An unknown force squeezed his ribs so that they could hardly move apart for breathing. My weakness from my exertion isn’t the problem. What is it then?

The teacher bellowed again. “Hm-m-m!” His face had turned white and Andrew worried the man was about to suffocate between the unseen pressure around them and the tape over his mouth.

Barkov tried to crawl forward on his stomach. Making incredible efforts, he moved forward his right leg and left arm one by one. Then he dragged himself for a distance of a few centimeters and felt totally exhausted. His body was getting even heavier – as if it was covered with a heap of sand that was increasing quickly.

“Our numbers… are up,” Emily forced herself to speak making pauses to take breath. “Asteroid… I did not believe in it… Father did.”

In the distance a deep and echoing explosion sounded. The glass of the only window in the bedroom vibrated. It was impossible to understand what exploded – Andrew could only see the blue sky in the window from the floor.

“What did you not believe in?” Andrew asked. He heard only one version of the asteroid’s approach in the news: a large space object would fly by the planet not causing any harm.

“He said that the asteroid… will increase gravitation… and brake the Earth’s spin. I don’t wanna… die!”

Andrew had never paid attention to predictions of various insane scientists, astrologers and clairvoyants. They had already predicted death of mankind a million times. However, it might well be true that gravitation increase was the cause of what was happening to him, Mortimer and this girl now. What if the same force was affecting the whole city or even the whole world?

Suddenly the heavy weight was gone – the invisible sand that had covered him vanished into thin air. All three of them gulped huge intakes of air simultaneously. Barkov raised his head. Then he lifted his body leaning on his elbows. At last, he squatted.

Emily started to rise, too, wiping tears with her palms.

Pushing the crowbar with his foot to a corner of the room, Andrew jumped up and ran to the window. From there, he could see the neighbor’s house. Behind it, approximately a kilometer away, a column of dense black smoke was rising to the sky.

“Hm-m-m!”

Turning round, Barkov hurried to the teacher to untie him.