MARCH 18.

8:17 A.M. MAXIM TIME.

Nell closed her eyes as she felt the three glorious showerheads douse her body with jets of hot water. The last two days had been spent peering through Stalin's window into Pandemonium. She was in heaven peering into hell, where each discovery was a revelation.

As she watched the suds spiral down her leg now, her soapy eyes and groggy sense memory suddenly formed the image of a Henders Island disk-ant emerging from the drain next to her big toe. She screamed and jumped two feet against the shower stall as the vision rattled her nervous system like an electric shock.

She shook, naked in the corner of the stall, as she looked down dumbly at the drain, wiping the soap from her eyes as nothing but foam circled the drain. Geoffrey opened the shower door and rushed in, embracing her with his clothes on under the water. He looked at the drain where she pointed and saw nothing, stroking her head. "It's OK!"

She tried to breathe. "I thought I saw a disk-ant. Coming out of the drain!" She sobbed.

"It's OK!" he repeated. "We're not on Henders Island. It's OK!"

She nodded. "OK," she breathed, feeling calmer in his arms. "Damn. I'm sorry!"

"No problem..."

"Geoffrey?"

"Yes?"

"We still need to make a call outside to let people know where we are."

"You're right. I'll remind Maxim first thing. It's been easy to forget the past couple days."

"I know, but people will start to worry. We need to do it right away."

"I'll take care of it."

"Thanks." She hugged him, closing her eyes.

8:59 A.M.

Maxim himself waited for them this morning at the curb in front of their honeymoon cottage. He greeted them beside two limousines, one black and one white, offering Nell a bouquet of a dozen fresh roses.

"Nice!" She smelled them. "They're fresh?"

"Grown right here in Pobedograd," Maxim said.

"Really? I'll set them on the stoop for later. Thank you!"

Geoffrey noticed that the air was quite smoggy this morning, having accumulated the exhaust of hundreds of vehicles and generators. Despite Maxim's guarantee that the power plant would be on, the city was no brighter than the "night" before. "Another day in paradise, eh?" Geoffrey said, gently ribbing the tycoon as he waved the air.

"Power will soon be on," Maxim grumbled, rankled by the dig. But he soon recovered his joviality as he reached into his jacket. "I neglected to give you your payments. For you, my dear, and for you." Maxim handed them both envelopes.

"Not really two million dollars?" Nell said.

"Each." Maxim nodded. "As promised."

"Wow!" Geoffrey whispered.

"Thank you, Maxim," Nell said.

"It's nothing. Especially after taxes."

"Maxim, before I forget again," Geoffrey said. "We need to make calls outside to let people know we're OK."

"Of course!" Maxim laughed. "With so much excitement, it simply slipped my mind. You may both make as many calls as you like back at the conservatory. But I need both of you this morning, if you don't mind a slight delay. I was hoping you will come with me to activate the power plant, Geoffrey. As well as bringing day to night, and starting the city's much-needed ventilation system, the power plant will charge a whole fleet of electric cars, which will finally clear up our smog problem."

Maxim's daughter, Sasha, jumped out of the white limo dressed all in white, matching her cheerful dog. "I hope so, Papa!" she shouted, running toward him. She jumped up to kiss his beard as he bent down. "Because this place stinks! Don't you think so, Nell?"

"I hope you don't mind," Maxim said. "But I told Sasha she could go along with you on a tour of the farm. I would very much appreciate your opinion, as a botanist, Nell."

Nell nodded, glancing at Geoffrey. "Sounds interesting!"

"Don't worry about Geoffrey. We will get him back to Hell's Window by lunchtime," Maxim said. "Then you may make as many phone calls as you wish."

"Promise?" Nell said.

"Yes."

Sasha tugged her arm. "Come on, Nell!"

Nell kissed Geoffrey as they parted.

9:03 A.M.

Nell peered into the back of the white limousine, which was upholstered in lavender leather and rhinestones. Wearing a matching collar, Sasha's happy, snow-white Samoyed barked noisily in the doorway, batting the air with his tail.

"Shush, Ivan!" Sasha shouted. "Don't worry, he's a big baby." She nudged the dog aside and waved Nell into the oval of plush seats.

Nell climbed into Sasha's world as the chauffeur shut the door behind them. She admired the little girl's glacier-blue eyes, which were wide and expectant, exerting an irresistible gravity much like her father's. The white limo charged west as Maxim's black limo pulled a U-turn and headed east along the riverfront.

9:05 A.M.

The friendly dog sat between Nell and the formidable czarina, who inserted a CD of pop songs sung by kids, clicking ahead to her favorite track. "I think you'll like the garden, Nell!" she yelled over the sugary music blaring out of the speakers. "Botanists study plants, right?"

"Yes," Nell said. "Right."

The young girl had a confident and more capable air than her ten years implied. If she was bored giving another tour to a guest, she was handling it quite graciously. There was something else in her demeanor, though, too, Nell thought: a sadness or a maturity, Nell couldn't quite decide which. Either way, Nell was surprised to find herself liking this little princess.

"You'll love Dennis," Sasha said to Nell. "He reminds me of a pear. But he's really nice! I call him 'Veggie-Man.' Not because he grows vegetables but because he is a vegetable!" She giggled. "He's made of vegetables, I think. Right, Ivan?"

Ivan barked once and smiled next to her, hanging a sly tongue out to one side and panting breath that smelled like smoked salmon.

As the limousine cruised around a curve in the road, they headed north along the cavern's western wall. On the right they passed spoked avenues that glimpsed the giant tower in the city's center and the bronze colossi at the end of each street. "That's the Star Tower, down Lenin Boulevard," Sasha said, pointing up one of the streets. "My dad lives there, on the top floor."

Nell spotted Lenin himself pointing like a setter at the base of the tower.

"That's him," Sasha noted, nodding. "There's a ton of statues of him, all over the place. My dad melted a lot of them down to make other statues."

"How long have you been here, Sasha?"

"Two months!" groaned the girl, squirming with agony. Nell seemed to have struck a nerve. "But we won't be here forever." Sasha sighed with melodramatic worldliness. "Right?"

"Right." Nell nodded, smiling. "Where's your mom?"

"Dead." Sasha shrugged. "She died when I was a baby. I get bounced around a lot."

"Do you get outside sometimes?"

"No." Sasha seemed to have a lot to say but frowned instead. "I hope Papa turns the power on. How do you like his city? It's haunted, you know."

They came to a gate in the western wall with a steel door marked SEKTOP 5. Sasha rolled down the window, confessing to her in a whisper: "I hate the guards! But they hate me, too, so it's OK." She reached out an arm and flipped them off. The guards opened the door and dryly waved them through.

They entered another gigantic natural cave. The void stretched left and right through the rock, nearly as large as the main cavern, in a long oval that sloped north. The floor of the chamber was covered by rows of tall three-tiered benches, some of which were draped with plastic sheets to make pitched greenhouses. Some carried hydroponic plant beds, but the vast majority carried dark rows of huge glass flasks. Only a small portion of these benches was illuminated with grow lights, spreading to the north and south of a large circular clearing where the limo now stopped.

At the edge of the clearing sat a dilapidated Soviet-era LiAZ bus the size of a Winnebago whose rubber tires were cracked and peeling off its wheels. Nell saw that it was illuminated and occupied. The derelict bus had apparently been retrofitted into some kind of field lab.

As she climbed out of the white limo with Sasha, Nell observed an enormous lighting fixture hanging from the ceiling. Four hundred feet above them, it gleamed like a crystalline structure, an aurora borealis shifting inside the dense lattice of beams.

A friendly-looking man in a lab coat that stretched over his potbelly greeted them now as he stepped out of the big Soviet bus. "Sasha and Ivan!" he called. He gave an awkward wave as he stooped to greet the excited Samoyed that nearly knocked him over.

"Papa wants you to show Nell your garden, Dennis," Sasha said. "She's a botanist!"

"Yes! Thank you, Sasha. I've been expecting you, Doctor. Welcome." He wiped his dog-licked hand on his coat and reached it out to her. "Dennis Appleton. I'm the man in charge of the farm. It's not a garden, Sasha," he chided.

Sasha smirked. "Whatever."

Nell clasped his damp hand, smiling. "Nice to meet you. I'm Nell Duckworth-um, Binswanger," she corrected herself. "Sorry-just got married. Old habit."

"Will you keep both names?"

"Well..." She shrugged. "We're thinking about it."

Dennis nodded. "Changing names is a conundrum I'm glad men don't usually have to face." He shook her hand graciously. "But a rose is a rose."

"Thank you," Nell said.

"You're welcome. I am Pobedograd's agricultural engineer. I graduated from the University of Nebraska and was born in Iowa, believe it or not. I never thought I'd end up here." Dennis Appleton laughed good-naturedly. "It's nice to have some company from home. Well, it's not much of a farm right now, I must admit. We're waiting for the power to be turned on." Dennis pointed a baby-carrot-shaped finger straight up. "When the lights are turned on, we should be able to harvest oxygen and enough food to feed the entire city. Let me show you what we've been able to do so far with the limited energy that we have. To the south are all of our greenhouses. We have rows and rows of tomatoes, herbs, greens, onions, shallots, and lots of flowers, which are all quite edible, too, by the way."

"I guess this is where my roses came from?" Nell asked.

"Yes! Maxim insists we grow our own," Dennis said. "Please, come with me."

He led them to the north edge of the broad clearing. Nell, Sasha, and Ivan followed him between two lit rows of plant beds. "Fresh flowers, carrots, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, strawberries, and herbs are already being grown here for the restaurants and guests. The rest of our vegetables are still brought in, but that will change soon."

On one side, the plant beds were replaced by glass vats on benches stacked three high. The jars must have held two hundred gallons each and were half-filled with bubbling green liquid like horror-movie lab props.

"Growing algae?" Nell guessed.

"Yes. Exactly! It's a very good source of nutrients and oxygen. All of these jars and growing benches are original to the city. Apparently, they were preparing to cultivate algae here back in the 1950s, which was a pretty advanced notion back then."

Dennis smiled, and Nell noticed that his teeth looked like white corn kernels. His pale turnip-colored face was crowned by corn silkblond hair around a pale melonlike bald spot. Nell giggled involuntarily, unable to shake Sasha's characterization of him as the "Veggie-Man."

"We're also growing areca palms, reed palms, English ivy, peace lilies, various ferns, and weeping figs," he said.

"Why those species?" Nell wondered.

"They're low light and have high rates of photosynthesis. And they're all good air purifiers that counteract off-gassed chemicals in the city's atmosphere. We will plant them throughout the city when the power comes on."

"This sector does seem a little fresher than the others." Nell breathed appreciatively. "How many scientists have come here?"

"Well," Dennis Appleton looked a little reticent. "I have a small crew of horticulturists. But you and the others are some of the first outside scientists Maxim has invited. The rest of us had to agree to live here for the rest of our lives just for the chance to work here."

"No! You're kidding?" Nell said.

"No, no, I'm not kidding, sort of," Dennis said, blushing like a russet potato. "We have a good deal here, actually. When they finally get the power on, it will be much better. You guys weren't brought in with the same security agreements the rest of us had to sign off on, were you?"

"I don't think so," Nell said.

"That's because Papa needs your help, Nell," Sasha said. The young girl nodded ominously.

"We're just consultants," Nell confirmed. "Maxim said we could leave in a few weeks, at most. But you are kidding, right?"

"Oh, of course, I'm exaggerating. He lets us out sometimes." Dennis chuckled.

Nell noted a strange intensity in Sasha's eyes as they reached the end of the illuminated rows. They proceeded past the edge of the light into the darkness. High up on the west wall of the cavern, a multicolored starburst like a cracked windshield stretching hundreds of feet. Its branching fractures glowed colors like a batik scratched in black wax. "Is this chamber next to-?" Nell began.

"Pandemonium?" Appleton asked. "Yes. At least along the upper half of the western wall. I know what you're thinking: that there must be a breach." He pointed a dainty finger at the glowing cracks. "Apparently the hyphae are penetrating through microscopic cracks and fissures in the rocks."

"What are hyphae?" Sasha asked.

"The main part of a fungus's body," Nell said, concerned.

"Oh."

"Kind of like the roots and stems," Appleton said.

"Whatever." Sasha shrugged.