Brainfire [antikvár]

_It was snowing. Winds had blown great drifts, surreal sculptings that lay, pockmarked and powdery, along the bank. The early-evening sky was already black, the moon a vague configuration of silver broken by heavy cloud. Starless, cold: a landscape of colorless disenchantment. Beneath the heavy artillery, under fortifications where infantrymen moved back and forth, several figures stood knee-deep in snow. Pale lamps had been rigged below the guns, throwing weak lights in the dark.The Scientist, Andreyev, a small man in a greatcoat so copious that it might have been wrapped several times around his body, raised one hand in the direction of the Ussuri. Faintly, by what little moon broke the cloud cover, ice slicks could be seen."He'll come from that direction," Andreyev said. He looked at his three companions. The Politician, a squat figure shaped like some heavy bookend, wiped a layer of snow from his moustache and blinked down toward the river. The Colonel was smiling in