Free INTERVENTION by Julian May, Ted Dikty Page B

are less publicized; and if questioned, the people themselves generally laugh and call the old stories outworn superstition.
    Dr. Pyotr Sakhvadze's wife Vera had done so until less than a week ago, on the day she died.
    Still numb with grief, Pyotr drove like an automaton, no longer even bothering to question the compulsion that had taken hold of him. It was very hot in the semitropical lowlands and Tamara slept for a time on the back seat of the brand-new Volga sedan. The highway led through tobacco fields and citrus groves and stands of palm and eucalyptus, trending farther inland south of Gagra, where the mountains receded from the coast in the delta of the great River Bzyb. The road map showed no Upper Byzb village, but it had to lie somewhere in the valley. Pyotr turned off the highway onto the Lake Ritsa road and pulled in at a village store at the lower end of the gorge.
    "I'll buy us some bottles of fruit soda here," Pyotr said, "and ask the way. We don't want to get lost in the mountains."
    "We wouldn't," Tamara assured him gravely.
    Pyotr's laugh was uneasy. "Just the same, I'll ask."
    But the woman in the store shook her head at his inquiry. "Upper Bzyb village? Oh, there's nothing for tourists there, and the road is nothing but a goat-track, suitable only for farm trucks. Better to go to the lovely resort at Lake Ritsa."

    When Pyotr persisted she gave vague directions, all the while maintaining that the place was very hard to find and not worth the trip, and the people odd and unfriendly to boot. Pyotr thanked her and returned to the car wearing a grim expression. He handed his daughter her soda. "I have been told that the road to Upper Bzyb is impossible. We simply can't risk it, Tamara."
    "Papa, don't worry. They won't let anything happen to us. They're expecting us."
    "Expecting—! But I never wrote or telephoned—"
    "Mamenka told them we'd come. And they told me."
    "That's nonsense," he said, his voice trembling. What was he thinking of, coming here? It was madness! Perhaps he was unhinged by sorrow! Aloud, he said, "We'll turn around at once and go home."
    He started up the car, slammed it into reverse gear, and stamped on the accelerator so abruptly that the engine died. He cursed under his breath and tried again and again to start it. Damn the thing! What was wrong with it? With
him!
Was he losing his mind?
    "You've only forgotten your promise," the little girl said.
    Aghast, Pyotr turned around. "Promise? What promise?"
    Tamara stared at him without speaking. His gaze slid away from hers and after a moment he covered his face with his handkerchief. Vera! If only you had confided in me. I would have tried to understand. I'm a man of science, but not narrow-minded. It's just that one doesn't dream that members of one's own family can be—
    "Papa, we must go," Tamara said. "It's a long way, and we'll have to drive slowly."
    "The car won't start," he said dully.
    "Yes it will. Try."
    He did, and the Volga purred into instant life. "Yes, I see! This was also their doing? The old ones waiting for us in Verkhnyaya Bzyb?"
    "No, you did it, Papa. But it's all right now." The little girl settled back in her seat, drinking the soda, and Pyotr Sakhvadze guided the car back onto the gorge road that led deep into the front ranges of the Caucasus.
    ***
    The promise.
    In the motor wreck a week earlier, as Vera lay dying in her husband's arms, she had said: "It's happened, Petya, just as little Tamara said. She told us not to go on this trip! Poor baby ... now what will become of her? I was such a fool! Why didn't I listen to them?...Why didn't I listen to her? Now I'll die, and she'll be alone and frightened ... Ah! Of course, that's the answer!"
    "Hush," the distraught Pyotr told her. "You will not die. The ambulance is on its way—"
    "I cannot see as far as Tamara," his wife interrupted him, "but I do know that this is the end for me. Petya, listen. You must promise me something."
    "Anything! You know I'd do