The ground outside was white with new snow, snow that reflected the lights strangely in glitters and shadows. Outside the reach of the lights dark still pressed hard overhead. For two weeks Illya had risen in the dark and gone to bed in the dark. Part of the walk to the forest in the morning was in the dark, and all of the return. When they were in the forest he revelled in the light that came down into the open clearings, revelled in the occasional glimpses of sun when the clouds obliged, because the little joys of natural beauty were almost the only joys there were. Otherwise, everything was hunger and exhaustion, humiliation, and sore muscles and aching limbs. In the first week the blisters on Illya's hands from using the saw and axe had been so sore he could barely curl his hands closed, but in the second week they had started to transform to nascent callouses, and he had hopes that today it would be less painful.

'Have you noticed, Ivan, that snow is not snow white?' he asked as they walked around the yard towards the mess hall, huddling their coats around them.

Ivan snorted, and his breath steamed in white plumes from his nostrils. He was looking gloomily at the thermometer that hung on the wall, fuzzed with frost.

'Minus thirty five. No chance of being kept back on such a balmy day. Now, what's that you say about snow?'

Illya gestured at the ground. 'It is not snow white. It is blue, it is yellow, it is grey, sometimes almost black, but almost never white.'

'What are you, a bloody poet?' Ivan looked over towards the mess hall, where the line was out of the door. 'I wonder if there will be real oatmeal,' he sighed wistfully.

It was Illya's turn to snort. 'Do they know what real oatmeal is? I'm not sure I do. I haven't got close enough to a bowl since I've been here to even tell if it's right.'

Ivan sighed. Illya almost found himself laughing. He hadn't understood in the first few days how anyone could laugh here, but he was starting to learn. One had to snatch joy where it came, and he liked this tall, friendly man who had stuck to him from that first night, guided him when he needed it, and pulled his spirits up when they fell.

He sat through breakfast, swallowing the fish stew as slowly as he dared, remembering that man in War and Peace who knew how to savour what he ate because he had so little. He thought he had learnt all about hunger during the war, but it was twenty years since that time, and apparently his stomach had forgotten. It was never this cold in Kiev, either, and cold ate calories, calories the oatmeal would have provided at least in part. They were too late for oatmeal once the other prisoners had eaten, though, and had to make do with no more than stew and bread. It was just yet another way that the opushchennye were kept in their place. Hunger was a great humbler.

It was too soon between eating and being called for roll call, being subject to the brisk search, and then sent out in rows to march to the forest. It took an hour to walk there on a good day, longer when it had snowed and they had to break their path. Last night's snow had been enough to coat the courtyard, but wasn't too thick underfoot. Still the cold seeped through the felt valenki and straight into his toes, into his bones, up into his ankles and aching through his shin bones. He needed to get rags to wrap around his feet, but he was too new and too far down in the pecking order.

He walked alongside Ivan, always aware of the armed men flanking them. This walk was a risky time, and the guards showed it in their nervousness. On the second day someone had made a break for it, and had been shot down in the snow. His body had been left there until their evening return, when the frozen corpse was carried home by two prisoners.

Stupid. It was stupid to try an escape there, where the land was flat and the white was endless. There was nowhere to hide and bullets travelled faster than starved and exhausted men. Even in the forest an escape would be stupid – without outside help. Where would one go?

He raised his head a little to peer at the men ahead. It wasn't good to raise one's face to the wind, but he had watched Permyakov every day for a week and a half, trying to work out an angle to reach him. He couldn't walk with him, shunned as he was. He had tried to angle things so he could work with him, but Permyakov seemed terrified of associating with anyone who could taint him. He had occasionally tried a word or two in the yard, but the man had moved away as if Illya were a leper.

Every day he tried to make himself agreeable to Permyakov, offering him cigarette butts he had found or reaching out to help him carry a load of wood, but the man walked on with his head in the air, as if Illya didn't exist. Illya could have slapped him. He had to get his trust before he revealed his purpose. He simply had to. But trust seemed to be a commodity of which Permyakov was in short supply, and Illya supposed he couldn't blame him.

The man was in his forties, too old for this work in these conditions. On the few occasions Illya had seen him hatless he had seen a broad balding patch in the centre of the shaved fuzz. His cheekbones were high and his eyes grey and sharp with intelligence. With a few more pounds on him, dressed in a suit, with his hair grown back, he would have suited a lab or an office eminently. Here, he was as out of place as a fish in the Sahara.

He stumped on through the snow, internalising a rousing marching song in his head. He glanced at Ivan, knowing he was doing the same. It was a kind of shared morale boost they had agreed on that first morning, when Illya was too weak and exhausted from his month in the cattle wagon, and had started to slip behind on the march. Ivan had named a song and tapped his finger, three, two, one, and in their heads they had started to sing.

They reached the work area in the forest and mulled around for a while, feet stamping, some men trying to get a fire going from scraps of brushwood too small to be used for anything else. Illya longed for that fire, but the first time he had moved towards one Ivan had grabbed his arm, pulled him back, hissing, 'No, not while the others are warming themselves.'

But as it turned out, there was almost always someone else warming themselves.

He had seen Phelps a couple of times since he had been here, striding in to the logging area in good clothing, looking well-fed and healthy, barking orders. It was too risky to try to speak to him. It was good that Rollin was there at one end and Phelps at the other, but really all they could do was observe, unless drastic action were called for. He ached to speak to Jim, to ask him about Napoleon, to hang on every tiny detail of what had happened while he had been here in this hideous limbo. But he kept his eyes down and kept himself small, even when Jim was around, because changing his behaviour around him would be too suspicious. He had already built a reputation for himself as timid, a push-over, and as far as it was safe he would keep to that.

But today Jim actually called him over, barking his number and beckoning officiously. He carried a small riding crop that he tapped against his leg, and if it had been anyone else it would have made Illya very nervous.

'B 307,' he repeated as Illya reached him. Ivan was hanging about very close to him, as if he were meaning to protect him if he needed it. Jim ordered him away snappishly, so Ivan stumped off. Illya saw him heading to secure a two handled saw for their work.

'Yes, sir,' Illya replied when he reached him, head down, voice low.

'Come over here with me, man. I want you to carry some things,' Jim told him sharply, and Illya nodded. As they walked Jim's leather boots and Illya's felt ones crunched on the snow, and Jim asked so quietly even Illya could barely hear over the crunching, 'Are you all right?'

'I've been better,' Illya replied truthfully, keeping his head down.

'Any contact with Permyakov?'

'I've tried. No luck. It's as if I'm contagious.'

Jim sighed, then tapped the riding crop against his boot loudly, and pointed at a pile of rough logs on the ground by a truck. 'Put them in there, we want them for the office stove.'

Illya heaved the first log up into the truck. Jim stood very close, watching him, tapping his crop with apparent impatience, although Illya was sure it was feigned.

'We have to find a way to make him open to you,' Jim fretted. He almost reached out as Illya struggled with the next log, and then caught his hands and locked them behind his back for a moment. The log dropped and narrowly missed Illya's foot. He wrestled it up again, and rolled it into the truck.

'Do you need anything?' Jim asked.

'Food,' Illya said, with a lightning grin as he faced into the truck. Then he said more seriously, 'Rags to wrap my feet. I'll get frostbite.'

'I'll do what I can,' Jim said. 'Any word for your partner?'

Illya's throat suddenly seemed to thicken. What could he say? What on earth could he say? He wanted Napoleon so badly that it hurt. Then everything seemed to coalesce; the freezing air around him; the hunger in his gut; the exhaustion that made his arms shake; the knowledge that if he took too long about this assignment he might be worked to death, neglected to death, or raped to death. Against that his feelings for Napoleon blazed like a shield. They were all he had. He looked up, blue eyes meeting blue eyes.

'Tell him I love him,' he said, and then added, 'And tell him I'm well. Please?'

Something flickered through Jim's eyes. Then he nodded, and said, 'I'll tell him. And I'll do my best with his fears.'

((O))

Jim wrestled with his promise to repeat Illya's message. It seemed so out of character for the reserved Russian. He hadn't known him long, but he was sure that a proclamation of love like that could only mean he was desperate, and that made him worry deeply. But then of course this mission was going to affect the Russian. It would affect anyone. He had spent a month in transit in the most horrific conditions, with no more than a night's rest between arriving and being put to work felling trees in temperatures that plummeted to minus forty. He had dropped a good deal of weight since he had left the hotel with Rollin and Cinnamon, and besides that there was a look in his eyes that Jim didn't like. According to Napoleon, Illya was prone to brooding, and in Jim's experience brooding could turn nasty in situations like this. They needed to get him out as soon as possible. If Illya couldn't even start to make a contact with Permyakov then perhaps Jim could plant a seed…

He mulled over that as he climbed up into the back of the truck where Illya had put the logs. He had itched to help him, seeing how he was struggling, but he couldn't risk breaking his cover with momentary kindness. He shoved the logs into a rather better arrangement and then jumped down, walked around the truck, and swung himself into the driver's seat. He shouted to one of the guards, 'Just taking this back for the office stove,' then fired the engine into life.

As he drove, away from any other eyes now, he opened his radio and called Barney. He, Willy, and Napoleon were a little more than three miles from the logging zone, ready to come as soon as they were called to help with the extraction. Jim hoped to do it quietly and calmly, but he wanted backup, just in case.

'Barney, Jim,' he said economically, focussing on keeping the truck on the road over a pernicious piece of ice. 'I've just spoken to Illya. Is Napoleon there?'

The response was instant. He got the feeling the radio had been snatched from Barney's hand.

'Is Illya all right?' Napoleon's voice snapped.

Jim held his breath for a moment, then said, 'As well as can be expected. I asked him if he wanted me to relay anything to you.'

'And?' Napoleon's voice was impatient through the crackling radio.

'He – asked me to tell you that he's well, and that he loves you,' he said, and then let the airwaves hang as the truck bumped on over the icy road.

Finally the silence broke. 'He – Illya said that?'

'I promised to tell you,' Jim said. He didn't want to get into a discussion about the deeper meaning of the Russian's words. Not here, while he was fighting the truck along a terrible road, and only had the time it would take to get back to the office and unload the wood, before he would need to turn around and drive right back again. He needed to get a word with Permyakov. He needed to plant that seed.

'Did he – er – say anything else?' Napoleon asked.

Jim smiled, deciding to paraphrase a bit for Napoleon's sake. 'He said his feet were cold.'

((O))

In the tent in the forest Napoleon clutched at the radio so hard the edges cut into his hand. He had forgotten he was holding it, and Barney prised it from his fingers and turned it off.

'That's positive anyway,' Willy said, trying to sound cheerful.

Napoleon felt shell shocked. Then Barney handed him a tin cup of liquor, and he swallowed it down.

'I – er – I'm sorry,' he said distractedly. He turned to the little gas stove and held his hands out to the heat. It was actually quite warm in this little tent, half buried under the snow, as long as the stove kept working.

Barney clapped him on the back. 'That's all right, Napoleon. You – care a lot for Illya, don't you?'

Napoleon's eyes rose to meet his. He was so thrown out he didn't know what to say. His mouth worked, but nothing came out.

'Napoleon, we guessed you two were queer for each other,' Willy added in a very understanding tone. 'It's all right.'

'I'm not queer,' Napoleon snapped instantly, horrified at hearing those words. Then he looked up into Willy's brown eyes, looked across to Barney's, and shook his head. 'Listen, I'm sorry, fellas. I didn't mean to snap. It's just – what Illya and I have – it's more complicated than that. We both like girls, you know. We both do. But we like guys too. Some guys. Each other...'

For all of his protests he didn't think he could make things sound queerer than that. Willy and Barney were exchanging glances, and Napoleon smiled placatingly.

'I really didn't mean to lose my head. It's just – for Illya to send a message like that through a third party – well... Illya's one of the most private people I know. He'd never say that to someone else. He's terrified of anyone knowing.'

Willy and Barney exchanged that look again. Then Barney said, 'If Jim told you Illya said it, then he said it.'

Napoleon rubbed his hands over his face, then said, 'Yeah, I know. I just worry that it means he's scared. Really scared.'

He rubbed his hands over his face again, viciously this time, then jerked himself to his feet. He had to stand slightly hunched in the small tent.

'Listen, fellas, I'm going for a walk about. I won't go far. I just need some fresh air.'

'Okay, Napoleon,' Willy said, but Barney said, 'Napoleon, he's got Rollin watching him at one end and Jim at the other.'

Napoleon turned back to look at him. 'Yeah. Yeah, I know. But he's the one in the thick of it.'

He shrugged on his overcoat, a thick Arctic coat over that, pulled on his hat with ear flaps, then gloves and over-mittens. Then he realised he could barely get a grip on the zip pull on the tent door, but Barney reached around and said, 'Let me help you with that. Just knock when you want to come back in.'

That provoked a little laugh. Napoleon felt momentarily better as he stepped out into the winter wonderland of these deep woods, where every tree held branches bowed with snow. He drew in air, and it burned his lungs, but he was just on the good side of cosy in his many wrappings.

Then he thought of Illya, and the relief of the fresh air turned to pensiveness. He wasn't sure what Illya would be wearing, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. He turned to the view again, the snow-crusted trees and the deep billows of snow on the ground, the animal tracks making deep little holes in the crust. His breath made a frozen cloud every time he exhaled, and he breathed deeply in the freshness. He and Willy and Barney had been cooped up in the tent for days, and there was a decided funk in there.

His ears caught the sound of axes falling over and over far away, and, more faintly, saws rasping. It would have been an idyllic scenario if he hadn't known the axes and saws were being wielded by slave labour, and that one of those ringing blows or low rasps might have been made by Illya's tired hands.

((O))

Illya was stripping off his mittens and valenki and relishing the thought of clambering into his bunk, hard and lumpy though the sawdust mattress was. His arms ached as they always did from pulling the two handled saw back and forth and carrying logs. His legs ached from the long walk to and from the logging zone. Tonight his head ached too. He ascribed that to the constantly pressing cold and the gnawing hunger. Someone had snatched part of his bread ration at dinner, and he was afraid of what that meant. So far he had been mostly ignored by the other inmates, but perhaps now they were coming to see him as a target.

The back of his neck prickled uncomfortably as he reached his hands up to haul himself onto his bunk, and he froze. After a moment he turned. His instincts had been good. There was a man just a few yards away, leaning against another set of bunks, just watching him. The man laughed and called over to another group just coming in and stamping dirty snow from their boots. It was the same swarthily good looking man who had taken his bread.

'Look at him, boys. I told you he was meek,' the man said.

Illya eyed his number and tried to recall his name. Kuznetsov or something like that. He was a squad leader. He made men do what he wanted them to do.

The other men clumped over to join him, exchanging jokes and muttered comments. Kuznetsov closed the space between himself and Illya and lifted Illya's chin with a finger. With the other hand he pulled off Illya's cap and tossed it onto the floor.

'A right little doll, isn't he? I bet he whored himself out to anyone who asked.'

Men had quailed before the look Illya currently had in his eyes, but perhaps his malnourished and tattered physical state detracted from the glitter there. Besides, he couldn't do anything. He knew that. There were twelve of them. Ivan had told him how they had stamped on Ivan Gregarin's head like a ripe watermelon.

'If you're going to do it, just do it,' he said tersely.

Kuznetsov just stared at him, and after a long, heavy silence, Illya turned back to his bed.

That was when Kuznetsov took him, wrenching his arms behind his back, shouting to his friends. His shoulders seared. If he fought, they would kill him...

Illya closed his eyes as rough hands untied the rope from his trousers and they were stripped off along with his underwear. Then he was slammed onto the floor, his head striking so hard that for a moment everything rang around him. When he opened his eyes he could see Kuznetsov kneeling down between his legs, the horrifying sight of his turgid cock pushing out from his open fly.

Panic took him, and he flailed. Hands grabbed his kicking feet, pressing him down by the ankles. He twisted viciously as Kuznetsov grabbed hold of his wrists, and the man let go to thump his fist hard into Illya's face. The world rang again, and when he came back to himself his legs had been lifted up against his chest, his ankles were being held, someone else was holding his wrists, and Kuznetsov was holding himself, angling himself between Illya's legs. He felt him there, his cock pressing hard against his cringing anus. He whimpered and tried to pull back, but he couldn't move. Kuznetsov pressured, grabbed hold of Illya's bent back thighs with both hands, and then forced himself in.

He screamed. He couldn't stop himself. He fought wildly, but the hands around his wrists were replaced with knees on his forearms. Kuznetsov's fingers drew blood from his thighs, and he kept on slamming against his body, driving in to his full length, his face bestial and contorted as he grunted with each thrust.

Illya pressed his head back hard against the wooden floor, trying to focus on that feeling, on the pain in his forearms and thighs, on anything but that terrible invasion into the heart of his body. But the pain there was beyond anything he had experienced, beyond blocking out. And then, at last, Kuznetsov stilled, jerking his seed into Illya's body, then pulled out and stepped aside. Kuznetsov spat on him, and the saliva ran down his face.

'He's a right little wildcat, but he's tight,' he said.

The period of relief was almost too short to register. Another man was taking Kuznetsov's place, grabbing Illya under the hips and lifting him up and then driving in to the entrance made slick with Kuznetsov's come. Someone was laughing. One of the men on his arms was laughing.

'...course he likes it. All the faggots like it, he's...'

The man on him kept pushing, so hard his arms jerked in their sockets. He could feel his own cock stiff and proud. That was why they were laughing.

'...yeah, go on, go on...'

His own orgasm was reflex, a small thing. Something hot splashed onto his face; but it made his rapist come too, bellowing.

'...fucking little whore...'

Another man. The pain dragged on, never dull enough to be tolerable, but wrenching through him in sharp, twisting spasms every time the new man drove home. And then there was the jerking of climax again, rough words spoken, the weight momentarily moving from his body, and then another man in his place.

'...that's it, boys. Give it to him. Fucking faggot...'

'...good lesson for him...'

'...his place...'

He drifted in and out. This is where I will die. He couldn't help that thought coming. He was going to be fucked to death on the board floor of a freezing barracks. And then he was suddenly angry, blazingly angry. He worked the muscles in his arms but he couldn't dislodge the men who knelt on them. He tried to jerk his hips, but he hadn't the strength. A blow rang across his face again, and he tasted blood in his mouth. So he stilled, went limp, and lay there, waiting, as each man took his turn.

And then there was stillness around him too. Stillness and a bubble of silence, outside of which he could hear boots milling, low voices, laughter. There was the noise of water pouring and something hot started to soak through his coat, and he wondered idly how he had come to be in the showers. But then the tang of urine worked its way to his nostrils, and he cringed, closing his eyes. And then there he was, just lying alone on the floor, looking up idly at the electric light that swung from the ceiling, vaguely aware that he was freezing and that he was lying in a sticky pool, and that he was crying without making a noise.

There were hands under his shoulders and he lashed out and almost broke the arm of the man behind him.

'Easy,' the voice said. 'Easy.'

It was Ivan. The man gathered Illya's underwear and trousers and gently eased them up over his legs. Then he sat Illya up, and Illya winced hard at the pain, staring around himself in a bewildered way as if he could not work out what was happening. Ivan peeled the soaked coat from him and hung it on the end of the bunk.

'It may not dry by morning, but it's better than nothing, huh?'

Illya was beyond speaking. Reflex little moans pushed from his throat. He let Ivan help him up onto his bunk and pull the blanket over him as he shivered. He could feel the communicator there, under his hip, and how he wanted to scrabble it from the sawdust and open up a channel and sob for Napoleon to come. He could feel the sticky, slimy mixture of semen and faeces and blood leaking from him, and wished for some way to wash that didn't mean waiting until the next scheduled bath day.

He turned himself onto his side, trying to regulate his breathing, trying to call on all the techniques that had been taught to him as an active agent to deal with the after effects of torture. Every single one eluded him.

((O))

Illya limped across the yard to the mess hall, feeling as though someone had impaled him on a fence post last night. He kept his head down, sure that his shame was visible to every single pair of eyes in the place. His coat was still damp, and it stank. His underwear was rough and stinking with filth.

'Hey, Lagoshin, where's your horse?' someone shouted. He glanced up enough to see it was Kuznetsov. One of his companions called out a crudity, and they all laughed.

Illya's face burned. He tried to normalise his gait, but it hurt, damn it. The bruise over his cheek and eye hurt and the bruises around his wrists and forearms hurt, but the pain between his legs was twisting, burning, beyond his experience. He dropped his head and carried on walking, straight into a guard who backhanded him across the face.

He stumbled back, startled, simultaneously apologising and registering that the blow hadn't in fact been that hard at all, more of a sudden swipe which lost its force as it met his cheek, pushing his face aside instead of hitting it aside. It hurt enough after last night's blows. He looked up into Rollin's face. The man's eyes widened at the sight of the bruising across Illya's cheek. He must have already noticed the way he was walking, and the taunts of the other men.

'You should go to the infirmary, B 307,' Rollin said. Then he picked at the faded lettering on the patch on Illya's jacket. His nose twitched as he noticed the urine scent that was rising from the coat. 'And get your numbers repainted or you'll go to the guardhouse.'

'Yessir,' Illya murmured, dropping his head again. Seeing Rollin should have been a comfort, but it wasn't. It wasn't at all. He just burned even hotter with shame for having his state exposed to one who knew him.

'Grazhdanin,' Rollin barked as he made to move away.

Illya froze, and then turned slowly, terrified that Rollin was going to make more of it. He couldn't go to the infirmary, not to report rape. They would only victimise him worse when he returned.

'Look at this,' Rollin said sharply, grabbing at his jacket and fiddling with the number patch. 'Here, and here. It's barely legible, I tell you. Turn round.'

Illya turned, keeping his head down, hiding his confusion as Rollin tugged at his clothing and barked at him for his slovenliness in not keeping his numbers properly visible. He was still confused as he limped away, trying to catch up with the other men going for breakfast. Opushchennye got the worst of it as it was, sitting at a separate table and always eating last. If the food ran out by the time they got there, there was nothing to be done about it. But as he walked he gradually became aware of a weight inside his jacket that had not been there before. He surreptitiously slipped his hand out of his mitten and into his jacket, and felt the dry, solid mass of black bread against his chest. It was a big bit of bread, good and heavy. He would have to eat it or hide it before they left for the work site, or it would be taken from him. Sometimes men stole or hoarded bread when they meant to try to escape.

He wondered if he could push half of it into his mattress where the communicator was hidden. Yes, he would do that. He broke some off and pushed it into his mouth, chewing very slowly so the jaw movement wasn't obvious, and got into the queue for breakfast.

There was still stew, but almost all the oatmeal was gone. But never mind. He had the bread. His affection for Rollin swelled so hard it almost brought tears to his eyes. Rollin had brought him bread. It was better than gold. What use was gold for an empty stomach or a cold body, anyway? You couldn't eat it or wear it. Sometimes he collected cigarette butts he found, swiping them from the ground before anyone else saw – because if someone else saw him going for one they would knock him away or beat him up for it. Because he didn't smoke he could hoard them and then swap them with other prisoners, more fortunate prisoners, for scraps of food. But he was afraid that wouldn't last long. The men would get to realise they could just hold him down and take the butts, and probably rape him for good measure while he was down there.

Rollin had given him bread… Something splashed into the meagre bowl of stew and became lost in the mess of fish bones and old cabbage and something that might have been carrot. Startled, he touched a hand to his cheek, and realised he was crying.

'The first time is the worst.'

He glanced sideways. Ivan had squeezed down next to him on their pariah's table, clattering his own bowl of stew down. Illya saw it wasn't quite as full as his own had been.

'Last of the vat,' Ivan shrugged, at his look. 'Now, Ilya. Remember. The first time is the worst. They will do it again. Don't fight them next time. It only makes it more fun and makes it hurt more. Just lie there. Pretend like you are dead. And think, Ilya. Think of other things. Take yourself far away. Keep your body relaxed and let them fuck a corpse. They might hit you a bit and try to make you wake up, because there's no fun in that for anyone. But don't fight them. Never fight them. After a while they'll get bored, pick on someone else for a time.'

Illya rubbed his sleeve viciously across his face, realising that the strange liquid was still raining into his stew. Odd. So odd. He couldn't feel himself crying. He felt almost nothing inside. But there the tears were, salting his stew.

He didn't look at Ivan, but he reached into his jacket and broke off a chunk of the bread in there. He slipped his hand onto Ivan's lap under the table, and poked his knee. Like a man long-practised in the art of subterfuge, Ivan reached down and took the bread, keeping it under the table, only breaking off small pieces and then dropping them into the stew when he knew no one was looking. He made no overt sign of gratitude, but he pushed his knee against Illya's for a moment, then took it away.

Illya's throat hardened again as he swallowed another mouthful of stew and soaked bread. He had given Ivan almost a third of that bread. Why had he done that? What on earth had possessed him? But Ivan was thinner than he. When he coughed his chest crackled and rattled. He had been here longer, far longer. Nine years, he said, because they kept adding to his sentence for ridiculous infractions, because if the zeks were treated as subhuman, the opushchennye were sub-animal. He was nearing the end again, and trying to stay out of trouble, but there were never guarantees.

Illya reached into the back of his teeth to pull out a fish bone, sucked every last thread of flesh from it, and dropped it on the table. He had been squeamish at first, but he had learnt quickly to eat every part of the fish, eyes and all. There was no sense in wasting good nutrients.

'Time,' Ivan said suddenly, nudging him hard. 'We'll be late.'

Illya took the last piece of his morning's bread ration, leaving what Rollin had given him safe in his jacket, pressed against his chest. He pressed the bread around the dented metal bowl, soaking up every last morsel from the surface, and stuffed the bread into his mouth. He was still hungry. Of course he was still hungry. But at least he was fed.

((O))

It was something of a risk meeting Jim like this, but Rollin thought it was worth it. There were some things that were easier to discuss in person than over the radio, not to mention the inherent risks of the radio itself. Sometimes it was possible for a local channel to cut in, or to think oneself secluded only to find someone had been listening through the door. This way, though, no one would overhear. Rollin had put through a quick call to arrange a rendezvous and then had borrowed a small truck and driven it out of the camp. When he had seen Jim's truck coming the other way on one of the icy, poorly made roads between the camp and the logging area he had skidded and deliberately put the truck in the ditch.

In a flurry of exaggerated arm waving and swearing he got out, kicking at the tyres and banging on the bonnet, until Jim got out to join him, politely enquiring in German-accented Russian if he could help.

'Ah, German,' Rollin said with a nod, and Jim explained his parentage in his awkward Russian. 'Well, then, we'll continue in German,' Rollin smiled broadly.

That at, least, was less suspicious than their switching to American-accented English, should anyone happen to catch the conversation on the wind, and they were both fluent enough in German to make the conversation flow easily.

'What is it, Rollin?' Jim asked immediately.

Rollin's face grew very serious. 'Jim, Illya was raped last night.'

Jim swallowed, and Rollin read his reaction. They had all known it was a very strong possibility, although Rollin thought Napoleon either didn't know or had chosen to stay in denial over that fact. But it had been two weeks, and they had been hoping.

'Are you sure?' Jim asked.

'Pretty sure. He was walking like – well, like he'd just come in from a hundred mile ride – and he was beaten up pretty bad. Stank of piss, too. He looked awful, Jim. Going by what I know about this place now I doubt it was just one man, and I doubt it'll be an isolated incident.'

Jim let out his frustration by kicking Rollin's tyre viciously.

'This is taking too damn long. But we can't pull him out, Rollin. We've got to get Permyakov out. Illya knew the risks.'

Rollin nodded. 'Although I imagine knowing the risks beforehand and having it actually happen are very different things,' he pointed out.

Jim took off his hat and wiped his forehead. 'I don't like this either, Rollin,' he admitted. 'But we can't do anything. We can't risk exposing Illya. The consequences would be worse than rape. And we have to get Permyakov, and get him without risking him blowing the whole thing wide open. It's the blasted kid gloves approach that's making it take so damn long, but what can we do?'

Rollin lifted an eyebrow. Although he knew Jim was right, the look on Illya's face this morning weighed heavily on his mind.

'Do what you can for him without compromising him,' Jim said with a sigh. 'You said he stank. Can you get his clothes cleaned on sanitary grounds?'

'I don't know. I could try, but I'm afraid of exposing him to anything that'll land him in solitary. We could be here months if that happens, and Permyakov could die in that time.'

Jim sighed again. 'Do what you can,' he said again. 'You got the extra bread to him?'

'This morning,' Rollin nodded. 'Good timing too. I saw his face when he felt it in his jacket. It was like Christmas had come, poor bastard. I'm still trying to work out how to get the foot rags to him, but maybe if I can get his coat for washing I can slip them inside. Trouble is, they're likely to do it again. They're like animals.'

Jim's face registered his own disgust. 'They're treated like animals. Brutalised men become brutal.' He slapped his hat back onto his head. 'I've been thinking about Permyakov. I've ordered him to work with Illya more than once and he's managed to avoid it. I don't have as much power over them as I'd like – not as much as the squad leaders. We need to soften him up, and I've got an idea. He's a physicist. Illya's a physicist too.'

'Yes, but the guy won't so much as look at him,' Rollin said desperately.

'Yeah, well, my plan's this. I want you to come up to the logging zone, and we're going to stage a conversation...'

((O))

After leaving Rollin, Jim turned the truck around and drove out to the logging area. He climbed out onto the dirty snow and stalked over to a huddle of zeks, who had made a small fire and were warming their hands. Sudden anger welled in him. He didn't know if these were the men who had raped Illya, but he felt fury for the way almost all of them treated the homosexual convicts. He slapped his riding crop on his boot and bellowed at them to go about their work. Startled, they gave him resentful looks, and moved off.

He stood there in the heat himself, looking about the area. There was Illya, bringing an axe down against the bole of a tree with slamming blows. His stature belied his strength. And then there was Permyakov, on the other side of the cleared space, pulling a saw with another man. And never the twain shall meet, he thought fatefully. But he would make them meet. He had to. He would have to go about it carefully, but since Illya had got nowhere on his own, it was time to plan some stronger interference.

'Lagoshin,' he bellowed at the top of his voice, and he saw Illya flinch, and then lean the axe carefully against the tree he was attacking. As he walked over he saw Rollin was right. He was walking with an awkward gait, and there was a red and purple bruise vivid across half of his ashen face. He eyed it critically, trying to work out if there were a bone broken under there, but he didn't think so, or at least not badly.

'Come here,' he said sharply, pointing a finger at his feet. 'Right here.'

He manoeuvred himself so that Illya was close to the fire, and started bellowing at him about the right way to fell a tree, implying that Illya was doing it the wrong way. He just wanted the man to have a few moments of rest, and to be able to warm himself. He hoped Illya understood that. He couldn't read his expression because his head was dropped, his gaze aimed firmly at his own feet.

'I'm trying to get foot rags to you,' he said in an undertone between shouts, and Illya inclined his head just a little. 'Are you all right?'

'Yes,' Illya murmured, but he didn't raise his head.

Jim raised his voice again, shouted again, waving his hand towards the tree Illya had been working on, and Illya flinched very realistically. At least, Jim hoped it was realistic, not just real.

'Rollin and I will try to pique Permyakov's interest in you,' he said. 'Not today, but as soon as we can arrange it. As soon as we can get together with Permyakov as an audience. Be prepared to show off your knowledge of physics.'

Illya gave that flinching little nod again, then asked in a low voice, 'Can I go back to my work, sir?'

Jim felt as if he had been given a blow, just for a moment, just before the understanding crept in. He could feel Illya's shame. It came off him in waves. He hoped the 'sir' had been for show, that the boundaries between his allies and his tormentors weren't starting to blur. He nodded crisply. 'Go on,' he said, then raised his voice a little more to shout at him tersely about how he should hold the axe.

Illya walked away from the heat of the fire without looking back, and Jim wondered if perhaps he had made a mistake. He had wanted him to have a little warmth, a little kindness. But perhaps such a brief sliver of those two things were worse than not having them at all.

((O))

Illya went back to the tree and took the axe in his hands again. It had been good, beating that sharp blade over and over into the wood of the tree. He put into his efforts all of the force that he would have used to beat off Kuznetsov and his friends. Knowing that he could have killed Kuznetsov with one hand didn't help at all. He blamed himself for not doing so, for not fighting harder, for not screaming louder. He should have been able to do something. He shouldn't have just let himself be taken like one of the meek, soft opushchennye who just lay back and practically asked to be fucked, who got hard and came to show their rapists just how much they liked it...

At those thoughts his mind spun in a whirl of self-hatred. He hated himself for letting himself be raped, for coming to climax under their bodies. He hated himself for thinking those terrible thoughts of the other men who had come here because of their sexual preference. No one here invited rape. Even that handful who prostituted themselves out did it only from desperation, because they were driven to it by their need for food or clothes or tobacco. And he was failing his mission. All the while failing his mission. He couldn't get within ten yards of Permyakov without him freaking out, and he was failing, failing so badly...

He slammed the axe into the tree again and watched white chips fly. With every blow the percussion rang through his bones and the bruise on his face throbbed. With every twist of his body that place between his buttocks clenched in pain. Just walking to the logging area had been agony, but worse than the pain was the fear. He had heard Kuznetsov talking loudly about the sport he was going to make tonight, and from the way the man had looked at him he assumed he was going to be the target. He didn't know how to take that, not with the pain he was in. Ivan had told him to just lie back and take it, but he didn't know if he could.

((O))

Later he was given the chance to find out, as Kuznetsov bent him over the lower bunk and he lay there with his face pressed against the sawdust mattress, grunts being forced from his lungs as Kuznetsov pushed himself in. The pain of new entry after yesterday's assault was terrible. He closed his eyes and pressed his mouth and nose into the bed, letting himself suffocate just enough to start feeling warm and sleepy, and then turning his head to gasp in air. Playing with his air pulled him through that first rape, but by the time the second man had taken his place he didn't think he could do it any more. He was afraid of it going too far. So he did as Ivan had suggested. He made himself utterly limp. His breath came out as dry gasps. And he carried his mind to somewhere far away. At first he tried to think of Napoleon, but quickly he realised he didn't want Napoleon to be associated with that. So he thought of food. While the second man fucked him he devoured an entire roast chicken. But as the third man entered he started to feel sick, so sick he was afraid he was going to vomit on the bed. So instead of thinking of food he remembered his place, his special place that he had constructed in his first year on the job, when he had been taught about torture resistance. This was torture, wasn't it? He supposed it was torture. So he thought of white, of non-existence, of floating far away from his body. He drew down a glass wall, shut himself away. He took himself far into the white room, where no one else could come in. By the time they left him he was so far away that it was a shock to open his eyes and come back to earth, and find himself cold and wretched again. The usual occupant of the lower bunk was trying to nudge him off so he could sleep, and Illya stared at him blankly for a moment before he realised what he wanted. Then he scrabbled up his clothes from the floor and pulled them on, and once he was back in his own bunk he tried to find that white void again, because it was a peaceful place.