Naturally, they were up to speed on what had happened. Andrei and the Dark Other were only too glad to discuss the story of the plane with me—but they couldn’t tell me anything useful because they didn’t know anything. The Dark Others had already ironically dubbed the child “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Fly”—and that was probably the most valuable thing I learned. I also noticed that the relationship between Andrei and Arkady was entirely friendly, and made a mental note to recommend more frequent changes of duty personnel. There’s no prohibition in principle on friendly relations between Others. There are cases like that: I myself was friendly with a family of vampires, and in Petersburg there’s even a unique family—a Light Magician and a Dark Clairvoyant—although they don’t work in the Petersburg Watches . . . But in the case of a young Light One and an experienced Dark One there was a risk of undesirable influence.

Best to play safe.

With this thought in mind I wandered on round the airport for a while, discovered a vampire standing in a check-in queue and out of sheer boredom checked his registration seal—everything was in order. I got the urge to have another beer, but that would have been overdoing it. On the other hand . . . I didn’t have to drive . . . I caught myself edging closer and closer to the bar.

Fortunately, Las showed up, brisk and cheerful. I turned away from the little restaurant with a feeling of relief and waved to him.

“Ninety-four percent!” he informed me cheerfully.

I raised one eyebrow quizzically—well, at least, that was the gesture I tried to imitate.

“I’ve been interested for a long time in the question of how many people pick their noses when they’re sure no one can see them. So I asked exactly a hundred people—and ninety-four of them confessed!”

For a second I thought Las must have gone insane.

“And you asked people about that instead of trying to discover something unusual?”

“Why ‘instead of’?” asked Las, offended. “As well as! Just think about it: how can you use the minimal amount of magical influence to make people tell the truth first, and make sure they’ll forget the questions as completely as possible! I introduced myself as a sociologist carrying out a survey with the permission of the management. I asked about any strange things they’d seen, about where they spent this morning . . . basically, everything I was supposed to ask. That was all under the influence of ‘Plato.’ And at the end I asked the question about picking their noses. Surely you realize that someone who has confessed, even in an anonymous survey, that they pick boogers out of their noses with their finger when they’re alone will try to forget the whole business as quickly as possible? It was effective, and I got an answer to my question too!”