“Moving from an abacus to an arithmometer was hard for me. But moving from an arithmometer to a calculator was easy. And I never did like typewriters, I even used to have a shorthand typist before . . .” He paused and smiled at some memory or other. Anna Tikhonovna smiled slightly as well. “But I liked computers straight away. There’s something right about them . . . magical!”

“I wholeheartedly approve,” I said, with a nod. “No, really. It’s useful to master a new skill.”

“And how is our little Prophet doing?” Gesar asked out of the blue.

“He’s learning his lessons.”

“Has he made friends with anyone?”

“With Nadya,” I said. “But I assume you know that.”

“I do,” Gesar admitted. “At that age, if a girl thumps a boy on the nose it marks the start of a long and firm friendship. A pity everything’s so much more complicated for grown-ups.”

“Uh-huh,” I muttered. The boss had not started talking about Innokentii simply out of idle curiosity—I was sure of that.

“Rather annoying that no one heard his prophecy,” the boss went on.

“Yes,” I agreed, pricking up my ears.

“And Nadya definitely didn’t hear anything?”

“Definitely. She just thumped the kid to motivate him and walked out.”

“And there weren’t any security cameras in that room,” Gesar carried on lamenting. “Or were there?”

“There were. Only Nadya . . . er . . . switched them off.”

“Burnt them out,” Gesar corrected me. “Why, by the way?”

“So that no one would hear the prophecy.”

“Logical, logical . . .” Gesar sighed.

Anna Tikhonovna and I exchanged glances. Of course, I had known the boss for a hundred years less than our teacher had. But it wasn’t hard to understand that he was steering the conversation round to some subject that only he was aware of.

“You know what’s bothering me, though?” asked Gesar, suddenly leaning back in his chair and pushing the keyboard away.

“The universal problems of all creation,” I growled.

“Yes, you’re right, Anton. Precisely that, the universal problems of all creation. I’ve realized that I don’t know what the Twilight is.”

“A parallel reality with a stratiform structure,” said Anna Tikhonovna. “Passing from one level of the Twilight to another requires the expenditure of Power—on both the transition itself and the maintenance of one’s own vital functions. Each successive layer of the Twilight differs more and more from our world, although it is possible to pass from the sixth level directly to our world, which is thus also the seventh level of the Twilight.”

“An absolutely comprehensive explanation—for an Other in his first month of instruction,” said Gesar. “Allow me to remark that only ten years ago, young Others were absolutely certain that the Twilight had three levels . . . and I myself knew nothing about the transition from the sixth layer back to our world. But still, what is the Twilight?”