Maxim got up and started getting undressed. He took off his dirty, wet shirt (Gai gave a loud gulp when he saw the scars from the bullets) and tugged off his repulsively filthy boots and trousers with an air of disgust. All his clothes were covered in black blotches, and Maxim felt relieved to be free of them.
“Well, that’s great,” he said, and sat down again. “Thanks, Gai. I won’t stay long, only until the morning, and then I’ll go.”
“Did the janitor see you?” Gai morosely asked.
“He was sleeping.”
“Sleeping . . .” Gai dubiously repeated. “You know, he . . . Well, of course, maybe he was sleeping. He does sleep sometimes.”
“Why are you home?” Maxim asked.
“I’m on leave.”
“What kind of leave could you be on?” asked Maxim. “The entire corps of guards is probably out in the country right now . . .”
“But I’m not a guardsman any longer,” Gai said with a crooked grin. “They threw me out of the Guards, Mak. I’m just a simple army corporal now—I teach peasant hicks which leg is the right one and which is the left one. Once I’ve taught them, off they go to the Hontian border, into the trenches . . . That’s how things are with me now, Mak.”
“Is that because of me?” Maxim asked in a quiet voice.
“Well, what can I say? Basically, yes.”
They looked at each other, and Gai turned his eyes away. Maxim suddenly thought that if Gai turned him in, he would probably get back into the Guards and his correspondence school for officers, and he also thought that only two months ago a thought like that couldn’t possibly have occurred to him. He suddenly had a bad feeling and wanted to leave immediately, this very moment, but at that point Rada came back and summoned him to the bathroom. While he was getting washed up, she prepared something to eat and warmed up some tea. Gai sat in the same place with his cheeks propped on his fists and a melancholy expression on his face. He didn’t ask any questions—no doubt he was afraid of hearing something terrible, something so bad that it would rupture his last line of defense and sever the final threads that still connected him to Maxim. And Rada didn’t ask any questions either; no doubt she simply wasn’t interested in questions. She never took her eyes off Maxim or let go of his hands, and occasionally sobbed—she was afraid that he would suddenly disappear, this man she loved. Disappear and never appear again. And then, because there wasn’t much time left, Maxim pushed away his unfinished cup of tea and started telling them everything himself.
About how he had been helped by the mother of a state criminal; about how he had met degenerates; about who they—the degenerates—really were, why they were degenerates and what the towers were, what a diabolical, abominable invention the towers were. About what had happened that night, how people had run at a machine gun and died one after another, about how that odious heap of wet iron had collapsed, and how he had carried a dead woman, whose child had been taken away, and whose husband had been killed . . .
Rada avidly listened, and Gai eventually became interested too. He even started asking questions—malicious and spiteful questions, stupid and cruel questions, and Maxim realized that he didn’t believe anything, that the very idea of the Unknown Fathers’ perfidy simply slid off his mind, like water off grease, that he didn’t like listening to all of this and was struggling to hold himself back and not interrupt Maxim. And when Maxim had finished his story, he said with a dark chuckle, “Well, they certainly wound you around their little finger!”
Maxim looked at Rada, but she turned her eyes away, biting on her lip, and indecisively said, “I don’t know . . . Of course, maybe there was one tower like that. You come across villains even in the city council . . . and the Fathers simply don’t know about it . . . Nobody tells them about it, and they don’t know . . . You must understand, Mak, it simply can’t be the way you tell it . . . Those are ballistic defense towers, you know . . .”
She spoke in a quiet, swooning voice, obviously trying not to offend him, beseechingly glancing into his eyes and stroking his shoulder, but Gai suddenly flew into a rage and started saying that all of this was stupid, that Maxim simply had no idea how many of those towers there were right across the country, how many of them were built every year and every day, and how, he asked, could such vast billions possibly be spent in our poor state, simply in order to cause trouble twice a day for a pitiful little group of degenerates, who in and of themselves amounted to nothing, a mere drop in the ocean of the people . . . “And so much money is spent simply on guarding them,” he added after a pause.
“I’ve thought about that,” said Maxim. “Probably everything really isn’t all that simple. But Hontian money has nothing to do with it . . . And then, I saw it for myself: as soon as the tower collapsed, they all started feeling better. And as for antiballistic defense . . . You have to understand, Gai, that there are simply too many towers for defense against attack from the air. Nowhere near as many as that are needed to close off airspace . . . And then, why have ADTs on the southern border? Do the wild degenerates really have ballistic weapons?”
“There are plenty of things down there,” Gai waspishly said. “You don’t know anything, and you believe everything. I’m sorry, Mak, but if you weren’t you . . . We’re all too trusting,” he added in a bitter tone of voice.
Maxim didn’t want to argue anymore, or to speak about this subject at all. He started asking how life was treating them, where Rada was working, why she hadn’t gone to study, how their uncle was, and the neighbors . . . Rada livened up and started telling him, then she checked herself, collected the dirty dishes, and went out to the kitchen. Gai briskly scratched his head with both hands, frowned at the dark window, made his mind up, and launched into a serious man-to-man conversation.
“We love you,” he said. “I love you, and Rada loves you, although you’re an unsettled kind of man, and because of you everything has gone kind of awry for us. But the real problem is this. Rada doesn’t just simply love you, not like that, you understand . . . but, how can I put it . . . basically, you understand, she’s really devoted to you, she spent all this time crying, and for the first week she was actually ill. She’s a good girl and a good homemaker, lots of men admire her, and that’s not surprising . . . I don’t know how you feel about her, but what would I advise you to do? Give up all this nonsense. It’s not for you, you’re out of your depth, they’ll get you embroiled, you’ll get killed yourself, and you’ll spoil the lives of many innocent people—that doesn’t make any sense. You just go back up into your mountains and find your own people. You won’t find the place with your head, but your heart will tell you where your homeland is . . . Nobody will look for you there, you’ll settle down, rebuild your life, then come back and collect Rada, and you’ll both be happy there. Or maybe, by that time we’ll be finished with the Hontians, peace will come at last, and we’ll start living like normal people.”
Maxim listened to him and thought that if he really were a Highlander, that was probably what he would do: I’d go back to my homeland and live a quiet life there with a young wife, forget about all these horrors and all the complexities . . . No, I wouldn’t forget, I’d organize defenses so the Fathers’ bureaucrats wouldn’t stick their noses in there, and if the Guards showed up there, I’d fight to the last on the threshold of my own home . . . Only I’m not a Highlander. I have no business up in the mountains—my business is down here, I don’t intend to put up with all of this . . . And Rada? Well, if Rada really does love me, then she’ll understand, she’ll have to understand . . . I don’t want to think about that now, I don’t want to love, this is not the time for me to love . . .
He started thinking and didn’t immediately realize that something had changed inside the building. Someone was walking along the corridor, someone was whispering on the other side of the wall, and suddenly someone started bustling about in the corridor. Rada desperately cried out “Mak!” and immediately fell silent, as if someone had squeezed her mout
h shut. He stood up and dashed to the window, but the door swung open and Rada appeared in the doorway, with her face completely drained of blood. He caught the familiar odor of the Guards’ barracks, and metal-tipped boots started clattering, no longer trying to conceal their presence. Rada was shoved into the room and men in black coveralls came pouring in after her. Pandi aimed an automatic rifle at Maxim with a bestial expression on his face, and Cornet Chachu, as cunning as ever, and as clever as ever, stood beside Rada, with his pistol jammed against her side.
“Stay where you are!” he shouted. “If you move a single muscle, I’ll shoot!”
Maxim froze. There was nothing he could do; he needed at least two seconds, maybe one and a half, but this killer only needed one.
“Hands up!” the cornet croaked. “Corporal, handcuffs! And ankle cuffs! Move it, massaraksh!”
Pandi, whom Maxim had repeatedly thrown over his head in training, approached with great caution, unclipping a heavy chain from his belt. The bestial expression on his face had been replaced by an expression of concern. “Watch yourself, now,” he told Maxim. “If anything happens, Mr. Cornet will . . . you know . . . blow her away . . . this love of yours . . .”
He clicked the steel bracelets onto Maxim’s wrists, then squatted down and shackled his legs together. Maxim smiled to himself. He knew what he was going to do next. But he had underestimated the cornet. The cornet didn’t let Rada go. They all went down the stairs together, they all got into the truck together, and the cornet didn’t lower his pistol for a second. Then Gai was shoved into the truck with his hands shackled.
Dawn was still a long way off, it was still drizzling, and the blurred lights barely even lit up the wet street. The guardsmen took their seats on the benches in the back of the truck, the huge, wet dogs silently tried to break free of their leashes, and when they were reined back, they yawned and whimpered. And in the entranceway, the janitor was standing, leaning against the doorpost, with his hands clasped on his stomach. He was dozing.
12
The state prosecutor leaned back in his chair, popped a few dried berries into his mouth, chewed for a while, and took a sip of medicinal water. Squeezing his eyes firmly shut and pressing his fingertips against his weary eyes, he listened. For many hundreds of yards all around, everything was good. The building of the Palace of Justice was empty, the night rain was monotonously drumming on the windows, he couldn’t even hear any sirens or squealing brakes, and the elevators weren’t clanging and humming. There was nobody here except for his night secretary in the reception area, where he was languishing as quiet as a mouse behind the tall door, awaiting instructions. The prosecutor slowly unsealed his eyes and glanced through the drifting blotches of color at the chair for visitors, made to a special design. I should take that chair with me. And I should take the desk too—I’ve grown accustomed to it . . .
But I’ll probably feel sorry to leave here anyway, won’t I? I’ve warmed this seat so thoroughly over the last ten years . . . And why should I leave? A man is a strange piece of work: if he’s facing a flight of steps, he simply has to scramble right up to the very top. Up at the very top it’s cold, the drafts blowing up there are very detrimental to one’s health, a fall from that height is fatal, the steps are slippery and dangerous, and you know all that perfectly well, but you still clamber up anyway. You clamber up in defiance of any and all advice, clamber up in defiance of your enemies’ opposition, clamber up in defiance of your own instincts, common sense, and apprehensions—you clamber higher, higher, higher . . . Anyone who doesn’t clamber higher goes tumbling down, it’s true. But anyone who clambers right up to the top tumbles down anyway . . .
The chirping of the internal phone interrupted his thoughts. He picked up the receiver and, wincing in annoyance, said, “What is it? I’m busy.”
“Your Excellency,” said the secretary, his voice sighing like a gentle breeze, “a person giving his name as Wanderer, calling on the gray line, insists on speaking with you.”
“Wanderer?” The prosecutor livened up. “Put him through.”
There was a click in the earpiece of the receiver and the secretary sighed, “His Excellency is on the line.”
Following another click, a familiar, self-assured voice spoke in Pandeian. “Egghead? Hello. Are you very busy?”
“Not to you.”
“I have to talk to you.”
“When?”
“Right now, if possible.”
“I am at your disposal,” said the prosecutor. “Come.”
“I’ll be there in ten or fifteen minutes. Expect me then.”
The prosecutor put down the receiver and sat completely still for a while, plucking at his lower lip. So he’s shown up, the old darling. And once again completely out of the blue. Massaraksh, the amount of money I’ve blown on that man, probably more than on all the rest, taken together, but I still only know the same as all the rest, taken individually. A dangerous character. Unpredictable. He has spoiled my mood . . .
The prosecutor cast an angry glance at the documents laid out across the desk, casually raked them into a heap, and stuffed them into the drawer. Just how long has he been gone? Yes, two months. The same as usual. He disappears, destination unknown, no information for two months, and then—he just pops up, like a jack-in-the-box . . . No, something will have to be done about this jack. It’s not possible to work like this . . .
Well, all right, what does he want from me? What has actually happened during these two months? Dodger got eaten . . . He’s not likely to be interested in that. He despised Dodger. But then, he despises everybody . . . There hasn’t been anything concerning his outfit, and he wouldn’t come to see me about trivial nonsense like that—he would go straight to Dad or Father-in-Law . . . Perhaps he has sniffed out something curious and wants to form an alliance? God grant, I hope that’s it—only if I were him, I wouldn’t enter into an alliance with anyone . . . Perhaps it’s the trial? But no, what does the trial have to do with anything . . .
Ah, what point is there in guessing? We’d better just take the requisite measures. He pulled out a secret drawer and switched on all the phonographs and hidden cameras. We’ll preserve this scene for posterity.
Well, where are you, Wanderer? In his agitation he broke into a sweat and started violently trembling. To calm himself down, he tossed a few more berries into his mouth, chewed for a moment, closed his eyes, and started counting. When he had counted to seven hundred, the door opened and, waving aside the secretary, he walked into the office—that lanky spindle-legs, that bleak humorist, that hope of the Fathers, hated and adored, dangling by a thread from second to second and never falling; scraggy and stoop-shouldered, with round, green eyes and large, protruding ears, wearing his perpetual, ludicrous anorak reaching down to his knees; as bald as a baby’s bottom, a sorcerer, power broker, and devourer of billions . . .
The prosecutor stood up to greet him. With this man there was no need to pretend and speak in constrained words. “Greetings, Wanderer,” he said. “Have you come to boast?”
“About what?” Wanderer asked, collapsing into the familiar chair and raising his knees incongruously high. “Massaraksh, I forget about this damned contraption every time. When are you going to stop deriding your visitors?”
“A visitor should feel awkward,” the prosecutor declared in an edifying tone of voice. “A visitor should be ludicrous, otherwise what enjoyment will I get from him? Here I am looking at you now, and I feel quite jolly.”
“Yes, I know you’re a jolly fellow,” said Wanderer. “Only your sense of humor is very unsubtle . . . And, by the way, you may sit.”
The prosecutor realized that he was still standing. As usual, Wanderer had been quick to even the score. The prosecutor sat as comfortably as he could manage and took a sip of his curative swill. “So?” he asked.
“You have in your clutches,” his visitor said, “a man whom I very much want. A certain Mak Sim. You put him away him for reeducation, remember?�
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“No,” the prosecutor sincerely replied, feeling a certain degree of disappointment. “When did I put him away? In connection with what case?”
“Only just recently. In connection with the blown-up tower case.”
“Ah, I remember . . . Well, what of it?”
“That’s all,” said Wanderer. “I need him.”
“Hang on,” the prosecutor said in annoyance. “I didn’t conduct the trial. I can’t possibly remember every convicted offender.”
“I thought the people in the department were all yours.”
“There was only one of mine—all the rest were genuine . . . What did you say he was called?”
“Mak Sim.”
“Mak Sim,” the prosecutor repeated. “Ah, that Highlander spy . . . I remember. There was some strange kind of business with him—he was shot, but unsuccessfully.”
“Yes, it appears so.”
“Some kind of exceptional strongman. Yes, something was reported to me. But what do you need him for?”
“He’s a mutant,” said Wanderer. “He has very curious mentograms, and I need him for my work.”
“Are you going to have him dissected?”
“Possibly. My people spotted him a long time ago, when he was still being exploited in the Special Studio, but then he gave us the slip.”
Feeling monumentally disappointed, the prosecutor stuffed his mouth with berries. “OK,” he said, feebly chewing. “So how are things going with you?”
“As always, wonderful,” Wanderer replied. “And with you too, I’ve heard. You finally undermined Twitcher after all. Congratulations . . . So when will I receive my Mak?”
“Well, I’ll send the dispatch tomorrow. He’ll be delivered in five or seven days.”
“Surely not for free?” Wanderer said.
“As a favor,” said the prosecutor. “But what can you offer me?”
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