He stuck his head out. “Listen,” he said, “why is the true purpose of the towers hidden from the rank-and-file members of the underground?”
Zef grimaced and spat, and Wild Boar sadly replied, “Because most of the guys at HQ are hoping someday to seize power and use the towers in the same old way, but for different goals.”
“What different goals?” Maxim morosely asked.
For a few seconds they gazed into each other’s eyes. Zef turned away and started intently gluing together his roll-up with his tongue. Then Maxim said, “I hope you both survive,” and turned back to the levers. The tank started rumbling and clanging, its caterpillar tracks crunched, and it trundled forward.
Driving the machine was awkward. There was no seat for the driver, and the heap of branches and grass that Maxim had flung together during the night rapidly crept apart. The visibility was appallingly bad, and he wasn’t able to build up any serious speed—at twenty miles an hour something in the motor started clattering and spluttering, giving out a vile smell. But this atomic bier still coped excellently with any kind of terrain. Road or no road—that didn’t matter, it simply didn’t notice the bushes in the shallow ruts, and it crushed fallen trees to splinters. It easily rode right over the young trees that had sprouted through the cracked concrete, and even seemed to snort in enjoyment as it crept through the deep pits filled with stagnant water. And it maintained direction excellently—turning it was extremely hard.
The highway was fairly straight, and the control bay was dirty and stifling, so eventually Maxim set the manual controls, climbed out, and comfortably settled himself on the edge of the hatch under the latticework of the rocket launching tube. The tank kept on barging forward, as if this was its genuine course, set by its old program. There was something simple-spirited and self-satisfied about it, and Maxim, who loved machines, even slapped his hand on its armor plating to express his approval.
Life was OK. The forest crept past, back, and away on the left and the right, the engine smoothly gurgled, up here on top he could hardly even feel the radiation, the breeze was relatively clean, and it soothed his stinging skin with its pleasant coolness. Maxim raised his head and glanced at the swaying nose of the rocket. He probably really ought to dump it. Unnecessary weight. It wouldn’t actually explode, of course. It had been defunct for a long time—he had inspected it during the night. But it weighed a good ten tons, so why lug something like that around? The tank kept creeping forward, and Maxim started climbing over the launch tube, looking for the attachment mechanism. He found the mechanism, but everything had rusted, so Maxim had to fiddle with it, and twice while he was fiddling the tank ran off the road into the forest at a bend and started smashing down trees, wrathfully howling, so that Maxim had to hurry back to the levers, calm the iron fool down, and lead it back out onto the highway. But eventually the mechanism worked: the rocket cumbersomely keeled over, crashed down onto the concrete, and then laboriously rolled off into the ditch. The tank gave a little skip and started moving more lightly, and then Maxim saw the first checkpoint ahead.
Two large tents and a small enclosed truck were standing at the edge of the forest, and smoke was rising from a kitchen truck. Two guardsmen, naked to the waist, were getting washed—one was rinsing off the other with a mess tin. A sentry in a black cape was standing in the middle of the highway looking at the tank, and to the right of the highway two posts jutted up, connected by a crossbeam, with something long and white dangling from it, almost touching the ground. Maxim sank down into the hatch so that his check coverall wouldn’t be seen, and then put his head out. Gazing at the tank in amazement, the sentry moved over to the shoulder of the road, and then looked around in confusion at the truck. The seminaked guardsmen stopped washing themselves and also looked at the tank.
The rumbling of the caterpillar tracks drew several more men out of the tents and the truck, one of them in a uniform with an officer’s braids. They were very surprised but not alarmed—the officer pointed at the tank and said something, and they all laughed. When Maxim drew level with the sentry, the sentry shouted something that was inaudible above the noise of the motor, and Maxim shouted in reply, “Everything’s in order, just stay where you are.” The sentry couldn’t hear anything either, but a reassured expression appeared on his face. After letting the tank pass by, he walked back out into the middle of the highway and resumed his former pose. Everything had obviously gone just fine.
Maxim turned his head and got a close-up view of what was hanging from the crossbeam. He looked for a second, then quickly squatted down, squeezed his eyes shut, and grabbed hold of the levers, although there was no need for that. I shouldn’t have looked, he thought. It was damned stupid to turn my head—I should just have kept going and I would never have known . . . He forced himself to open his eyes. No, he thought. I have to look. I have to get used to it. And I have to find out. It’s pointless to turn away. I have no right to turn away once I’ve taken on this job. It was probably a mutant—death couldn’t mutilate a human being like that. But what mutilates people is life. It will mutilate me too, there’s no way to escape that. And I shouldn’t try to resist; I have to get used to it. Maybe there are hundreds of miles of roads lined with gallows trees ahead of me . . .
When he stuck his head out of the hatch again and looked back, he could no longer see the checkpoint—there was no more checkpoint, and no solitary gallows beside the road. How good it would be now to go home . . . just set off and keep going, and there at the end of it would be his home, his mother, his father, the guys . . . arrive, wake up, wash up, and tell them his terrible dream about an inhabited island . . .
He tried to picture Earth, but he couldn’t manage it. It just felt strange to think that somewhere there were clean, cheerful cities with lots of kind, intelligent people, where everybody trusted each other and there was no iron, no bad smells, no radiation, no black uniforms, no coarse, brutish faces, no terrible legends mingled with an even more terrible truth. And suddenly for the first time he thought that the same thing could have happened on Earth, and at this stage it would be just like everything around him now—ignorant, deceived, servile, and devoted. You were looking for work, he thought. Well, now look, you have a job to do—a difficult job, a dirty job, but you’re not likely ever to find another one anywhere as important as this . . .
Up ahead on the highway some kind of mechanism appeared, slowly creeping along in the same direction as him—southward. It was a small tractor with caterpillar tracks, dragging along a trailer with a latticework metal beam. A man in a check coverall was sitting in the open cabin smoking a pipe; he indifferently looked at the tank, looked at Maxim, and turned away. What kind of beam is that? Maxim thought. Those contours look familiar . . . Then suddenly he realized that it was a section of a tower. I could just shove it into the ditch, he thought, and drive backward and forward over it a couple of times . . . Maxim looked around, and the tractor driver apparently didn’t like the expression on his face at all; he suddenly braked and lowered one leg onto a caterpillar track, as if he was getting ready to jump. Maxim turned away.
About ten minutes later he saw the second checkpoint. It was an advance outpost with an immense army of slaves in check coveralls—or maybe they weren’t slaves at all but the freest men in the country—two small temporary buildings with glittering zinc roofs, and a low artificial hill with a squat blockhouse, complete with the black slits of gun embrasures, standing on it. The first sections of a tower were already rising up above the blockhouse; motorized cranes and tractors stood around the hill, and iron beams lay scattered about. The forest had been obliterated for several hundred yards on the right and left of the highway, and men in check coveralls were puttering around here and there in the open space. Behind the two small buildings Maxim could see a long, low bunkhouse, the same as the one in the camp. In front of the bunkhouse gray rags were drying on lines. A little farther on there was a wooden pylon with a platform beside the highway; a sentry in a
n army uniform and deep helmet was striding around on the platform, which had a machine gun on a tripod set up on it. More soldiers were jostling about under the tower; they had the air of men exhausted by mosquitoes and boredom. All of them were smoking.
Well, I’ll pass through here without any trouble too, thought Maxim. This is the edge of the world, and nobody gives a damn about anything. But he was mistaken. The soldiers stopped waving away the mosquitoes and stared at the tank. Then one of them, a skinny guy who looked very much like someone or other he knew, adjusted the helmet on his head, walked out into the middle of the highway, and raised his hand. You shouldn’t have done that, Maxim regretfully thought. That won’t be good for you. I’ve decided to drive through here, and I’m going to drive through . . . He slid down to the levers, settled himself comfortably, and put his foot on the accelerator. The soldier on the highway kept standing there with his hand raised. Now I’ll step on the gas, Maxim thought, roar like blazes, and he’ll jump out of the way . . . And if he doesn’t jump, Maxim thought with abrupt cruelty, well—this is war, after all . . .
Then suddenly he recognized this solder. Standing there in front of him was Gai—thinner and pinched-looking, with his cheeks covered in stubble, wearing a baggy soldier’s coverall. “Gai,” Maxim murmured. “My old friend . . . Now how can I . . .” He took his foot off the accelerator and disengaged the clutch, and the tank slowed to a halt. Gai lowered his hand and unhurriedly walked toward it. At that point Maxim actually laughed with joy. Everything was turning out very well. He engaged the clutch again and readied himself.
“Hey!” Gai imperiously shouted, hammering on the armor plating with his rifle butt. “Who are you?”
Maxim said nothing, quietly laughing to himself.
“Is anyone in there?” A note of uncertainty had appeared in Gai’s voice.
Then his metal-tipped boots clattered on the armor plating, the hatch on the left swung open, and Gai stuck his head into the cabin. When he saw Maxim, his mouth dropped open, and at that precise second Maxim grabbed hold of his coverall, jerked him toward himself, dumped him on the branches under his feet, and held him down . . . The tank roared, then gave an appalling howl and jerked forward. I’ll shatter the engine, thought Maxim.
Gai jerked and started squirming around, and his helmet slipped down over his face so that he couldn’t see anything—he could only blindly kick up his heels as he tried to tug his automatic out from under himself. The control bay was suddenly filled with thunderous clanging—evidently the tank’s rear had been struck by fire from automatic rifles and a machine gun. It wasn’t dangerous, and Maxim watched impatiently as the wall of the forest advanced, coming closer and closer . . . closer . . . and there were the first bushes . . . a check-clad figure frantically darted off the road . . . and then there was forest on all sides, and there were no more bullets clattering on the armor, and the highway ahead was open for many hundreds and hundreds of miles.
Gai finally managed to drag his automatic out from under himself, but Maxim tore off his helmet, saw his sweaty, scowling face, and laughed when the expression of fury, terror, and thirst to kill was replaced first by confusion, then amazement, and finally joy. Gai moved his lips—evidently he had exclaimed, “Massaraksh!” Maxim let go of the levers, grabbed his wet, emaciated, stubbly-faced friend, and embraced him, squeezing him close in all the fullness of his feelings, then released his grip and, holding Gai by the shoulders, said, “Gai, my great friend, I’m so glad!” Absolutely nothing at all could be heard. He glanced through the observation slit: the highway was still as straight as ever, and he set the manual controls again, clambered up on top, and dragged Gai out after him.
“Massaraksh!” said the creased and crumpled Gai. “It’s you again!”
“But aren’t you glad? I’m so terribly glad!” Maxim had only just realized that he had never wanted to travel to the South on his own.
“What does all of this mean?” Gai shouted. His first joy had already passed, and he was looking around in alarm.
“We’re going to the South!” shouted Maxim. “I’ve had enough of this hospitable fatherland of yours!”
“You’ve escaped?”
“Yes!”
“Have you lost your mind? They gave you your life.”
“What does that mean, they gave it to me? This life is mine! It belongs to me!”
It was hard to talk to each other—they had to shout—and quite unintentionally, instead of a friendly conversation, it turned into a quarrel. Maxim jumped down into the hatch and throttled back the engine. The tank started moving more slowly, but it stopped roaring and clanging so loudly.
When Maxim climbed back out, Gai was sitting there hunched over, in a determined mood. “It’s my duty to take you back,” he declared.
“And it’s my duty to drag you out of that place,” Maxim declared.
“I don’t understand. You’ve gone completely insane. It’s impossible to escape from here. You have to go back . . . Massaraksh, you can’t go back either, or they’ll shoot you . . . And in the South they’ll eat you . . . Damn you and your insanity! Getting involved with you is like picking up a counterfeit coin—”
“Wait, stop yelling,” said Maxim. “Let me explain everything to you.”
“I don’t want to hear it. Stop this thing!”
“Just hang on,” said Maxim. “Let me tell you everything!”
But Gai didn’t want to be told anything. He insisted that this illegally purloined vehicle must immediately be halted and returned to the prison zone. Maxim was called a blockhead twice, three times, and four times. The howl of “massaraksh” drowned out the noise of the motor. The situation, massaraksh, was appalling. It was hopeless, massaraksh! Up ahead, massaraksh, lay certain death. And, massaraksh, it lay behind too. Maxim had always been a blockhead and a crazy freak, massaraksh, but this stunt would probably, massaraksh, be the last he would ever pull . . .
Maxim didn’t interfere. He had suddenly realized that the radiation field of the final tower obviously ended somewhere around here. Or, more probably, it had already ended—the final checkpoint had to be right on the boundary of the final tower’s range . . . Let Gai have his say; on the inhabited island words don’t mean anything . . . Swear away, carry on swearing as long as you like, but I’ll get you out—this isn’t where you belong . . . I have to start with someone, and you’ll be the first. I don’t want you to be a puppet, not even if you like being a puppet.
After abusing Maxim up, down, and sideways, Gai slipped in through the hatch and started fiddling around down there, trying to halt the tank. He couldn’t do it, and he clambered back out, wearing his helmet now, very taciturn and intent. He was clearly intending to jump off and walk back. He was very angry. Then Maxim caught him by his pant leg, sat him down beside him, and started explaining the situation.
Maxim spoke for more than an hour, occasionally breaking off to adjust the movement of the tank at bends. He talked, and Gai listened. At first Gai tried to interrupt, attempted to jump off as they moved along, and plugged his ears with his fingers, but Maxim just carried on and on talking, repeating the same thing over and over again, explaining, hammering it home, trying to change Gai’s mind. And Gai finally started listening, then he started thinking, started pining, stuck both hands in under his helmet, rapidly scratched his thick thatch of hair, and then suddenly moved on to the attack. He started interrogating Maxim about where he had found out all of this, and who could prove that it wasn’t all a load of lies, and how anyone could believe all of this when it was an obvious fabrication . . . Maxim hit him with facts, and when the facts weren’t enough, he swore that he was telling the truth, and when that didn’t do any good, he called Gai a dunderhead and a puppet and a robot, and the tank kept on moving farther and farther south, burrowing its way deeper and deeper into the land of the mutants.
“Well, all right,” Maxim eventually said in a fury. “Now, let’s check all of this. According to my calculations, we lef
t the radiation field behind a long time ago, and now it’s about ten minutes to ten. What do you all do at ten o’clock?”
“Ten hundred hours is formation time,” Gai morosely said.
“Exactly. You form up in neat ranks and start howling appalling, idiotic hymns and bursting a gut in your enthusiasm. Remember?”
“The enthusiasm is in our blood,” Gai declared.
“They hammer the enthusiasm into your thick heads,” Maxim retorted. “But OK, now we’ll see just what kind of enthusiasm you’ve got in your blood. What time is it?”
“Seven minutes to ten,” Gai morosely replied.
They traveled on in silence for a while.
“Well?” asked Maxim.
Gai looked at his watch and started singing in an uncertain voice, “The Battle Guards advance with fearsome cries . . .” Maxim mockingly watched him. Gai lost the thread and got the words confused.
“Stop gawking at me,” he angrily said. “You’re throwing me off. And anyway, what kind of enthusiasm can there be out of formation?”
“Give it up, give it up,” said Maxim. “You used to yell just as loud out of formation. It was frightening to watch you and Uncle Kaan. One yelling ‘The Battle Guards,’ and the other droning ‘Glory to the Fathers.’ And then there was Rada . . . Well then, where’s your enthusiasm? Where’s your love for the Fathers?”
“Don’t you dare,” said Gai. “Don’t you dare talk that way about the Fathers. Even if your story is true, it simply means that the Fathers have been deceived.”
“So who deceived them?”
“Weeell . . . It could be anyone . . .”
“So the Fathers aren’t all-powerful, then? So they don’t know everything?”
“I don’t want to discuss this subject,” Gai declared.
He turned morose and gloomy, and hunched over; his face turned even more pinched-looking, his eyes dimmed, and his lower lip started drooping. Maxim suddenly remembered Fishta the Onion and Handsome Ketri from the convicts’ car. They were drug addicts, individuals habituated to the use of especially strong narcotic substances. They suffered terrible torment without their fix—they didn’t eat or drink and spent days on end sitting like that, with dead eyes and drooping lower lips. “Do you have a pain somewhere?” he asked Gai.
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