He switched on the motor and backed out of the garage. Zef was left standing in the opening of the door. It was the first time in Maxim’s life that he had ever seen Zef looking that way—frightened, stunned, at a loss. “Good-bye, Zef,” he said to himself, just in case.
The car rolled up to the gates. The guardsman unhurriedly noted down the number, opened the trunk, glanced in, closed the trunk, went back to Maxim, and asked him, “What are you taking out?”
“A refractometer,” said Maxim, holding out his pass and the permit to remove the equipment.
“Who signed the permit?”
“I don’t know . . . Brainiac, probably.”
“You don’t know . . . If he’d signed it a bit more clearly, everything would be in order.”
The guardsman finally opened the gates. Maxim drove out onto the highway and squeezed everything he could out of his set of wheels. If it doesn’t come off, he thought, and I’m still alive, I’ll have to run for it . . . That damned Wanderer, he sensed something, the son of a bitch, and came back.
But what am I going to do if it does come off? Nothing’s ready, I don’t have any plans of the palace—Egghead didn’t get a chance to do anything, and he didn’t get me any photos of the Fathers either . . . The guys aren’t prepared, there isn’t any plan of action . . . That damned Wanderer—if not for him, I’d have another three days to work out a plan . . . Probably I should do things in this order: the palace, the Fathers, the central telegraph office and telephone exchange, an urgent dispatch to the labor camps telling General to gather all our guys together and get the hell out of there . . . Massaraksh, I don’t have a clue about how to seize power . . . And then there are still the Guards . . . and there’s the army . . . and our HQ, damn it! They’re the ones who’ll immediately spring into action! I have to start with them. Well, that’s Boar’s job. He’ll be glad to deal with it; he knows all about that side of things . . . And the white submarines are still hovering somewhere on the horizon . . . Massaraksh, that means another war!
He switched on the radio. Through the strains of a brisk march, a hoarse-voiced announcer was shouting: “. . . time and time again the infinite wisdom of the Unknown Fathers has been clearly demonstrated to the whole world—and on this occasion it is their military wisdom. It is as if the strategic genius of Gabellu and the Iron Warrior had come back to life! As if the glorious spirits of our invincible warrior ancestors had risen once again, racing into the action to take their place at the head of our tank columns! The Hontian provocateurs and fomenters of conflict have suffered such a crushing defeat that henceforth they will never again dare to poke their noses across our borders, never again will they covet our sacred land! The woefully inept Hontian military launched a massive armada of many thousands of bombers, rockets, and guided missiles at our cities, but here too the victory went not to the strategy of brute force and predatory aggression but to the wise strategy of infinitely subtle calculation and constant preparedness to repel the enemy. Yes, it was to good purpose that we endured deprivations, contributing the final coppers in our pockets to the consolidation of our defenses, to the creation of an impenetrable antiballistic shield! ‘Our ADT system has no equals in the world,’ retired field marshal and recipient of two Golden Banners Iza Petrotsu declared only six months ago. And you were right, old warrior! Not a single bomb, not a single rocket, and not a single missile fell on the sacred ground of the Land of the Fathers! ‘The insuperable network of steel towers is not only our indestructible shield, it is a symbol of the genius and preternatural astuteness of those to whom we owe everything—our Unknown Fathers,’ writes today’s edition of—”
Maxim switched off the radio. Yes, the war seemed to be over. But then, who could tell what else they were concocting now . . . Maxim turned off the main street onto a narrow side street between gigantic skyscrapers of pink stone, drove over the cobblestones past a long line for a bread shop, and pulled up at a dilapidated, blackened little house. Boar was already waiting, smoking a cigarette and leaning back against a streetlamp. When the car stopped, he flung his cigarette butt away, squeezed in through the little door, and sat down beside Maxim.
He was as calm and cool as always. “Hello, Mak,” he said. “What’s happened?”
Maxim turned the car around and drove back out onto the main street. “Do you know what a thermobaric bomb is?” he asked.
“I’ve heard about them,” said Boar.
“Excellent.”
For a while they drove in silence. The traffic was heavy and Maxim switched off, concentrating on how to cut in, work his way forward, and squeeze his way through between the immense trucks and old, stinking buses without scraping anybody or letting anybody scrape him so that he could catch the green light and then catch the next green light without sacrificing any of the pitiful speed that they already had, and eventually their car broke out onto Forest Boulevard, the familiar highway lined with huge, branching trees.
It’s amusing, Maxim suddenly thought. I drove into this world along this very road—or, rather, poor old Fank drove me into it, and I didn’t have a clue about anything, I thought he was a specialist in aliens. And now maybe I’m driving out of this world along the same road, and maybe even out of the world altogether, and I’m carrying a good man away with me . . . He squinted sideways at Boar. Boar’s face was absolutely calm; he was sitting there with the elbow above his false hand sticking out of the window and waiting for when he would be given an explanation. Maybe he was surprised, maybe he was agitated, but it wasn’t obvious, and Maxim felt proud that a man like this trusted him and relied on him without the slightest hesitation.
“I’m very grateful to you, Boar,” he said.
“How’s that?” Boar asked, turning his dry, yellowish face toward Maxim.
“Do you remember, at one of the HQ sessions you called me aside and gave me some sensible advice?”
“I remember.”
“Well then. I’m grateful to you for that. I took your advice.”
“Yes, so I noticed. You even disappointed me a bit by doing that.”
“You were right back then,” said Maxim. “I listened to your advice, and now as a result of that, things have turned out so that I have a chance to get into the Center.”
Boar gave a sudden jolt. “Right now?” he quickly asked.
“Yes. I’ve got to hurry, I haven’t had a chance to prepare anything. I might be killed, and then it will all have been in vain. That’s why I’ve taken you with me.”
“Tell me.”
“I’ll go into the building, you’ll stay in the car. After a while the alarm will be raised, and maybe shooting will break out. But it shouldn’t involve you. You keep sitting in the car and waiting. You wait for . . .” Maxim thought for a moment, calculating . . . “You wait for twenty minutes. If you get a jolt of radiation during that time, it means everything has worked out fine. You can pass out with a happy smile on your face . . . If not—get out of the car. There’s a bomb in the trunk with a synchronous fuse set for ten minutes. Unload the bomb onto the road, activate the fuse, and drive away. There’ll be a panic. A very great panic. Try to squeeze everything you can out of it.”
Boar pondered for a while. “Will you just let me call a couple of places?” he asked.
“No,” said Maxim.
“You see,” said Boar. “If they don’t kill you, then as I understand it, you’re bound to need men who are ready for a fight. If they do kill you, then I’ll need them. That’s what you took me along for, in case they kill you . . . But on my own I can only make a start, and there won’t be much time, and the men have to be warned in advance.”
“HQ?” Maxim asked in a hostile tone.
“Absolutely not. I’ve got my own group.”
Maxim didn’t say anything. A five-story building with a stone wall running across its pediment was already rising up ahead of them. That building. Somewhere inside it Fish was wandering along the corridors and the infuriated Hippopotamus was
yelling and sputtering. And the Center was in there. The circle was closing.
“All right,” said Maxim. “There’s a pay phone at the entrance. When I go inside—but not before—you can get out of the car and make your calls.”
“OK,” said Boar.
They were already approaching the turn off the highway. For some reason Maxim remembered Rada and imagined what would happen to her if he didn’t come back. Things would be bad for her. Or maybe, on the contrary, they would let her go. But anyway, she’ll be alone, with Gai gone, and me gone . . . The poor little girl . . .
“Do you have a family?” he asked Boar.
“Yes. A wife.”
Maxim bit his lip. “I’m sorry things have turned out so awkward,” he muttered.
“Never mind,” Boar calmly said. “I said good-bye. I always say good-bye when I leave the house . . . So this is the Center, then? Who would ever have thought it? Everybody knows that the television center and the radio center are here, and now it turns out that the Center is here too . . .”
Maxim stopped in the parking lot, squeezing in between a dilapidated little old car and a luxurious government limousine.
“Well, this is it,” he said. “Wish me luck.”
“With all my heart,” said Boar. His voice broke and he started coughing. “So I’ve lived to see this day after all,” he murmured.
Maxim laid his cheek on the steering wheel. “It would be good to survive this day,” he said. “It would be good to see the evening.” Boar looked at him in alarm. “I really don’t feel like going,” Maxim explained. “Oh, I don’t feel like it at all . . . By the way, Boar, don’t forget to tell your friends that you don’t live on the inner surface of a sphere. You live on the outer surface of a sphere. And there are many such spheres in existence on which people live far worse than you do, and some on which they live far better. But nowhere do they live more stupidly . . . You don’t believe me? Well, to hell with you anyway. I’m going.”
He swung open the door and clambered out. He walked across the asphalt surface of the parking lot and started walking up the stone steps, one step at a time, fingering in his pocket the entry pass that the prosecutor had had made for him. It was hot and the sky was shimmering like aluminum—the impenetrable sky of the inhabited island. The stone steps burned his feet through the soles of his shoes, or maybe he was just imagining it.
It was all stupid. The entire undertaking was amateurish. Why the hell should he do all of this when they hadn’t had a chance to properly prepare . . . What if there are two officers sitting there instead just one? Or even three officers sitting there in that little room, waiting for me with their automatic rifles at the ready? Cornet Chachu shot me with a pistol, the caliber’s the same, only there’ll be more bullets, and I’m not the same man I used to be; it’s really worn me down, this inhabited island of mine. And this time they won’t just let me just creep away . . . I’m a fool. I always was a fool and I still am. Mr. State Prosecutor snared me, hooked me on his rod . . . But how could he have trusted me? It doesn’t make any sense . . . It would be good to slope off and head for the mountains right now, breathe some pure mountain air—I’ve never had a chance to visit the mountains here . . . And I really love mountains . . . Such a clever, distrustful man—and he trusted me with such a valuable thing! The greatest treasure of this world. This abominable, repulsive, iniquitous treasure! Curse and confound it, massaraksh, and three more massarakshes, and another thirty-three massarakshes!
He opened the glass door and held out his pass to the guardsman. Then he walked across the vestibule—past the girl in glasses, who was still stamping pieces of paper, past the administrator in the peaked cap, who was bawling somebody out on the phone—and at the entrance to the corridor he showed his internal pass to another guardsman. The guardsman nodded to him—they were already acquainted, you could say: Maxim had come here every day for the last three days.
Onward.
He walked down a long corridor without any doors and turned left. This was only the second time he had been here. The first time had been the day before yesterday, by mistake. (“Where is it that you are actually trying to get to, sir?” “I’m actually trying to get to room number sixteen, Corporal.” “You’ve taken a wrong turn, sir. You need the next corridor.” “Sorry, Corporal, I beg your pardon. Yes, indeed . . .”)
He handed the corporal his internal pass and squinted at the two beefy guardsmen with automatic rifles standing motionless at each side of the door facing him. Then he glanced at the door that he was about to enter: SPECIAL TRANSPORTATION DIVISION. The corporal carefully examined the pass and then, still examining it, pressed a button in the wall, and a bell rang on the other side of the door. Now he had readied himself, that officer who was sitting in there beside the green curtain. Or two officers had readied themselves. Or maybe even three officers . . . They’re waiting for me to walk in, and if I panic at the sight of them and dart back out, I’ll be met by the corporal, and the guardsmen guarding the door without a plaque on it, which no doubt has a whole pack of soldiers lurking behind it.
The corporal handed back his pass and said, “Please go through. Have your credentials ready.”
Taking out a piece of pink cardboard, Maxim opened the door and stepped into the room.
Massaraksh. Just as he had feared.
Not one room. Three. An enfilade. And at the end—the green curtain. And a carpet runner stretching from under his feet all the way to the curtain. At least thirty yards.
And not two officers. Not even three. Six.
Two in army gray—in the first room. They had already aimed their automatics.
Two in guardsmen’s black—in the second room. They hadn’t aimed yet, but they were also ready.
Two in civilian clothes—one at each side of the green curtain in the third room. They had their heads turned and were looking off to one side.
Right then, Mak!
He went hurtling forward. It was something like a hop, skip, and jump from a standing start. He just managed to think, I’d better not rupture any tendons. The air firmly struck him in the face.
The green curtain. The civilian on the left was looking off to the side, his neck was exposed. A blow with the edge of the hand.
The civilian on the right was probably blinking. His eyelids were motionless, half-lowered. A blow up across the sinciput—and straight into the elevator.
It was dark in the elevator. Where’s the button? Massaraksh, where’s the button?
An automatic rifle started stuttering slowly and sonorously, and immediately a second one started up. Well now, excellent reactions. . . . But they’re still firing at the door, at the place where they saw me. They still haven’t realized what happened. It’s merely a reflex response.
The button!
A shadow slowly crept across the curtains, moving diagonally downward—one of the civilians was falling
Massaraksh, there it is—in the most obvious place.
He pressed the button and the cabin started moving downward. It was a high-speed elevator and the cabin crept down quite fast. But then, that wasn’t important now . . . Massaraksh, I’ve broken through!
The cabin stopped. Maxim darted out and rumbling and clanging immediately erupted in the elevator shaft, and chips of wood started flying. They were firing at the roof of the cabin from above with three barrels. OK, OK, fire away . . . Now they’ll realize that they don’t need to shoot, they need to get the elevator back up and come down themselves . . . They missed their chance, got flummoxed.
He looked around. Massaraksh, stymied again. Not one entrance but three. Three absolutely identical tunnels . . . Ah, but they’re simply duplicate generators. One’s working, the others are on preventive maintenance. Which one of them is working now? I think it’s that one . . .
He dashed toward the middle tunnel. Behind his back the elevator started growling. Oh, no, too late already . . . Too slow, you won’t get here in time . . . although, I must say
, this is a long tunnel, and my foot hurts . . . Now here’s a turn, and now there’s no way you can get me . . .
He ran up to the generators, rumbling on a deep bass note under a steel slab, stopped, and rested for a few seconds with his arms lowered. Right, three-quarters of the job is already done. Even seven-eighths . . . What’s left is a mere trifle, no more than a half of one thirty-fourth . . . now they’ll come down in the elevator and plunge straight into the tunnel, about which they definitely know damn all, and the depressive radiation will drive them back out again . . . What else can happen? They could fling a gas grenade along the corridor. Not likely—where would they get them from? They’ve probably already raised the alarm.
The Fathers could have switched off the depressive barrier, of course . . . Oh, they wouldn’t decide to do that, and they won’t have time, because the five of them need to get together, with five keys, come to an agreement, figure out whether this is a stunt by one of them, a provocation . . . And really, who in the world can break his way in here through the radiation barrier? Wanderer, if he has secretly invented a protective device? He would be detained by the six men with automatics . . . There isn’t anybody else . . . All right, while they squabble, look for answers, and try to figure things out, I’ll get the job finished . . .
Around the corner in the tunnel automatics yammered into the darkness. That’s permitted. I don’t object . . . He leaned down over the distribution device, carefully removed the cover, and flung it into a corner. Mm-hmm, an extremely primitive little item. It’s a good thing I thought of reading up a bit on their electronics here . . . He lowered a finger into the circuit assembly . . . What if I hadn’t thought of doing that? And what if Wanderer had come back the day before yesterday? Mm-hmm, gentlemen . . . Massaraksh, that current is really intense . . . Yes, gentlemen, I would have found myself in the position of an embryomechanic who has to urgently figure out . . . I don’t even know what . . . a steam boiler? An embryomechanic would have figured that out. A camel harness? Yes, a camel harness. Eh? OK then, embryomechanic, would you have figured it out? I don’t think it’s very likely . . .
The Inhabited Island Page 39