“Station Delta,” said the assistant. “Maximum magnification.”
On the black screen, once again the image of the ungainly hulk appeared. The flashes of plasma under the dome grew uneven, arhythmical, and it seemed as if the monster were advancing convulsively on fat black legs. The dim outlines of the emergency robots appeared alongside. The robots approached carefully, springing back at every jerk of the nuclear rocket.
The controller and his assistant were all eyes. Stretching his neck as far as it would go, the controller whispered, “Come on, Turnen… Come on… come on, old buddy… Come on.”
The robots moved quickly and surely. From both sides, titanic tentacles stretched out toward the nuclear rocket and seized hold of the widely spaced pillar-tubes. One of the tentacles missed, ended up under the dome, and vanished into dust beneath the force of the plasma. (“Ouch!” the assistant said in a whisper.) A third robot dropped down from somewhere above, and latched onto the dome with magnetic suckers. The nuclear rocket moved slowly downward. The flickering radiance below its dome went out.
“Ooh!” the controller muttered, and wiped his face with his sleeve.
The assistant laughed nervously. “Like giant squids and a whale,” he said. “Where does it go now?”
The controller inquired into his microphone, “Turnen, where are you taking it?”
“To our rocket field,” Turnen said unhurriedly. He was gasping slightly.
The controller suddenly imagined Turnen’s round face, shiny with sweat, lit up by the screen. “Thank you, Turnen,” he said with feeling. He turned to the assistant. “Give the all-clear. Correct the schedule and have them get back to work.”
“And what are you going to do?” the assistant asked plaintively.
“I’m going to fly there.”
The assistant also wanted to be there, but he only said, “I wonder whether the Cosmonautical Museum is missing any ships.” The matter was coming to a more or less happy ending, and he was now in a fairly good mood. “What a watch!” he said. “All day I’ve been quaking in my boots.”
The controller clicked a few keys, and a rolling plain appeared on the screen. The wind drove broken white clouds about the sky, and it formed ripples on dark puddles between the sparsely vegetated hummocks. Ducks splashed about in a large pond. Spaceships haven’t taken off from there in a long time, thought the assistant.
“I’d still like to know who it is,” the controller said between his teeth.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” the assistant said enviously.
The ducks unexpectedly took to the air and darted forward in a sparse flock, beating their wings as hard as they could. The clouds began to whirl into a funnel, and a tornado of water and steam began to rise from the middle of the plain. The hills disappeared, the pond disappeared, and scrawny uprooted bushes rushed off into the clouds of turbulent haze. Something dark and enormous showed for an instant in the spreading mist, something flared with a scarlet glow, and they saw a hill in the foreground tremble, distend, and slowly flop over, like a layer of turf under the share of a powerful plow.
“My God!” said the assistant, his eyes glued to the screen. But by now he could see nothing except the fast-spreading white and gray clouds of steam.
By the time the helicopter had landed, a hundred yards from the edge of the enormous crater, the steam had dispersed. In the center of the crater the nuclear vessel lay on its side, the thick posts of its reactor rings jutting stupidly and helplessly into the air. The steel-blue hulks of the emergency robots, half-buried in hot mud, lay nearby. One of them slowly drew its mechanical paws back under its armor.
Hot air shimmered over the crater.
“Doesn’t look good,” someone muttered as they were getting out of the helicopter.
Overhead, rotors softly whirred—more helicopters rushed through the air and landed close by.
“Let’s go,” said the controller, and everyone straggled out after him.
They went down into the crater. Their feet sank up to the ankles in the hot slush. They did not see the man at first, but when they did see him, they all stopped at once.
He was lying face down with his arms spread out and his face buried in the damp ground, pressing his whole body into the soil and trembling as if from severe cold. He wore a strange suit, crumpled and seemingly chewed up, of unusual cut and color. The man himself was red-haired, vividly red-haired, and he did not hear their footsteps. When they ran up to him, he raised his head, and everyone saw his face, blue-white and dirty, slashed across the lips by an unhealed scab. The man must have been crying, for his deepset blue eyes sparkled, and there was mad joy and suffering in those eyes. They picked him up, grasping him under his arms. Then he spoke.
“Doctor,” he said faintly and unclearly—the scab crossing his lips hindered his speech.
At first no one understood him—it was only after several seconds that they realized he was asking for a medic.
“Doctor, hurry. Sergei Kondratev is in bad shape.” He shifted his wide-open eyes from one face to another and suddenly smiled. “Hello, great-great-grandchildren.”
The tension of the smile made the wound on his face open up, and thick red drops hung on his lips. Everyone had the impression that the man had not smiled for a long time. People in white coats hurried down into the crater.
“Doctor,” the redhead repeated, and collapsed, his dirty blue-white face slumping back.
4. The Conspirators
The four inhabitants of Room 18 were widely renowned within the confines of the Anyudin School, and this was only natural. Such talents as consummate skill in the imitation of the howl of the giant crayspider of the planet Pandora, the ability to discourse freely upon ten methods of fuel economy in interstellar travel, and the capacity to execute eleven knee-bends in a row on one leg could not go unnoticed, and not one of these talents was foreign to the inhabitants of Room 18.
The history of Room 18 begins at a point in time when the companions were only three in number and still lacked both their own room and their own teacher. Even in those days Genka Komov, better known as the Captain, exercised unlimited authority over Pol Gnedykh and Aleksandr Kostylin. Pol Gnedykh, familiarly known as Polly or Lieber Polly, was famous as an individual of great cleverness of mind, an individual capable of anything. Aleksandr Kostylin was of unquestionable good nature, and covered himself with glory in battles associated with the application not so much of intelligence as of physical force. He could not endure being called Kostyl for short (and understandably so, for “kostyl” means “crutch”), but he willingly answered to the nickname of Lin. Captain Genka, who had mastered to perfection the popular-science book The Road to Space, who knew many various useful things, and who was, to all appearances, easily capable of repairing a photon reflector without so much as changing the spacecraft’s course, indefatigably led Lin and Polly toward reknown. Thus, for example, wide celebrity resulted from the tests of a new type of rocket fuel that were conducted under his direction in the school park. A fountain of dense smoke flew up higher than the tallest trees, while the crash of the explosion could be heard by all who were on the school grounds at the right moment. It was an unforgettable feat, and long afterward Lin still sported a long scar on his back, and went shirtless whenever possible in order that this scar should be exposed to the gaze of envious eyes. This too was the threesome that revived the pastime of ancient African tribes by swinging from trees on long ropes simulating lianas—simulating them inadequately, as experience demonstrated. Moreover, it was they who introduced the practice of welding together the plastic of which clothing is made, and they repeatedly utilized this ability to temper the unbearable pride of the older comrades who were permitted to go swimming with face masks and even aqualungs. However, while all these feats covered the threesome with glory, they did not bring the desired satisfaction, and so the Captain decided to participate in the Young Cosmonauts’ Club, which held forth the brilliant prospect of riding the accel
eration centrifuge and perhaps even of winning one’s way at last to the mysterious cosmonautical simulator.
It was with great amazement that the Captain discovered in the club one Mikhail Sidorov, known for various reasons also as Athos. To the Captain, Athos initially appeared to be an arrogant and empty-headed individual, but the first serious conversation with him demonstrated that in his personal qualities he undoubtedly surpassed one Walter Saronian, who was at that time on reasonably affable terms with the threesome, and who occupied the fourth bunk in the just-assigned Room 18.
The historic conversation proceeded in approximately this wise:
“What do you think about nuclear drive?” Genka inquired.
“Old hat,” quoth Athos shortly.
“I agree,” the Captain said, and he looked at Athos with interest. “And photon-annihilation drive?”
“So-so,” said Athos, shaking his head sadly.
Genka then put to him the premier question: which system seemed more promising, the gravigen or the gravshield?
“I acknowledge only the D-principle,” Athos declared haughtily.
“Hmm,” said Genka. “Okay, let’s go to Eighteen—I’ll introduce you to the crew.”
“You mean your crummy roommates?” Athos-Sidorov winced, but he went.
A week later, unable to endure intimidation and open violence, and with the teacher’s permission, Walter Saronian fled Room 18; Athos established himself in his place. After that the D-principle and the idea of intergalactic travel reigned in the minds and hearts of Room 18 firmly and to all appearances for good. Thus was formed the crew of the superstarship Galaktion: Genka, captain; Athos-Sidorov, navigator and cyberneticist; Lieber Polly, computerman; Sashka Lin, engineer and hunter. The crew moved forward with bright hopes and extremely specific plans. The master blueprints of the superstarship Galaktion were drawn up; regulations were worked out; and a top-secret sign (a special way of holding the fingers of the right hand) by which the crew members might recognize one another was put into effect. The threat of imminent invasion hung over the galaxies Andromeda, Messier 33, and others. So went the year.
Lin, engineer and hunter, delivered the first blow. With his characteristic thoughtlessness, he had asked his father (on leave from an orbital weightless casting factory) how old you had to be to be a spaceman. The answer was so horrifying that Room 18 refused to believe him. The resourceful Polly induced his kid brother to ask the same question of one of the teachers. The answer was identical. The conquest of galaxies must be put off for an essentially infinite period—about ten years. A short era of disarray ensued, for the news brought to naught the carefully elaborated Operation Flowering Lilac, according to which the full complement of Room 18 would stow away on an interplanetary tanker bound for Pluto. The Captain had counted on revealing himself a week after takeoff and thus automatically merging his crew with that of the tanker.
The next blow was less unexpected, but much heavier for all of that. During this era of confusion the crew of the Galaktion somehow all at once became conscious of the fact—which they had been taught much earlier—that, strange as it might seem, the most honored professionals in the world were not spacemen, not undersea workers, and not even those mysterious subduers of monsters, the zoopsychologists, but doctors and teachers. In particular, it turned out that the World Council was sixty percent composed of teachers and doctors. That there were never enough teachers, while the world was rolling in spacemen. That without doctors, deep-sea workers would be in real trouble, but not vice versa. These devastating facts, as well as many others of the same ilk, were brought home to the consciousness of the crew in a horrifyingly prosaic fashion: on the most ordinary televised economics lesson; and, most frightful of all, the allegations were not disputed in the least degree by their teacher.
The third and final blow brought on genuine doubts. Engineer Lin was apprehended by the Captain in the act of reading Childhood Catarrhal Diseases, and in response to a sharp attack he insolently declared that in future he planned on bringing some concrete benefit to people, not merely the dubious data resultant from a life spent in outer space. The Captain and the navigator were obliged to bring to bear the most extreme measures of persuasion, under the pressure of which the recreant acknowledged that he would never make a children’s doctor anyhow, while in the capacity of ship’s engineer or, in a pinch, of hunter, he had a chance of winning himself eternal glory. Lieber Polly sat in the corner and kept silent for the duration of the inquiry, but from that time on he made it a rule, when under the least pressure, to blackmail the crew with venomous but incoherent threats such as, “I’ll go be a laryngologist” or “Ask Teacher who’s right.” Lin, on hearing these challenges, breathed heavily with envy. Doubt was dividing the crew of the Galaktion. Doubt assailed the soul even of the Captain.
Help arrived from the Outside World. A group of scientists who had been working on Venus completed, and proposed for the consideration of the World Council, a practical plan to precipitate out the atmospheric cover of Venus, with the aim of the eventual colonization of the planet. The World Council examined the plan and approved it. Now the turn had come of the wastes of Venus—the great fearsome planet was to be made into a second Earth. The adult world set to work. They built new machines and accumulated energy; the population of Venus skyrocketed. And in Room 18 of the Anyudin School, the captain of the Galaktion, under the curious gaze of his crew, worked feverishly on the plan of Operation October, which promised an unprecedented sweep of ideas, and a way out of the current serious crisis.
The plan was finished three hours after the publication of the World Council’s appeal, and was presented for the crew’s inspection. The October plan was striking in its brevity and in its information density:
Within six weeks, master the industrial and technological specifications of standard atmospherogenic assemblies.
Upon expiry of the above-mentioned period, early in the morning—so as not to disturb the housefather—run away from school and proceed to the Anyudin rocket station, and in the inevitable confusion attendant upon a landing, sneak into the cargo hold of some vessel on a near-Earth run and hide until touchdown;
Then see.
The plan was greeted with exclamations of “Zow-zow-zow!” and approved, with three votes for and one abstention. The abstention was the noble Athos-Sidorov. Gazing at the far horizon, he spoke with unusual scorn of “crummy atmosphere plants” and of “wild goose chases,” and averred that only the feelings of comradeship and mutual assistance prevented him from subjecting the plan to sharp criticism. However, he was prepared to withhold all objections, and he even undertook to think out certain aspects of their departure, provided than no one should look upon this as consent to the abandonment of the D-principle for the sake of a bunch of cruddy-smelling precipitators. The Captain made no comment but gave the order to set to work. The crew set to work.
In Room 18 of the Anyudin School, a geography lesson was in progress. On the screen of the teaching stereovision, a scorching cloud over Paricutin blazed with lightning, hissing lapilli flashed past, and the red tongue of a lava stream, like an arrowhead, thrust out of the crater. The topic was the science of volcanology, volcanoes in general and unsubdued volcanoes in particular. The tidy domes of the Chipo-Chipo volcanological station showed white through the gray magma that was piling up and that would harden only God knew when. In front of the stereovision sat Lin, his eyes glued to the screen and feverishly biting the nails of his right and left hands by turns. He was running late. He had spent the morning and half the afternoon on the playground, verifying a proposition expressed by his teacher the day before: that the ratio of the maximum height of a jump to the maximum length of a jump is approximately one to four. Lin had high-jumped and broad-jumped until he started seeing spots before his eyes. Then he obliged some little kids to concern themselves with the matter, and he tired them out completely, but the resultant data indicated that the teacher’s proposition was close to the truth
. Now Lin was making up for what he had missed, and was watching the lessons the rest of the crew had already learned that morning.
Captain Genka, at his desk by the transparent outside wall of the room, was carefully copying the diagram for a medium-power two-phase oxygen installation. Lieber Polly was lying on his bed (an activity that was not encouraged during the daytime), pretending to read a fat book in a cheerless jacket—Introduction to the Operation of Atmospherogenic Assemblies. Navigator Athos-Sidorov stood by his desk and thought. This was his favorite pastime. Simultaneously he observed with contemptuous interest the instinctive reactions of Lin, who was enthralled by geography.
Beyond the transparent wall, under a kindly sun, the sand showed yellow and the slender pines rustled. The diving tower, with its long springboards, jutted over the lake.
The instructor’s voice began to tell how the volcano Stromboli had been extinguished, and Lin forgot himself completely. Now he was biting his nails on both hands at the same time, and the noble nerves of Athos could stand no more. “Lin,” he said, “stop that gnawing!”
Without turning around, Lin shrugged in vexation.
“He’s hungry!” declared Pol, coming to life. He sat up on the bed in order to elaborate upon this theme, but here the Captain slowly turned his large-browed head and glared at him.
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