Noon: 22nd Century tnu-1

by Boris Strugatsky

  Mboga spent the whole night under the floodlights, examining the monster’s carcass. Then at dawn the street filled with a shrill hissing sound, a large cloud of white steam flew up over the city, and a short-lived orange glow flashed out. Fokin, who had never before seen an organic disintegrator at work, dashed out of a tent wearing only shorts, but all he saw was Mboga, who was unhurriedly cleaning a flood light, and an enormous cloud of fine gray dust over blackened grass. All that remained of the honey monster was its ugly head, expertly prepared, coated with transparent plastic, and destined for the Capetown Museum of Exozoology.

  Fokin wished Mboga a good morning and was about to go back into the tent and finish his sleep, when he ran into Komov.

  “Where are you going?” Komov inquired.

  “To get dressed, of course,” Fokin replied with dignity. The morning was fresh and clear, except for scattered white clouds which floated unmoving in the violet sky to the south. Komov jumped down onto the grass and set off to fix breakfast. He planned on fixing fried eggs, but he couldn’t find the butter.

  “Boris,” he called, “where’s the butter?”

  Fokin was standing on the roof in a strange pose—he was doing Yoga exercises.

  “I have no idea,” he said haughtily.

  “You did the cooking yesterday evening.”

  “Uh… yes. So the butter is where it was last evening.”

  “And where was it last evening?” Komov asked with restraint.

  Fokin, with a displeased look, disengaged his head from under his right knee. “How should I know?” he said. “We restacked all the boxes afterward.”

  Komov sighed, and started patiently examining box after box. There was no butter. Then he went over to the building and dragged Fokin down by a leg. “Where’s the butter?” he asked.

  Fokin had just opened his mouth to reply when Tanya came around the corner, wearing a sleeveless blouse and shorts. Her hair was wet.

  “Morning, boys,” she said.

  “Morning, Tanya my sweet,” said Fokin. “You haven’t by any chance seen the box of butter?”

  “Where have you been?” Komov asked fiercely.

  “Swimming,” said Tanya.

  “What do you mean you’ve been swimming?” said Komov. “Who gave you permission?”

  Tanya unfastened from her belt an electric hacker in a plastic sheath, and threw it onto the boxes. “Gennady, old dear,” she said, “there aren’t any crocodiles here. The water is wonderful and the bottom is grassy.”

  “You haven’t seen the butter?” Komov asked.

  “No, I haven’t—but has anybody seen my shoes?”

  “I have,” said Fonin. “They’re on the other roof.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  All three turned around and looked at the roof. The shoes were gone. Komov looked at Mboga. He was lying on the grass in the shade, sleeping soundly, with his small fists under his cheek.

  “Come now!” said Tanya. “What would he do with my shoes?”

  “Or the butter,” added Fokin.

  “Perhaps they were in his way,” muttered Komov. “Well, all right. I’ll cook something without butter.”

  “And without shoes.”

  “All right, all right,” said Komov. “Go work on the intravisor. You too, Tanya. Try to get it put together as soon as possible.”

  Ryu came to breakfast. Before him he herded a large black machine on six hemomechanical legs. The machine left behind it a broad swath through the grass, stretching all the way back to the base. Ryu scrambled up to the roof and sat at the table, while the machine stopped in the middle of the street below.

  “Tell me, Ryu,” said Komov. “Did anything ever get lost on you back at the base?”

  “Like what?” asked Ryu.

  “Well, say you leave something outside overnight, and you can’t find it in the morning.”

  “Not that I know of.” Ryu shrugged. “Sometimes little things get lost—bits of rubbish, pieces of wire, scraps of lithoplast. But I think my cybers pick up that sort of trash. They’re very economical little comrades, and they can find a use for anything.”

  “Could they find a use for my shoes?” asked Tanya.

  Ryu laughed. “I don’t know,” he said. “I hardly think so.”

  “And could they find a use for a box of butter?” asked Fokin.

  Ryu stopped laughing. “You’ve lost your butter?” he asked.

  “And a pair of shoes.”

  “No,” said Ryu. “The cybers don’t go into the city.”

  Deftly as a lizard, Mboga climbed onto the roof. “Good morning,” he said. “I’m late.”

  Tanya poured him his coffee. Mboga always breakfasted on one cup of coffee.

  “So, we’ve been robbed,” he said, smiling.

  “Meaning it wasn’t you?” asked Fokin.

  “No, it wasn’t me. But last night the birds we saw yesterday flew over the city twice.”

  “And so much for the shoes,” said Fokin. “Somewhere I—”

  “I haven’t lost anything in two months,” said Ryu. “Of course, I keep everything in the dome. And then, I have the cybers. And smoke and noise all the time,”

  “Okay,” said Fokin, getting up. “Let’s get to work, Tanya girl. Imagine, a pair of shoes!”

  They left, and Komov started gathering up the dishes.

  “I’ll post a guard around you this evening,” said Ryu.

  “As you like,” Mboga said thoughtfully. “But I’d prefer doing it myself at first. Gennady, I’m going to bed right now, and tonight I’ll set up a little ambush.”

  “Very well, Doctor Mboga,” Komov said reluctantly.

  “Then I’ll come too,” said Ryu.

  “Do that,” Mboga agreed. “But no cybers, please.”

  From the next roof came an outburst of indignation. “Good grief, I asked you to put the packs down in order of assembly!”

  “I did! That is how I put them!”

  “You call this order of assembly? E-7, A-2, B-16… then E again!”

  “Tanya my sweet! Honest! Comrades!” Fokin called across the street in a wounded voice. “Who mixed up the packs?”

  “Look!” shouted Tanya. “Pack E-9 is gone completely!”

  Mboga said quietly, “Messieurs, we’re also missing a sheet.”

  “What?” said Komov. He was pale. “Search everywhere!” he shouted, jumping from the roof and running toward Fokin and Tanya. Mboga watched him go and then started looking to the south, across the river. He could hear Komav say on the next roof, “What exactly is missing?”

  “The HFG,” Tanya answered.

  “So what are you standing there jabbering for? Put together a new one.”

  “That will take two days,” Tanya said angrily.

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “We’ll have to cut,” said Fokin. Then silence reigned on the roof.

  “Ryu, look,” Mboga said suddenly. He stood up and, shading his eyes from the sun, looked across the river.

  Ryu turned around. Across the river the green plain was dotted with black spots-hippopotamus backs, and there were very many of them. Ryu had never imagined that there could be so many. The spots were slowly moving south.

  “I think they’re going away,” Mboga said.

  Komov decided to spend the night under the open sky. He dragged his cot out of the tent and lay down on the roof, his hands behind his head. The sky was blue-black, and a large greenish-orange disk with fuzzy edges—Palmyra, the moon of Leonida—crawled slowly up from the eastern horizon. Muffled drawn-out cries, no doubt those of the birds, came from the dark plain across the river. Brief flashes of sheet lightning appeared over the base, and something gnashed and crackled softly.

  We’ll have to put up a fence, thought Komov. Enclose the city with an electric fence, and run through a fairly weak current But then, if it’s the birds, a fence won’t help. And it probably is the birds. A huge critter like that wouldn’t have any trouble a
t all in dragging off a pack. It could probably even carry off a person. After all, on Pandora once a flying dragon grabbed a man in a heavy-duty spacesuit, and that was maybe one-hundred-fifty kilos. That’s the way things are going. First shoes, then a pack… and the whole expedition has only one carbine. Why was Gorbovsky so set against weapons? Of course we should have opened fire then—at least to scare them away. Why wouldn’t the doctor fire? Because it “seemed” to him… and I wouldn’t have fired myself because it had “seemed” to me too. And just exactly what had it seemed to me? Komov wiped his forehead, wet from nervousness, vigorously with his hand. Enormous birds, beautiful birds, and how they flew! What noiseless, effortless, perfect flight! Well, even hunters sometimes pity the game, and I’m no hunter.

  A bright white little spot among the twinkling stars slowly went past the zenith. Komov got up on his elbows and watched it. It was the Sunflower—a kilometer-long super-long-range Assault starship. It was now orbiting Leonida at a distance of two megameters. They had only to send a distress signal, and help would come from there. But should they send a distress signal? They had lost one pair of shoes, a pack, and something had “seemed” to the chief…

  The little white spot grew dim and vanished. The Sunflower had gone off into Leonida’s shadow. Komov lay down again and put his hands behind his head. Aren’t there just too many conveniences? he thought. Warm green plains, sweet-scented air, an idyllic river with no crocodiles… Maybe this is only a smokescreen that some sort of unknown forces are operating behind? Or is everything much simpler? Say Tanya lost her shoes somewhere in the grass. And everyone knows Fokin is a muddler—the lost packs could be lying somewhere under a pile of excavator parts. I mean, today he was running around all day from pile to pile, glancing around on the sly.

  Komov must have dozed off. When he awoke again, Palmyra was high in the sky. From the tent where Fokin was sleeping came smacking and snoring sounds. There was whispering on the next roof:

  “… As soon as the cable broke, off we flew, leaving Saburo below. He chased after us and shouted for us to stop, then named me captain and ordered me to stop. Of course right away I started steering for the relay mast. We tied up to it and hung there for the whole night. And the whole time we shouted at each other, arguing over whether Saburo should go find Teacher or not. Saburo could go, but wouldn’t, and we would, but couldn’t. Finally in the morning they saw us and got us down.”

  “Well, I was a quiet girl. And I was always scared of any sort of machinery. I’m still afraid of cybers.”

  “There’s no reason to be afraid of cybers, Tanya. Cybers are gentle.”

  “I don’t like them. I don’t like the way they’re sort of animate and inanimate at the same time.”

  Komov turned over on his side and looked. Tanya and Ryu were sitting crosslegged on the next roof. Ah, the lovebirds, thought Komov. Tomorrow they’ll be yawning all day. “Tanya,” he said in a low voice, “it’s time to go to sleep.”

  “I’m not sleepy,” said Tanya. “We were walking along the bank.” Ryu started to move off in embarrassment. “It’s nice by the river. The moonlight, and the fish jumping…”

  Ryu said, “Hey, where’s Doctor Mboga?”

  “He’s at work,” said Komov.

  “Really!” Tanya said happily, “Ryu, let’s go find Doctor Mboga!”

  She’s hopeless, Komov thought, and rolled over onto his other side. The whispering on the roof continued. Komov got up decisively, took his cot, and went back into the tent. It was very noisy there—Fokin was sleeping with all his might. You muddler, you muddler, Komov thought as he settled himself in. Such a night for romance. But you grew your mustache and thought it was in the bag. He wrapped himself up in a sheet and fell asleep instantly.

  A muffled roar tossed him on the cot. It was dark in the tent. Ka-thwack! Ka-thwack! thundered two more shots. “The devil!” Fokin yelled in the darkness. “Who’s there?” Komov heard a short harelike cry and a triumphant yell, “Ha! Come here, come with me!” Komov tangled himself up in the sheet and could not get up. He heard a muffled blow, Fokin’s “Ow!”, and then something small and dark showed for an instant, and disappeared through the light triangle of the doorway of the tent. Komov darted after it. Fokin did too, and they bumped heads violently. Komov clenched his teeth and at last flung himself outside. The other roof was empty. Looking around, Komov saw Mboga running through the grass down the street toward the river, and Riu and Tanya following on his heels, stumbling. And Komov noticed something else—someone was running far ahead of Mboga, parting the grass before him—was running much faster than Mboga. Mboga stopped, pointed his carbine straight up with one arm, and fired again. The wake in the grass swerved to one side and disappeared around the corner of the last building. After a second a bird, white in the moonlight, gracefully spread wide its enormous wings, and rose up from that spot.

  “Shoot!” yelled Fokin.

  He was already dashing down the street, stumbling at every fifth step. Mboga stood motionless, with his carbine lowered, and, craning his neck, watched the bird. It made an even, noiseless circle over the city, gaining altitude, and flew off to the south. In a moment it had disappeared. Then Komov saw more birds flying very low over the base—three, four, five—five enormous white birds shot upward over the cybers’ workplace, and disappeared.

  Komov got down from the roof. The dead parallelepipeds of the buildings threw dense black shadows onto the grass. The grass looked silver. Something jingled underfoot. Komov bent over. A cartridge-case gleamed in the grass. Komov crossed over the distorted shadow of the helicopter, and heard voices. Mboga, Fokin, Ryu, and Tanya were walking unhurriedly toward him.

  “I had him in my hands!” Fokin said excitedly. “But he knocked me on the head and tore away. If he hadn’t slugged me, I never would have let him go! He was soft and warm, like a child. And naked.”

  “We almost caught him too,” said Tanya. “But he turned into a bird and flew away.”

  “Come now!” scoffed Fokin. “Turned into a bird…”

  “No, really,” Ryu insisted. “He rounded the corner, and right away a bird flew up.”

  “So?” said Fokin. “He flushed a bird, and you stood there with your mouths gaping.”

  “A coincidence,” said Mboga.

  Komov went up to them, and they stopped.

  “What exactly happened?” asked Komov.

  “I had caught him,” declared Fokin, “but he knocked me over the head.”

  “I heard that,” said Komov. “How did it all start?”

  “I was sitting on the packs, in ambush,” said Mboga. “I saw someone creeping through the grass right in the middle of the street. I wanted to catch him, and I moved toward him, but he saw me and turned back. I saw I couldn’t catch him, and fired into the air. I’m very sorry, Gennady, but I think I frightened them off.”

  Silence reigned. Then Fokin asked doubtfully, “Exactly why are you sorry, Doctor Mboga?”

  Mboga did not answer at once. Everyone waited. “There were at least two of them,” he finally said. “I discovered one, and the other was in the tent with you. But when I ran past the helicopter… well, look for yourselves,” he concluded unexpectedly. “You’ll have to examine it. Probably I’m wrong.” Silently Mboga started walking toward the camp. The others, exchanging glances, moved after him. Mboga stopped near the building on which the helicopter was sitting. “Somewhere around here,” he said.

  Fokin and Tanya quickly crawled into the dark shadow under the wall. Ryu and Komov looked down expectantly at Mboga. He was thinking.

  “There’s nothing here,” Fokin snapped.

  “Just what did I see?” muttered Mboga. “Just what did I see?”

  Fokin, irritated, moved away from the wall. The black shadow of the rotor vane crept across his face.

  “Aha!” Mboga said loudly. “A strange shadow!”

  He threw down the carbine and with a running jump he leapt onto the wall. “Please!” he said from
the roof.

  On the roof, beyond the helicopter fuselage, as if in a shop window, the things were neatly arranged-the butter, pack number E-9, the shoes, a neatly folded sheet, a pocket microelectrometer in a plastic case, four neutron batteries, a ball of dried vitriplast, and a pair of sunglasses.

  “Here are my shoes,” said Tanya. “And my sunglasses. I dropped them into the river yesterday.”

  “Ye-es,” Fokin said, and looked around carefully.

  Komov seemed to come to himself. “Ryu!” he quickly shouted. “I have to get hold of the Sunflower immediately. Fokin, Tanya, make a photograph of this display! I’ll be back in half an hour.”

  He jumped off the roof and started walking quickly, then broke into a run, heading down the street toward the base. Ryu followed him without saying anything.

  “What’s going on?” yelled Fokin.

  Mboga squatted down, got out his small pipe, puffed at it unhurriedly, and said, “They’re people, Boris. Even animals can steal things, but only people can bring back what they have stolen.”

  Fokin moved back and sat on the wheel of the helicopter.

  Komov returned alone. He seemed very excited, and in a high-pitched metallic voice he ordered them to break camp immediately. Fokin started showering him with questions. He demanded explanations. Then Komov recited in the same metallic voice: “By order of the captain of the starship Sunflower: Within three hours the meteorological base and laboratory, and the archeological camp will be dismantled; all cybernetic systems will be shut down; and all personnel, including Atmosphere Physicist Waseda, will return on board the Sunflower.” Fokin submitted out of sheer surprise and set to work with unusual diligence.

  In two hours the helicopter made eight trips, and the cargo robots trampled down a broad road through the grass from the base to the boat. Of the base, only empty construction sites remained—all three systems of construction robots had been herded inside the storehouse and completely deprogrammed.