Red Star

by Loren R. Graham

  This was how Menni reasoned, but he had miscalculated. Did that mean that there was no one suited to the purpose, that the difference between our civilizations was an unbridgeable gap for any individual and could only be overcome by society as a whole? It would be comforting for me personally to think so, but I seriously doubt it. I think that Menni should have reconsidered his last argument, the one concerning the workers.

  Where, exactly, did I fail?

  The way it happened the first time was that I was inundated by a wave of new impressions in the alien world on Mars—its grandiose richness flooded and washed away the shores of my consciousness. With Netti’s help I survived and learned to cope with the crisis. But I wonder whether the crisis itself was not aggravated and intensified by the hypersensitivity and delicacy of perception that are characteristic of persons exclusively devoted to intellectual labor. Perhaps someone whose personality was somewhat more primitive, somewhat less complex, but organically more stable and firm would have had an easier time of it and would have made the transition less painfully. Perhaps it would be easier for an uneducated worker to become integrated into a new and higher order, for although he would have to learn much more at first, he would not be forced to relearn as much, and that, after all, is the most difficult problem. This is what I am inclined to believe, and I think that Menni was mistaken in concentrating on the level of culture rather than on the force behind its development.

  What sapped my spiritual energy on the second occasion was the very nature of the civilization into which I attempted to integrate my entire being. I was overwhelmed by its loftiness, by the profundity of its social ties and the purity of its interpersonal relationships. Sterni’s speech, which crudely expressed the thorough incompatibility of our two types of life, was merely the immediate cause, the last nudge that sent me plummeting into the dark abyss toward which I was in any case being involuntarily and irresistibly drawn by the contradiction between my inner life and my social environment at the factory, in my family, among my friends. Once again, I cannot help wondering whether this contradiction was not stronger and more acute in the case of a man like me, a revolutionary intellectual who nine-tenths of the time had worked either alone or in a one-sided, unequal relationship to his comrades and fellow workers, to whom he had been a teacher and leader. In other words, perhaps it was my isofotion from the collective that was to blame. Perhaps this contradiction would have proved less acute for a man who had instead spent nine-tenths of his working life in an environment that may have been primitive and uncultivated but was nonetheless pervaded by a spirit of comradeship. An environment in which equality was real if somewhat coarse. I believe that this is the case, and I think that Menni should renew this search in a different quarter.

  Then there is what occurred between the two catastrophes, what gave me strength and courage to continue my long struggle, what even now allows me to make this summing up with no sense of humiliation: Netti’s love. It was undoubtedly a misunderstanding, a mistake of her noble and fervent imagination. But such a mistake was possible. No one can take that away from me and nothing can change it. This to me proves that our two worlds really are close and that one day they will be able to unite into a single, unprecedentedly beautiful and harmonious order.

  As for myself . . . but here there is nothing to sum up. The new life is inaccessible to me, while I do not want the old one, to which I no longer belong either intellectually or emotionally. The only alternative is clear.

  I must stop writing now. My accomplice is waiting for me in the garden; there is his signal already. By tomorrow we will both be well on our way to a place where life is seething and overflowing and where it will be easy for me to erase the hated boundary between the past and the future. Goodbye, Werner, my dear old comrade.

  Long live the new, the better life! And greetings to you, radiant specter of the future, my darling Netti!

  __________

  *The Russian Revolution of 1905.

  †The Russian Social Democratic Workers Party, founded in 1898, split in 1903 into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The “more moderate current” referred to here was Menshevism.

  *St Petersburg

  *A literary reference to Finland.

  *The author is undoubtedly referring to August Bebel (1840–1913), one of the leaders of German Social Democracy.

  *Engineer Menni, the main character in the following novel.

  *Organ of local government.

  *It seems reasonably clear from the context that the Old Man of the Mountain is meant to designate Lenin; the Poet—Gorky; and Mirsky—Plekhanov. Because of the slightly unflattering, if not wholly inaccurate, characterization of Lenin, the Soviet editors of the latest edition of Red Star chose to delete these passages (but without saying so). “Krasnaya zvezda,” in Vechnoe solntse: russkaya sotsialnaya utopiya i nauchnaya fantastika (vtoraya polovina XIX-nachalo XX veka), Moscow, 1979, pp. 248–379 (see p. 373).

  Epilogue

  From Dr. Werner’s Letter to Mirsky

  (Undated, evidently due to Werner’s absentmindedness.)

  The cannonade had stopped some time ago, but a steady stream of wounded kept on coming. The overwhelming majority were not revolutionary militia or soldiers, but peaceful civilians. Many were women and even children: shrapnel treats all as equals. However, most of the casualties brought to my hospital, which was the one nearest the fighting, were militia and soldiers. I am an old doctor and at one time spent several years working as a surgeon, but even I was appalled by many of the shrapnel and shell-splinter wounds. Towering above all this horror, however, was one radiant feeling, one joyous word: Victory!

  This is our first victory in the great battle now in progress, but it is clear to all that it is a decisive one. The scales have tipped to the other side. Entire regiments with their artillery have come over to us—a sure sign of what is to come. The Last Judgment is here. The verdict will not be a mild one, but it will be just. It is high time we had done with it.

  The street is littered with debris and spattered with blood. The sun shines a bright red through the smoke from the fires and the artillery. To us, however, it is not an ominous portent, but a source of joyous awe. Our hearts reverberate with a song of battle, a song of triumph. . . .

  Leonid was brought to my hospital around noon. He had a serious chest wound and several minor ones that were little more than scratches. In the middle of the night he and five grenadiers had set off for the section of the city controlled by the enemy. Their mission was to unnerve and demoralize the enemy with a series of violent attacks. Leonid had proposed the plan himself and volunteered to carry it out. Since he had worked a great deal here some time back, he knew every inch of the city and was better qualified than others for the desperate operation. After some hesitation the chief of the revolutionary militia agreed to the plan. Armed with grenades, the commando succeeded in reaching one of the enemy batteries and blew up several boxes of ammunition from a position on a nearby rooftop. In the ensuing panic they climbed down, destroyed the howitzers, and exploded the remaining shells.

  Leonid received several slight splinter-wounds. Then, as they were hurriedly retreating, they ran into a detachment of enemy dragoons. Leonid entrusted the command to his adjutant, Vladimir, took his last two grenades, and crept into the nearest doorway to wait in ambush while the others retreated, using all available cover as they vigorously returned the fire of the enemy. He waited until most of the detachment had passed by him and threw his first grenade at an officer and a second into the nearest group of dragoons. The entire detachment fled in wild disorder, and our troops returned to get Leonid, who had been seriously wounded by a splinter from his second grenade. They managed to bring him back to our lines before dawn and then brought him to my hospital and entrusted him to my care.

  I quickly removed the fragment, but one of his lungs had been hit and his condition was critical. I made him as comfortable as I could, but I was unable to give him the peace and quiet he needed mo
st of all. The battle had resumed at dawn. We could hear it clearly, and Leonid’s feverish condition was aggravated by his uneasy concern for its progress. He became even more upset when the wounded began to arrive, and I was forced to isolate him as best I could, moving him behind a screen so that he would at least not see them.

  By about 4 p.m. the battle was already over, and its outcome was obvious. I was busy examining and assigning beds to the wounded when I was handed the card of a woman who had written to me several weeks previously asking about Leonid’s health. She had visited me after his disappearance, and I had recommended that she go to see you in order to acquaint herself with his manuscript. Since she was obviously a comrade and evidently a physician as well, I invited her to come straight to the ward. As on the previous occasion I had seen her, she wore a dark veil that effectively concealed her face.

  “Is Leonid here?” she asked without even greeting me.

  “Yes,” I replied, “but there is no particular cause for alarm. He is seriously wounded, but I think he will pull through.”

  She questioned me rapidly and intelligently about his condition and announced that she wanted to see him.

  “Don’t you think that your visit might upset him?” I objected.

  “Undoubtedly,” came her answer, “but it will do him more good than harm, I can assure you.”

  She seemed very confident and determined. I felt that she knew what she was talking about and I could not deny her request. We went to Leonid’s ward, and I gestured to her to go behind the screen. I remained nearby at the bed of another seriously wounded patient I had to attend to in any case. I wanted to hear their conversation so that I could interfere if necessary.

  Netti returns to Leonid in the hospital on Earth at the end of Red Star

  As she went behind the screen she lifted her veil a little. Her silhouette showed through the semitransparent partition, and I could see her bending over him.

  “A mask . . .” said Leonid faintly.

  “Your Netti!” she answered, and her soft, melodious voice uttered these two words with such tenderness and affection that this old heart of mine quivered in an almost painful convulsion of joyous sympathy.

  “It looks as though I’m dying,” he said softly, almost as a question.

  “No, Lenni, you have your life ahead of you. Your wound is not fatal, not even dangerous.”

  “And the murder?” he objected with deep anxiety.

  “You were ill, my dearest. Don’t worry, that attack of pain will never come between us or keep us from our great common goal. We will reach it, dear Lenni!”

  He gave a quiet moan, but it was not a moan of pain. I went away, because I had found out what I wanted to know about my patient, and there was no reason or excuse for eavesdropping any longer. A few minutes later the stranger, again in her hat and veil, summoned me once more.

  “I shall take Leonid with me,” she announced. “He wants to go, and his chances for recovery are better with me than here, so you need not worry on that score. Two comrades are waiting downstairs to take him away. Please call for a stretcher.”

  There was no use arguing; the conditions at our hospital were indeed less than splendid. I asked for her address—it was quite nearby—and decided I would visit Leonid there the following day. Two workers came and carefully carried him away on the stretcher. . . .

  (Note added the next day.)

  I have just come from Netti’s apartment. She and Leonid have both disappeared without a trace. The doors were unlocked and the rooms empty. On the table in a large room with a huge wide-open window I found a note addressed to me. There were just a few words written in a shaky hand:

  Remember me to my comrades. Goodbye.

  Yours, Leonid.

  Strangely enough, I was not at all upset. I had become terribly exhausted the last few days, I had seen a lot of suffering that I could do nothing to alleviate, I had had my fill of death and destruction, but my heart was still light and happy.

  The worst is behind us now. The struggle has been a long ordeal, but victory is within our grasp. The next struggle will be easier . . .

  ENGINEER MENNI

  Contents

  Transhtor’s Forward

  Prologue

  1. Menni

  2. Nella

  PART I

  1. The Great Project

  2. Dark Clouds

  3. The Showdown

  4. The Trial

  PART II

  1. Netti

  2. The Return

  3. Father!

  PART III

  1. Two Kinds of Logic

  2. Arri

  3. Deeper and Deeper

  4. Enemies and Allies

  5. The Legend of the Vampires

  6. The Vampire

  PART IV

  1. The Heart of Nella

  2. The Faces of Death

  3. The Legacy

  4. Sunrise

  Epilogue

  Translator’s Foreword

  After the events which I described in the book Red Star, I am once again living among my Martian friends and working for the cherished cause of bringing our two worlds closer together. The Martians have decided for the immediate future to refrain from all direct or active interference in the affairs of Earth. For the time being they will restrict themselves to studying our humanity and gradually acquainting us with the more ancient civilization of Mars. I wholly agree with them that caution is of the essence, for if their discoveries on the structure of matter were at the present time to become known on Earth, the militaristic rulers of our mutually hostile nations would gain control over weapons of unprecedented might, and the entire planet would be devastated in a matter of months.

  The Martians have established a special unit for the dissemination of the New Culture on Earth, affiliated with the Colonial Group. I have taken a position there as translator, that being the work for which I am best qualified; we hope in the near future to enlist other Earthlings of various nationalities for the same purpose. This is not at all as simple as it may appear at first glance. Translation from the single Martian language into those of Earth is much more difficult than translation from one Earthly language to another, and it is often even impossible to give a full and exact rendering of the content of the original.

  Imagine trying to translate a modern scientific work, a psychological novel, or a political article into the language of Homer or into Old Church Slavonic. I am aware that such a comparison does not flatter us Earthlings, but it is unfortunately no exaggeration—the difference between our respective civilizations is just about that great. The life, the social bonds, and the entire experience of the Martians differ radically from our own. Many notions which are well developed and quite ordinary there are entirely lacking among us. Ideas which on Mars are so universally accepted that they are merely implied rather than stated explicitly are received on Earth as something incomprehensible, improbable, or even monstrous. We respond to them as devout Catholics of the Middle Ages reacted to atheism or as an old-fashioned petty bourgeois might have reacted to free love. The language of thoughts can differ much more than the language of words from its translation—even when the words seem to be exactly the same the thought they convey is sometimes totally different. In fact, the greatest difficulty an idea encounters on its way to acceptance is most often that of translation into ordinary language. When Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, and Galileo said that the Earth turns on its axis, their very words were incomprehensible to most of their contemporaries: “turn” signified above all certain palpable sensations associated with the circular movement of a human being or objects in his surroundings. In this case, however, it was precisely such sensations which were absent. The same story has recurred many times and continues to be repeated even today.

  Now I am sure you will understand the problems involved in translating from the language of a civilization which is not only different from but also higher and more complex than our own. It goes without saying that
one should begin with what is easiest, and this explains our unit’s first choice of subject matter. We selected a historical novel by my friend Enno which depicts the epoch that roughly corresponds to the present stage of Earthly civilization, namely the final phase of capitalism. The relations and types described there are similar to our own and are thus fairly comprehensible to the Earthly reader. Enno has herself visited Earth and knows several of our languages, so she has to some exent been able to assist me in my task. Only to an extent, however—if we are at all to speak of responsibility for the form in which the work as a whole is presented, then it is I who must accept all such responsibility.

  Martian weights, measures, and time, of course, have been translated throughout into the Earthly system. Where possible, I have replaced the names of countries, seas, and canals with those in general use on the maps of our astronomers, that is, with Schiaparelli’s Greek and Latin designations. However, the novel often refers to details—cities, mountain ranges, small gulfs, and the like—which cannot be observed at all in our telescopes. In such cases I have either simply translated the Martian name or tried to render its content through a suitable Greek form on the model of Schiaparelli’s terminology.

  The astronomical age of Mars is twice that of Earth, and for that reason there is relatively little water on the planet. In the course of millions of years the water of its oceans has been absorbed into the depths of its crust. The seas on Mars constitute at present only half of its surface area, and they are also much smaller than those on Earth. Dry land in the form of a single unbroken continent occupies three quarters of the northern hemisphere and about a fourth of the southern, and contains several small inland seas. The remaining area is covered by the Mare Australe (Southern Ocean), which is thickly sprinkled with islands, some of them fairly large. The continent is transversed in all directions by the famous canals.