“You’re not speaking sincerely. I know you. You worry about him too.”
“Oh, he doesn’t even know,” she said, and suddenly a hot flush came over her face; her cheeks, her brow, her neck crimsoned, and tears of shame came into her eyes. “But we won’t talk of him.”
CHAPTER 12
VRONSKY HAD SEVERAL TIMES ALREADY, though not so resolutely as now, tried to bring her to consider their position, and every time he had been confronted by the same superficiality and triviality with which she met his appeal now. It was as though there were something in this that she could not or would not face, as though the moment she began to speak of this, she, the real Anna, retreated somehow into herself, and another strange and unaccountable woman came out, whom he did not love, and whom he feared, and who was in opposition to him. But today he was resolved to have it out.
“Whether he knows or not,” said Vronsky, in his usual quiet and resolute tone, “that’s nothing to do with us. We cannot . . . you cannot stay like this, especially now.”
“What’s to be done, according to you?” she asked with the same frivolous irony. She who had so feared he would take her condition too lightly was now vexed with him for deducing from it the necessity of taking some step.
“Tell him everything, and leave him.”
“Very well, let us suppose I do that,” she said. “Do you know what the result of that would be? I can tell you it all beforehand,” and a wicked light gleamed in her eyes, which had been so soft a minute before. “‘Eh, you love another man, and have entered into criminal intrigues with him?’” (Mimicking her husband’s singular appearance, she covered one side of her face with the flat of her hand). “‘I warned you of the results in the religious, the civil, and the domestic relation. You have not listened to me. Now I cannot let you disgrace my name’”—and my son, she had meant to say, but about her son she could not jest—’“disgrace my name, and’—and more in the same style,” she added. “In general terms, he’ll say in his official manner, and with all distinctness and precision, that he cannot let me go, but will take all measures in his power to prevent scandal. And he will calmly and punctually act in accordance with his words. That’s what will happen. He’s not a man, but a machine, and a spiteful machine when he’s angry,” she added, recalling Alexei Alexandrovich as she spoke, with all the peculiarities of his figure and manner of speaking and bifurcated apperance, and reckoning against him every defect she could find in him, softening nothing for the great wrong she herself was doing him.
It was then she sensed that Vronsky was not listening, and saw that his eyes were fixed on some spot behind her head.
“The swirling . . . ,” he said in a low voice, as if hypnotized, and Anna felt irritated by his lack of attention.
“What?”
“The fountain . . . the swirling. . . .” he repeated, and then with sudden force shouted, “Jump!”
Anna, shocked into action by this sudden urgency, leapt forward from where she sat on the wall of the fountain, landing in a disordered heap at Vronsky’s feet; he scrambled forward to grasp as her forearms and pulled as hard as he could. Directly behind her, hovering like a storm cloud over the fountain’s swirling waters, was what could only be described as a terrible, undulating nothingness: a grey-black hole in the fabric of the atmosphere, wavering in the air above the fountain, and pulling, pulling Anna Karenina in toward itself.
Vronsky gripped her with all his strength, bracing his feet against the wall of the fountain, resisting with all his strength the violent force, ten times stronger than gravity, that was drawing Anna in. Android Karenina joined the struggle, lacing her fingers around Anna’s waist and digging in the base of her heels at the base of the fountain wall.
“What . . . what is . . . ,” Anna began, and Vronsky answered immediately: “A godmouth!” Anna’s skirts billowed up behind her, rustled by the phantasmagoric wind bellowing from the portal. “UnConSciya creates them . . . somehow . . . oof. . .”
His fingers slipping a little, Vronsky cursed. “Hold on, Anna. Only hold on, a bit longer . . . it will not last long.”
“Let me go,” said Anna weakly.
“What?”
“What good is living,” she said, louder now, “if our life is to be under my husband’s control? Let me go!” She directed this last command to Android Karenina, who by virtue of the Iron Laws could not disobey; she turned her faceplate apologetically to Vronsky and released her grasp.
“But, Anna,” said Vronsky, renewing his grip and putting steel into his voice, “we simply must, anyway, tell him, and then be guided by the line he takes.”
“And what, run away?”
“And why not run away?” he shouted desperately. “I don’t see how we can keep on like this. And not for my sake—I see that you suffer!”
A fierce wind blew from the terrible depths of the demonic spiral; one of Anna’s shoes slipped from her feet and was sucked into the vortex. Vronsky redoubled his efforts to pull her free, nearly dislodging Anna’s arm from the socket. He stared over her shoulder at the space-hole still hovering in the air behind her, glowing like the malevolent eye of a hungry beast. One of Anna’s hands came loose from his, and she made no effort to let him grab it again. Her body was virtually slack, and he felt she had given up, in her body and her mind, and was ready to be consumed.
“Anna,” he pleaded, “do not quit!”
“Yes,” she muttered, almost talking to herself. “Run away, become your mistress, and complete the ruin of. . .”
And she would have said “my son,” but she could not utter those words—whether because she could not bear to, or because the force on her body was squeezing the very air from her lungs, Vronsky could not say.
Anna thought of her son, pictured his innocent body hovering before the unfathomable grey void behind her, imagined him caught in such a trap. It came to her that she had set a trap for him, by falling in love; she thought of his future attitude toward his mother, who had abandoned his father, and she felt such terror at what she had done that she could not face it. She cried out and writhed, and Vronsky lost his grip. The godmouth widened, like a snake mouth opening to accommodate a rabbit or possum.
It was then that Android Karenina broke the Iron Law of obedience.
Dismissing the earlier command to let go, she grabbed Anna by the waist, and with furious mechanical strength pulled her to safety. Together, mistress and robot landed with a thud on the stones of the fountain, and Anna watched with shaded eyes as the queer dimensional portal whooshed shut and disappeared.
For a long moment, Anna stared into the pale purple gleam of Android Karenina’s faceplate—and then mouthed the words thank you. Android Karenina, as ever, said nothing, only straightened up and motored respectfully away, as Vronsky rushed to his lover’s side and placed her head lovingly in his lap.
“I beg you, I entreat you,” Anna said, turning her head away from Vronsky’s eyes. “Never speak to me of that!”
“To the contrary!” Vronsky began. “I shall not rest until I discover what cell, what madman, would dare to launch such an attack on you—and why—”
“No,” said Anna, shaking her head with impatience. “Never speak to me of my becoming your mistress. Of my ruin, and that of. . .”
“But, Anna . . .”
“Never. Leave it to me. I know all the baseness, all the horror of my position; but it’s not so easy to arrange as you think. And leave it to me, and do what I say. Never speak to me of it. Do you promise me? . . . No, no, promise!”
“I promise everything, but I can’t be at peace, especially after what you have told me. I can’t be at peace, when you can’t be at peace . . .”
“I?” she repeated. “Yes, I am worried sometimes; but that will pass, if you will never talk about this. When you talk about it—it’s only then it worries me.”
“I don’t understand—” he said.
“I know,” she interrupted him, “how hard it is for your truthful
nature to lie, and I grieve for you. I often think that you have ruined your whole life for me.”
“I was just thinking the very same thing,” he said. “How could you sacrifice everything for my sake? I can’t forgive myself that you’re unhappy!”
“I unhappy?” she said, coming closer to him, and looking at him with an ecstatic smile of love. “I am like a hungry man who has been given food. He may be cold, and dressed in rags, and ashamed, but he is not unhappy. I unhappy? No, this is my unhappiness. . . .”
She could hear the sound of her son’s voice coming toward them, and glancing swiftly round the terrace, she got up impulsively. Her eyes glowed with the fire he knew so well; with a rapid movement she raised her lovely hands, covered with rings, took his head, looked a long moment into his face, and, raising her face with smiling, parted lips, swiftly kissed his mouth while Android Karenina kept her gaze discretely averted, then pushed him away. She would have gone, but he held her back.
“When?” he murmured in a whisper, gazing in ecstasy at her.
“Tonight, at one o’clock,” she whispered, and, with a heavy sigh, she walked with her light, swift step to meet her son.
Vronsky, looking at his watch, went away hurriedly, plagued by questions about the encounter: Why would UnConSciya plant such a trap here? Was it meant for Anna . . . or for him?
And was it UnConSciya at all?
CHAPTER 13
WHEN VRONSKY LOOKED at his watch, he was so greatly agitated and lost in his thoughts that he saw the figures on the watch’s face, but could not take in what time it was. He came out onto the highroad and walked, picking his way carefully through the mud, to his carriage, detaching and reattaching the electrodes to his chest and forehead as he went. He was so completely absorbed in his confusion about the godmouth that he did not even think what o’clock it was. But the excitement of the approaching Cull gained upon Vronsky as he drove further and further into the atmosphere of the arena, overtaking carriages driving up from the summer villas or out of Petersburg.
He arrived to find Frou-Frou standing in the silo, torso door hanging open, at the ready. They were just going to lead her out.
“I’m not too late?”
“It’s all right! It’s all right!” said the Englishman, looking nervously at his I/Physiolographer/99. “For Heaven’s sakes, don’t upset yourself!”
Vronsky once more took in, in one glance, the exquisite lines of his Exterior, which was oscillating all over, quivering with excitement up and down its sleek lines. He surveyed the rows of pavilion seating, quickly scanning the crowd before climbing inside his death-suit to begin combat.
“Oh, there’s Karenin!” said an acquaintance from his regiment. “He’s looking for his wife, and she’s in the middle of the pavilion. Didn’t you see her?”
“No,” answered Vronsky, and without even glancing round toward the pavilion where his friend was pointing out Madame Karenina, he went up to his Exterior.
In a moment, the cry was heard: “Entrez!”
Vronsky climbed inside Frou-Frou’s groznium torso door and with a series of deft movements attached himself to her contact board. He then slipped his forefinger and index fingers under the palm-sized steering disc, which was his secondary means of control, and pressed its small central button firmly, once, with his thumb. Instantly the war-machine reared back, tilted her head upward, and fired a massive jolt of electricity into the sky. Vronsky smiled: She is ready.
Outside the beast, the Englishman puckered up his lips, leaned against the torso door, and shouted in:
“Good luck, your Excellency.” And then, in English, added his traditional final word of support: “Survive.”
Vronsky peered into the long-tube, a periscope-like exterior sensor, to gain a last look at his rivals. Once the match began, they would in the grand tradition of the Cull no longer be his beloved fellow Border Officers, but targets. One Exterior, belonging to a drinking companion of his, Oposhenko, was in the shape of a massive arachnid, with glittering golden “eyes” that Vronsky knew could exert a powerful magnetic force, to draw enemies into the Exterior’s “web.” A second battle-suit was a modified sledge, with engines attached to the back, allowing it to function as a kind of battering ram, simple but effective. Galtsin, a friend of Vronsky’s and one of his more formidable rivals, had an Exterior patriotically fashioned in the shape of a massive sickle, such as that used in the time of the Tsars by traditional peasants in their fields; she could roll with deadly speed along the periphery of the conflict, and then dart in to slice through heavy armor plating with her sharpened edge.
A little light hussar was boldly taking the field in a modified Exterior, which one did not wear at all; in tight riding breeches he shot by astride a missile, which he had harnessed and sat upon like a cat on the saddle, in imitation of English jockeys. How this hussar could hope to kill his opponents and yet survive himself, it was impossible for Vronsky to conceive. Prince Kuzovlev rode out inside a monolithic block of black groznium, which Vronsky knew to be well-armored but utterly useless in offensive capability. Vronsky and all his comrades knew Kuzovlev and his peculiarity of “weak nerves” and terrible vanity. They knew that he was afraid of everything, and therefore had entered the field in this upright coffin of an Exterior, prepared to survive a Cull, but never to win one.
The combatants were ambling and motoring forward past a dammed-up stream on their way to the starting point. Several of the riders were in front and several behind, when suddenly Vronsky heard the sound of a loud, primitive engine in the mud behind him, and he was overtaken by Mahutin inside his fat-bellied, curiously adorable Exterior, Matryoshka, with the fat, rounded bottom, tapered top, and jaunty, painted peasant’s face. Vronsky grimaced and looked angrily at him; there was something curious about that Exterior, and Vronsky regarded him now as his most formidable rival.
Frou-Frou, feeding off Vronsky’s anticipation like a horse lapping at a clearwater stream, engaged her powerful rear legs in an excited dash to the starting point, thrusting Vronsky back against the rear wall of the cockpit.
“This is going to be a worthy match,” he thought.
CHAPTER 14
THERE WERE SEVENTEEN Border Officers in all competing in the Cull. The arena was a large three-mile ring in the form of an ellipse in front of the pavilion. On this course nine obstacles had been arranged: the stream, a big and solid barrier five feet high, just before the pavilion, a dry ditch, a ditch full of water, a precipitous slope, an Irish barricade (one of the most difficult obstacles, consisting of a mound fenced with brushwood); then two more ditches filled with water, and one dry one; and the end of the race was just facing the pavilion.
Every eye, every opera glass, was turned on the gleaming, brightly colored group of exoskeletons at the moment they were in line to start.
At last the umpire shouted, “Away!” and the omnidirectional destruction began
“They’re off! They’re starting!” was heard on all sides after the hush of expectation.
And little groups and solitary figures among the public began running from place to place to get a better view. In the very first minute the group of quick-moving death machines fanned out across the course, taking positions around and under the barrier, the ditch, and the Irish barricade, aiming their sparkers and bomb-hurlers and echo-cannons at one another, blasting vividly away. To the spectators it seemed as though they had all started simultaneously, the field erupting in one bright blossom of furious movement and electrical fire, but to the gladiators there were seconds of difference that had great value to them.
First to fall was Vronsky’s drinking companion, Oposhenko, in his spider-like exterior, who foolishly directed his powerful magnet at the worst possible foe: the confident hussar astride the missile, who flew directly at him and into one of the arachnid Exterior’s gleaming “eyes.” Both Exteriors exploded violently, and the eight spider legs were sent flying helter-skelter around the course. A huge shambling golem of an Exterior
stopped shambling abruptly and tipped over, caught just below the neck plate by the sharpened tip of one of these spider legs. The golem suit owner, Pyotrovich, tumbled out onto the course, cursing and clutching at his legs.
Frou-Frou, excited and over-nervous by all of the activity, spun around in the first moments, unloading her heavy-fires at will, but Vronsky soon gained control, expertly maneuvering his fingers beneath the palm disc. Sweating inside the cockpit, teeth gritted, he stared intently through the long-tube, scanning the field till he found whom he wanted: timid Kuzovlev in his monolithic obsidian crate of an Exterior.
“Low-hanging fruit,” Vronsky murmured, loosing a sharp discharge of electricity from Frou-Frou’s front grill directly at the midline of Kuzovlev’s ugly black battleship. But the electric blast ricocheted off the front of the monolith, and Vronsky scowled with disappointment—how has he plated the thing?—before laughing with astonishment at his good luck: the fiery charge, sailing through the sky like a blazing croquet ball, caught Mahutin’s Matryoshka instead. The blast slammed directly into the gaudy peasant-man face of the exosuit, and Vronsky was pleased that this happy accident had taken out his main rival.
In celebration, Frou-Frou drew up her legs and back and leapt like a cat, and, clearing the wreckage of Mahutin’s downed Exterior, alit beyond her.
O the darling! thought Vronsky.
“Bravo!” cried a voice from the stands.
At the same instant, under Vronsky’s eyes, right before him flashed the palings of the barrier. As he directed Frou-Frou in her efforts to navigate it, Vronsky glanced backward through the long-tube and cursed what he saw: his chief rival was not, in fact, dispatched. As Vronsky watched in horror, Matryoshka’s smoldering upper portion, decorated with the face of a peasant man, molted like a layer of skin—revealing a second, fresh Exterior beneath, this one painted with the gaudy colors of a peasant woman.
Leo Tolstoy & Ben Winters Page 17