Noon, 22nd Century

by Arkady Strugatsky

  Opanasenko stopped suddenly and raised his arm. Everyone halted, and Humphrey Morgan threw up his carbine and turned sharply to the right.

  “What’s happening?” Novago asked, trying to speak calmly.

  He very much wanted to get out his pistol, but he felt too embarrassed.

  “It is here,” Opanasenko said softly. He waved to Morgan.

  Morgan came running up, and they bent down, examining the sand. Through the firm sand ran a broad shallow rut, as if a bag with something heavy in it had been dragged over the sand. The rut began five paces to the right and ended fifteen paces to the left.

  “That’s it,” said Opanasenko. “It has tracked us down and is stalking us.”

  He stepped across the rut, and they moved on. Novago noticed that Mandel had again transferred his valise to his left hand, and had stuck the right into his coat pocket. Novago smiled, but he felt uneasy. He had tasted fear.

  “Well,” Mandel said in an unnaturally cheerful voice, “since it‘s already tracked us down, let’s start talking.”

  “All right,” said Opanasenko. “And when it springs, fall face down.”

  “What for?” asked Mandel, offended.

  “It doesn’t touch anyone who’s lying on the ground,” Opanasenko explained.

  “Oh, yes, right.”

  “There’s only one minor detail,” muttered Novago. “Knowing when it’ll spring.”

  “You’ll notice,” said Opanasenko. “We’ll start firing.”

  “I wonder,” said Mandel. “Does it attack mimicrodons? You know, when they stand straight up? On the tail and hind legs… Hey!” he exclaimed. “Maybe it takes us for mimicrodons?”

  “There’s no point in tracking and attacking mimicrodons only from the right,” Opanasenko said with some irritation. “You can just walk up and eat them—head first or tail first, as you please.”

  Fifteen minutes later they again crossed a rut and after another ten minutes, still another. Mandel grew silent. Now he would not take his right hand out of his pocket.

  “It will spring in five minutes or so,” Opanasenko said in a strained voice. “Now it’s to the right of us.”

  “I wonder,” Mandel said quietly. “If we walked backward would it still spring from the right?”

  “Be quiet, Lazar,” Novago said through his teeth.

  It sprang after three minutes. Morgan shot first. Novago’s ears rang. He saw the double flash of the shots; the traces, straight as an arrow, of the two streams of fire; and the white stars of the explosions on the crest of the dune. A second later Opanasenko opened fire. Pow-pow, pow-pow-pow! thundered the carbine shots, and he could hear the bullets tear into the sand with a muffled whump. For an instant it seemed to Novago that he could see a snarling muzzle and bulging eyes, but the stars of explosions and the streams of fire had already moved far to one side, and he realized that he had been mistaken. Something long and gray rushed low over the dunes, crossing the fading threads of gunfire, and only then did Novago throw himself face down on the sand.

  Crack! Crack! Crack! Mandel was up on one knee and, holding the pistol in his outstretched hand, was methodically ravaging an area somewhere between Morgan’s and Opanasenko’s lines of fire. Pow-pow-pow! Pow-pow-pow! thundered the carbines. Now the Pathfinders were firing by turns. Novago saw the tall Morgan scramble over the dune on all fours and fall, saw his shoulders tremble with the shots. Opanasenko fired kneeling, and time after time white flashes lit up his huge black glasses and the black muzzle of his oxygen mask.

  Then silence returned.

  “We beat it off,” said Opanasenko, getting up and brushing sand from his knees. “That’s how it always is—if you open fire in time, it jumps to the side and clears out.”

  “I hit it once,” Humphrey Morgan said loudly. They could hear the metallic ring as he pulled out an empty clip.

  “You got a good look at it?” asked Opanasenko. “Oh, right, he can’t hear.”

  Novago, grunting, got up and looked at Mandel. Mandel had turned up the bottom of his coat and was cramming his pistol into its holster. Novago began, “You know, Lazar…”

  Mandel coughed guiltily. “I think I missed,” he said. “It moves with exceptional speed.”

  “I’m very glad you missed,” Novago said crossly. “Think of who you might have hit!”

  “But did you see it, Pyotr?” Mandel asked. He rubbed his fur-gloved hands nervously. “Did you get a good look at it?”

  “Gray and long like a hungry pike.”

  “It has no extremities!” Mandel said excitedly. “I saw quite distinctly that it has no extremities! I don’t think it even has eyes!”

  The Pathfinders walked over to the doctors.

  “In all this commotion,” said Opanasenko, “it would be very easy to conclude it has none. It’s much harder to tell that it does have them.” He laughed. “Well, all right, comrades. The main thing is that we beat off the attack.”

  “I’m going to look for the carcass,” Morgan said unexpectedly. “I hit it once.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not,” said Novago quickly.

  “No,” said Opanasenko. He drew Morgan over and shouted, “No, Humphrey! No time! We’ll look together tomorrow on the way back!”

  Mandel looked at his watch. “Ugh!” he said. “It’s already ten-fifteen. How much farther, Fedor?”

  “Ten kilometers, no more. We’ll be there by midnight.”

  “Wonderful,” said Mandel. “But where’s my valise?” He turned around. “Ah, here it is.”

  “We’ll walk the same way as before,” said Opanasenko. “You people to the left. It could be that it isn’t alone here.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of now,” Novago muttered. “Lazar’s clip is empty.”

  They set out as before. Novago was five paces behind Mandel. In front and to the right was Opanasenko, his carbine under his arm, and behind and to the right walked Morgan with his carbine hanging from his shoulder.

  Opanasenko walked quickly. It was impossible to go on this way, he thought. Whether Morgan had killed that one monster or not, the day after tomorrow they would have to go to the base and organize a hunt. Using all the crawlers and rovers, with rifles, dynamite, and rockets. An argument to use with the unconvinced Ivanenko popped into his head, and he smiled. He would say to Ivanenko, “We have children on Mars now, so it’s time to rid the planet of these monsters.”

  What a night! thought Novago. It’s no worse than the times I got lost in the taiga. But the most important part hasn’t even begun yet, and it won’t finish before five in the morning, Tomorrow at five, or, say, six o’clock the little guy will already be yelling over the whole planet. If only Mandel doesn’t let us down. No, Mandel won’t do that. Mark Slavin the proud papa can rest easy. In a few months all of us at the base will be taking the little guy in our arms and inquiring with monotonous regularity, “Well, who is this little fellow here, hey? Is it an itty bitty baby?” Only we’ve got to think out that business about the centrifuge very carefully. We’ll have to get them to send us a good pediatrician from Earth, The little guy has to have a pediatrician. Too bad the next ships won’t arrive for another year.

  Novago never doubted that the child would be a little guy, and not a little girl. He liked boy babies. He would carry it in his arms, inquiring from time to time, “Is it an itty bitty baby?”

  2. Almost the Same

  They were sitting in the corridor on the windowsill opposite the door—they were about to be called in. Sergei Kondratev swung his feet, while Panin, twisting his short neck around, looked out the window at the park. There, in the volleyball court, the girls from the Remote Control Division were jumping up and down near the net. His chin resting on his hands, Sergei Kondratev looked at the door, at the shining black plate that read “Large Centrifuge.” In the Advanced School of Cosmonautics there were four divisions. Three of them had training halls, with plates with the same words hanging at the door. It always made you nervous waiting
till they called you into the Large Centrifuge. Take Panin, for example. He was obviously gawking at the girls in order not to show how nervous he was. And Panin just had the most ordinary conditioning scheduled for today. “They play a good game,” Panin said in his bass voice.

  “Right,” Sergei said without turning around.

  “Number four does a great pass.”

  “Yeah,” said Sergei. He shrugged. He had a great pass too, but he didn’t turn around.

  Panin looked at Sergei, glanced at the door, and then said, “They’re going to carry you out of here today.”

  Sergei remained silent.

  “Feet first,” said Panin.

  “Sure thing,” said Sergei holding himself back. “No chance of them carrying you, though.”

  “Calm down, superjock,” said Panin. “A true superjock is always calm, cool, ready for anything.”

  “I am calm,” said Sergei.

  “You? Calm?” Panin said, poking him in the chest with his finger. “You’re vibrating, shaking like a smallfry at a launch. It’s disgusting, seeing the way you tremble.”

  “So don’t look,” Sergei advised him. “Look at the girls instead. Great passing ability, and all that.”

  “You haven’t got the right attitude,” Panin said, and looked through the window. “They’re fantastic girls! They play an amazing game!”

  “So look,” said Sergei. “And try not to let your teeth chatter.”

  “Whose teeth are chattering?” Panin asked in amazement. “Yours.”

  Sergei remained silent.

  “It’s all right for my teeth to chatter,” Panin said after thinking it over. “I’m not a jock.” He sighed, looked at the door and said, “But I wish they’d call us in and—” He broke off.

  From the left, at the end of the corridor, appeared Grigory Bystrov, a second-year cadet who was class representative. He was wearing a test suit. He walked slowly, running his finger along the wall, his face pensive. He stopped in front of Kondratev and Panin and said, “Hello, guys.” His voice was sad.

  Sergei nodded. Panin condescended to say, “Hello, Grigory. Do you start vibrating before you ride the Centrifuge, Grigory?”

  “Yeah,” Grigory answered. “A little.”

  “Well,” Panin said to Sergei. “So Grigory vibrates just a little. But then of course he’s still a smallfry.”

  “Smallfry” was what they called underclassmen at the school.

  Grigory sighed and sat down on the windowsill too. “Sergei,” he said, “Are you really making your first try at eight Gs today?”

  “Yeah,” said Sergei. He had not the least desire to talk, but he didn’t want to offend Grigory. “If they let me, of course,” he added.

  “Probably they will,” Grigory said.

  “Think of it, eight Gs!” Panin said flippantly.

  “Have you tried pulling eight yourself?” Grigory asked with interest.

  “No,” said Panin. “But then I’m not a jock.”

  “But maybe you will try?” said Sergei. “Right now, together with me.”

  “I’m a simple man, a guileless man,” Panin answered. “There is a norm. The norm is five gravities. My simple, uncomplicated organism cannot bear anything exceeding the norm. My organism tried six once, and got carried out at six minutes some seconds. With me along.”

  “Who got carried out?” asked Grigory, confused.

  “My organism,” Panin explained.

  “Oh,” said Grigory with a weak smile. “And I haven’t even pulled five yet.”

  “You don’t have to pull five in the second year,” said Sergei. He jumped off the windowsill and started doing knee-bends alternately on right and left legs.

  “Well, I’m off,” Grigory said, and jumped off the windowsill too.

  “What happened, Great Leader?” Panin asked him. “Why such melancholy?”

  “Someone played a joke on Kopylov,” Grigory answered sadly.

  “Again?” said Panin. “What kind of joke?”

  Second-year cadet Valentin Kopylov was famous throughout the division for his devotion to computer technology. Recently a very good new LIANTO waveguide computer had been installed in the division, and Valentin spent all his free time at its side. He would have spent his nights there too, but at night LIANTO did calculations for the diplomats, and Valentin was heartlessly shown the door.

  “One of our people programmed a love letter,” Grigory said. “Now on the last cycle LIANTO prints, ‘Kopylov fills my life with blisses / So from LIANTO, love and kisses.’ In simple letter code.”

  “‘Love and kisses,’” said Sergei, massaging his shoulders. “Some poets. They should be put out of their misery.”

  “Just think,” said Panin. “One of the current smallfry has gotten all jolly.”

  “And witty,” said Sergei.

  “What are you telling me for?” said Grigory. “Go tell those idiots. ‘Love and kisses,’ indeed! Last night Kan was running a calculation, and instead of an answer, zap!—’Love and kisses.’ Now he’s called me on the carpet.”

  Todor Kan, Iron Kan, was the head of the Navigation Division.

  “Wow!” said Panin. “You’re going to have an interesting half hour, Great Leader. Iron Kan is a very lively conversationalist.”

  “Iron Kan is a lover of literature,” Sergei said. “He won’t tolerate a class representative with such rotten versifiers for classmates.”

  “I’m a simple man, a guileless man…” Panin began. At that moment the door opened slightly and the trainer stuck his head through.

  “Panin, Kondratev, get ready,” he said.

  Panin stopped short and straightened out his jacket. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Kondratev nodded to Grigory and followed on Panin’s heels into the training hall. The hall was enormous, and in the middle of it sparkled a thirteen-foot double arm resting on a fat cubical base-the Large Centrifuge. The arm was turning. The gondolas on its ends, thrown outward by centrifugal force, lay almost horizontal. There were no windows in the gondolas; observation of the cadets was carried out from inside the base with the help of a system of mirrors. By the wall several cadets were resting on a vaulting box. Craning their necks, they followed the hurtling gondolas.

  “Four Gs,” said Panin, looking at the gondolas.

  “Five,” said Kondratev. “Who’s in there now?”

  “Nguyen and Gurgenidze,” the trainer said.

  He brought two acceleration suits, helped Kondratev and Panin to put them on, and laced them up. The acceleration suits looked like silkworm cocoons.

  “Wait,” the trainer said, and went over to the base.

  Once a week every cadet rode the centrifuge, getting acceleration conditioning. One hour once a week for the whole five years. You had to sit there and stick it out, and listen to your bones creak, and feel the broad straps dig through the thick cloth of the suit into your soft body, feel your face droop, feel how hard it was to blink, because your eyelids were so heavy. And while this was going on you had to solve boring problems, or else assemble standard computer subprograms, and this wasn’t at all easy, even though the problems and the subprograms were ones you had had your first year. Some cadets could pull seven gravities, while others couldn’t manage even three—they couldn’t cope with vision blackouts. They were transferred to the Remote Control Division.

  The arm turned more slowly, and the gondolas hung more nearly vertical. From one of them crawled skinny, dark Nguyen Phu Dat. He stopped, hanging onto the open door, rocking. Gurgenidze tumbled clumsily from the other gondola. The cadets on the vaulting box jumped to their feet, but the trainer had already helped him up, and he sat down on the floor, propping himself up with his arms.

  “Step lively now, Gurgenidze,” one of the cadets shouted loudly.

  Everyone laughed. Everyone except Panin.

  “Never mind, guys,” Gurgenidze said hoarsely, and got up. “Nothing to it!” He contorted his face horribly, stretching the numbed muscles o
f his cheeks. “Nothing to it!” he repeated.

  “Boy, they sure are going to carry you out today, superjock!” Panin said, softly but very energetically.

  Kondratev made as if he were not listening. If they do carry me out, he thought, that will be the end. They can’t do it. They mustn’t. “He’s on the chubby side, Gurgenidze is,” he said aloud. “The heavy ones don’t take acceleration well.”

  “He’ll thin down,” Panin said cheerfully. “If he wants to, he’ll thin down.”

  Panin had lost fifteen pounds before he had managed to endure the five gravities established as the norm. It was an excruciating process. But he did not at all want to get sent to Remote Control. He wanted to be a navigator.

  A hatch opened in the base. Out crawled an instructor in a white coat, who took the sheets of paper with Nguyen and Gurgenidze’s answers.

  “Are Kondratev and Panin ready?” he asked.

  “Ready,” said the trainer.

  The instructor glanced cursorily over the sheets of paper. “Right,” he said. “Nguyen and Gurgenidze can go. You’ve passed.”

  “Hey, great!” Gurgenidze said. He immediately began to look better. “You mean I passed too?”

  “You too,” said the instructor.

  Gurgenidze suddenly hiccuped resoundingly. Everyone laughed again, even Panin, and Gurgenidze was very embarrassed. Even Nguyen Phu Dat laughed, loosening the lacing of his suit at the waist. He obviously felt wonderful.

  The instructor said, “Panin and Kondratev, into the gondolas.”

  “Sir—” began Sergei.

  The instructor’s face took on a preoccupied look. “Oh, I forgot. I’m very sorry, Sergei, but the doctor has forbidden you to try accelerations above the norm. Temporarily.”

  “What?” Sergei asked with fright.

  “You’re forbidden.”

  “But I’ve already pulled seven Gs.”

  “I’m very sorry, Sergei,” the instructor repeated.

  “It’s some sort of mistake. It’s got to be.”