Once he brought me a Singing Crystal. It was a little pyramid less than a centimeter across and made of transparent blue stone, and what it did was play – quietly but never silent, not even for a second – an eerie, never-ending melody. The sound changed when it was raining and was louder in sunlight. When you moved it closer to metal, its tone changed. Wrapped tightly in cotton batting and hidden in the farthest corner of the closet, it sings its eternal song to this very day.
And there were the Lota mirrors, and those little sculptures from Rethe – people molded of soft pink plastic that grew up, got old, were sometimes all smiles and sometimes sullen.
But the best present ever was the pistol.
That time dad had been away almost a week. I had been going to school and playing with my friend Mishka (a.k.a. Chingachgook). His parents drove the two of us to the next town for the start of the Laughter Festival. Mishka even slept over at my house several times. But still, it was kind of boring. And dad probably realized that. When he came back, he didn’t even launch into the usual stories. Instead, he rummaged a while in his pack and held out a hefty metal object to me. I clutched it for a second without the slightest idea of what this was all about. It wasn’t until my hand got tired and I nearly dropped the thing that it came to me: this weapon wasn’t a toy. They would never have made a toy too heavy for anyone but a grown-up to hold.
“It doesn’t shoot,” said dad, guessing what I was going to ask. “I broke the beam generator.”
I nodded, trying to aim it. The pistol trembled in my grasp.
“Where’s it from, pop?” I asked hesitantly.
Dad smiled.
“You remember what my job is?”
Sure I did. “An antibiotic,” I replied.
“That’s right. This time around we were curing a disease called cosmic piracy.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Real pirates?”
“All too real.”
It wasn’t just the unusual presents that made me like my dad’s work, of course. I also liked that he was so strong, stronger than anyone we knew. He could get a flyer off the ground single-handed, could walk right across the garden on his hands. Every morning, in all kinds of weather, winter and summer, he would spend two hours training in the garden. I was used to it, but first-time visitors who saw my father glumly doing two-finger pull-ups with his left hand or shattering big thick planks set in special stands all over the garden – they were blown away. And when they noticed that he was moving about and throwing those punches with his eyes closed, a lot of them got rattled. When that happened, my father would laugh and say that his work was ninety-nine percent fitness training. After all that, the question would come: What is your job? Dad would give a cheerful shrug and say “I’m an antibiotic.” The guest would digest that for a second and then, understanding, would blurt out, “The Assault Force Corps!”
The first thing I did when I woke up was look out the window, sort of checking that I hadn’t dreamed it and my dad really was back. But everything was as it should be, with a swift shadow flickering through the trees. Dad was training, cutting himself no slack for having been up half the night. There was a dull thumping. Those wooden targets were having a bad time of it.
I went over to the videophone, a little matte-white panel on the wall. With unspoken hope, I punched in the number – a long one, a whole five digits. The planet code. The city code. The videophone number…
The screen lit up, pale blue, then the text appeared: The Communications Service apologizes. The connection with the planet Tuan is down for technical reasons.
Just what I needed, an apology… And so glib! Of course if a planet is in its third day of rampaging rebellion, and the insurgents’ heavy tanks have been firing on the relay stations at close range, that could be called a technical reason. Just like a person’s death could be mislabeled as “the process of decay winning out over the process of synthesis.”
After pushing a few more keys, I left the room. Now the computer would continue redialing on its own every fifteen minutes. Arnis and I had an arrangement only to make manual calls to each other, but today was special. So I didn’t think he’d be peeved.
The present was waiting for me in the kitchen. On the little table by the window, where I like to have breakfast. Next to the coffeepot and the sliced raisin bread.
First I poured some coffee. Nibbled on a piece of raisin bread. And only then did I pick up the broad metallic bracelet lying on a box of fruit jellies.
As bracelets go, though, this one was strange. It didn’t look like any kind of accessory and even less like some tricky gadget from an assault force kit. It was just a flattened tube of gray metal. A very heavy tube, weighing almost as much as the pistol. There were no buttons or indicators, not even a latch. But no… there was a button, just one. Large, oval, made of the same metal as the rest of the bracelet. It was pressed in, almost flush with the smooth surface. I tried to dig it out with my nail, but couldn’t.
I didn’t get it, this present. As I finished off my coffee, I put my fingers in the middle of that heavy ring and spun it. It rotated a bit unevenly, as if it had mercury inside or lead ball bearings were rolling around in there. Which was perfectly possible… But how did you put it on? The opening was so narrow that even my hand wouldn’t slide through.
Dad came in, dressed only in swim trunks and slick with sweat. He pulled a bottle of cola from the fridge and casually suggested: “Want to take a run to the lake? We’ll have a nice brisk dip.”
What am I, nuts? Ten kilometers through the woods. After a cross-country sprint like that, anybody would pass on a nice brisk dip in favor of spending the rest of the day sprawled under the nearest tree.
“No. I’m not an antibiotic.”
Finishing his cola (just three good mouthfuls for my dad), he smiled. Now he was just razzing me.
“Oh, all right. We’ll take the flyer.”
I perked up, then shook my head again.
“Dad, I can’t. I have to find out how Arnis is.”
My father gave an understanding nod. The assault force knew very well what friendship was all about. That’s why dad never griped when he was paying the videophone bill.
“The connection will be back up in a couple of hours. We drove by the relay stations and they were in good shape. The antennas are intact, and it’s no problem to switch out the equipment.”
I gave my father another admiring look. To talk so calmly about it! As if they’d been tooling around in the family car, not driving the assault force’s ceramic-clad combat vehicles. Amazing! The planet Tuan orbiting a star called Behlt. Almost forty light-years from Earth. And my dad had been there. Saving people. Treating a disease called Rebellion.
“What’s this, pop?” I asked, holding up the bracelet.
“It’s the rebels’ ID tag.”
Explaining the value of a present is an art in itself, no less so than picking out a good one. My dad could do both. Now I was looking at the metallic ring with a lot more respect.
“What’s the button for?”
“That’s like a signal.” Dad had taken the bracelet from me, and was spinning it with two fingers. “We never did make complete sense of it, but as far as we can figure, the bracelet contains a powerful single-use transmitter. The button’s supposed to be pushed when the situation’s critical, after the wearer has been wounded or captured. It signals ‘I’m out’ – get it? You can only push the button once.”
I got that too. The bracelet’s owner had already sent his signal…
“Did you take it off a rebel?”
Dad nodded.
“And how do I put it on?”
“The usual way. Push your hand through, and it’ll expand. The metal gives in one direction, like my jumpsuit.”
I was all ready to put it on when something dawned on me.
“Dad... how do I take it off? Because it won’t expand the other way.”
“Of course it won’t. It’ll have to be cut off. Yo
u take a cutting tool, push it under the bracelet and turn it on. The same on the other side. And then there’ll be two halves and a smell of burning in the air.”
Dad was silent, and I felt, almost physically felt, the tension in him. Whenever dad made a mistake, I would notice it straightway. We understood each other very well.
“All right, then, I’m out of here.” He made a vague gesture.
“To the lake?”
Dad nodded, and I was left alone. Holding that heavy bracelet. I looked at it, simply unable to bring myself to push my hand into that stiff metallic ring. The answer was in the bracelet…
How could anyone get it off a rebel’s arm without cutting it? Without ruining a once-in-a-lifetime present?
Very simple. All you’d have to do is…
I shook my head. No.
No!
That couldn’t be. It was a whole lot simpler than that. A direct hit. Blown to bits by plasma fire. Leaving only his ID tag on the heat-blackened ground.
In a hurry, afraid I’d change my mind, I put the bracelet on. It was unexpectedly warm, as if it was still preserving that spurt of flame. And it wasn’t all that heavy. It would be no big deal to wear it for a couple of days.
We lived on the outskirts of Irkutsk. It was a hundred kilometers or so to town, meaning that at night we could see the gleaming needles of its tower blocks on the horizon. But if there’s one thing I’ve never, ever, wanted to do, it’s to live in a building like that. A kilometer of concrete, glass and metal, stretching aimlessly upward. Like there’s not enough room on the ground…
And I’m not the only one who thinks so. If I were, every megalopolis like Irkutsk wouldn’t be surrounded by commuter belts two hundred kilometers across.
Comfortable, upscale, single-family homes and multistory villas mixed in with scraps of forest and the occasional mirror of a lake.
I was walking down the path to Mishka’s house. It was an easy walk, maybe too easy. Even if two kids like us ran back and forth to each other’s houses ten times a day, they would never wear out anything like this.
The path had been laid by robots following the template of a perfect forest trail that was stored in their memory crystals. And it had come out just as it should.
Behind every bend, behind every unpredictable curve there was something absolutely unexpected to look at. In an ancient stand of pines, there’d be a scenic little marsh circled by all kinds of willows. Or hiding behind an enormous oak would be a little clearing covered with lush green grass. Where the stony bed of a fast-flowing stream cut across the path, a tiny wooden bridge was there to arch smoothly over it.
You could walk along that path forever and never get bored. A fifteen-minute trip shrank down to an instant.
Mishka’s house looked more like a medieval fortress. It was a square building of gray stone with small turrets on the corners. Mishka’s parents had probably come up with that. They were archeologists and had never met an antiquity they didn’t like.
Mishka was waiting for me in the doorway. I hadn’t called him, hadn’t set up my visit in advance. But it wasn’t at all strange for him to be waiting there.
The thing is, he’s a sniffer.
Of course there are prettier words to use, but that doesn’t change what it is. Mishka smells odors an order of magnitude better than any dog can, let alone a person.
His parents had done a special course of treatment to be sure that Mishka would be born the way he was. But if you ask me, he doesn’t appreciate it much. He told me one time that smelling hundreds of odors together is very unpleasant. Like listening to the din of a whole lot of tunes being played at once. I don’t know. I would have liked to be a sniffer myself, so I could guess when my friends were coming from a good hundred meters away, just by scenting their odor on the air.
Mishka waved at me.
“Your dad’s back,” he asked, but it wasn’t a question.
I nodded. Sometimes, when Mishka’s in a good mood, he likes to show off.
“Yes. Is it strong?”
“Sure. Something charred, tank fuel and explosives. Very strong smells…” Mishka hesitated for a split second. Then he added: “Sweat too. The smell of tiredness.”
I shrugged. You got that right, Sherlock.
“Want to go for a swim?”
“At the lake?”
“No, that’s too far. In Tolka’s pool.”
Our buddy Tolik Yartsev – he was seven – had the biggest swimming pool in the neighborhood. Fifty meters long and twenty meters wide is no laughing matter.
“Let’s go.”
Then Mishka saw the bracelet on my arm.
“So what’s that, Alka?”
“A present from dad.”
“What’s that, Alka?”
He repeated the question as though he hadn’t heard what I’d said.
“A present. It’s the ID tag of the rebels on Tuan.”
“That’s where your dad’s been?”
Mishka looked at the bracelet with a fear I didn’t understand. I’d never seen him like that before.
“What’s with you?”
“I don’t like it.”
An unexpected thought shot through me.
“Mishka, what can you tell me about this contraption? Sniff it! You know you can.”
He nodded with the slightest hesitation, as if he’d been trying, and failing, to find a reason to say no.
“Disinfectant,” he said after a moment. “It’s been processed very carefully. There’s nothing left. And a trace of ozone.”
“Correct,” I confirmed. “The rebel who lugged it around was burned up with a plasma gun.”
“Toss the nasty thing, Alik,” Mishka said quietly. “I don’t like it.”
“Not a chance. Dad brought me this bracelet from an assault operation.”
Mishka turned away. And in a hollow voice, he said: “I’m not going anywhere, Alka. See you tomorrow.”
Just what I needed, a know-it-all. Brimming with scorn, I watched him go. Mishka was jealous of me, that was all. And no wonder. My dad’s an antibiotic.
I went to swim at Tolik’s on my own. There, my pride unruffled itself a little. The kid listened to my every word with bated breath and a half-hour later was scampering around with a bunch of other little tykes, playing assault forces. After I had climbed out of the pool and was lazily drying myself with a thin, pink towel, I could hear all the “You’re dead! Take that bracelet off!” coming from behind their house, a modern heap of huge plastic spheres.
I couldn’t help smirking. For the next couple of days this new game, with its loud yelling and deafening “blaster” fire, would give the neighbors no peace. And that was all my doing… Maybe I should have told Tolik that the assault forces do their fighting quietly and stealthily, like Indians?
When I got home, the videophone computer was still redialing. The connection with Tuan hadn’t come back up.
I found my dad in the library, sitting in his favorite deep armchair and leafing unhurriedly through a book with the brainy title of No Peace Among the Stars. The cover showed a starship breaking apart for no visible reason. When I bent my head a little, the picture shuddered and changed, shifting the illustration into another phase. Now the starship was in one piece, but a dark-blue ray was drilling into its side, somewhere between the main reactor and the crew quarters. Dad carried on reading, acting like he hadn’t noticed me. I turned around and quietly left the library. If dad was into one of his old outer-space blockbusters, that was a sure sign he was in a bad mood. Even an antibiotic can probably be sad now and then.
Back in my room, I scrambled up onto the bed and spent a minute wondering what to do. Lying on the the table was a copy of The Saga of Fire and Water, an ancient book about war that I had mooched from Mishka’s archeologist dad but hadn’t gotten around to finishing. Its worn paper pages had been laminated and its cover was completely gone, but that only made it a more interesting read. It was showing me a side of the Second World
War I hadn’t expected to see. Not that I’ve ever been much of a history buff…
There was something else to keep me busy, though – the undone math problems that had been sitting on the computer for three days. It wasn’t the best idea to put that off, because the teacher could be checking them any time now.
But instead of picking up the book or sitting down at my school computer, I said: “Turn on the TV. News about the uprising on Tuan over the past six hours.”
The soft light of the TV screen lit up on the wall. The frames started flickering by one after another, too fast to register. The television was sifting through thirty-plus twenty-four-hour programs, fishing out all the reports that mentioned Tuan. The search was over in a few seconds.
“Twenty-six broadcasts, total run-time eight hours, thirty-one minutes,” the blasé mechanical voice told me.
“Begin with the first,” I ordered, making myself comfortable.
The logo of the entertainment channel and the title card of the Victor Show flashed on the screen. An artificially young-looking man gave a jaunty wave and said: “Hi! What’s got you all so deep in thought, like insurgents waiting for the Assault Force to drop by?”
And, obedient to the unseen director, thunderous laughter rolled through the studio.
“Deselect,” I ordered, feeling a disgust even I couldn’t understand.
Then there was the solemn tone that introduced the government channel, and a huge hall came up on the screen. A man was speaking into a microphone.
“Events on Tuan have brought home to us the need to maintain the financing…”
“Switch.”
The screen filled with a dense blackness. And slowly, smoothly, a coppery yellow bell surfaced from the gloom, accompanied by a long, full-bodied pealing. It was the news program “I Witness.”
“Stay.”
The bell dissolved, morphing into a human eye. The pupil grew larger, became transparent, giving way to the outlines of armored vehicles, of people carrying weapons. Then the familiar voice of Grigory Nevsyan, the broadcast journalist everyone knew, came up.
Red Star Tales Page 46