The Inhabited Island Page 17

  They all exchanged glances.

  “That’s not the way we do things, my friend,” said Forester. “Where we’re concerned, it’s like this: either you’re with us and then here’s your gun, go and fight, or else you’re not one of us and then, I’m sorry . . . you understand . . . where should we shoot you, in the head, right?”

  Silence fell again. Doc heaved a sigh and knocked out his pipe against the bench. “A very unusual and difficult case,” he declared. “I have a suggestion. Let him ask a few questions . . . You do have questions, don’t you, Mak?”

  “Yes, I came here to ask them,” Maxim replied.

  “He has lots of questions,” Ordi confirmed, laughing. “He pestered my mother to death with his questions. And he pestered me with them too.”

  “Ask away,” said the broad-shouldered man. “You can answer him, Doc. And we’ll listen.”

  “Who are the Unknown Fathers, and what do they want?” Maxim asked to begin.

  They all stirred—they obviously hadn’t been expecting this question.

  “The Unknown Fathers,” said Doc, “are an anonymous group of highly experienced schemers, the remnants of a party of putschists who survived a twenty-year struggle for power among military, financial, and political circles. They have two goals: a principal one and a fundamental one. Their principal goal is to stay in power. Their fundamental goal is to derive the maximum gratification from that power. There are some honorable individuals among them, who derive gratification from the fact that they are the people’s benefactors. But for the most part they are money-grabbers, sybarites, and sadists, and they are all lovers of power . . . Are you satisfied?”

  “No,” said Maxim. “You have simply told me that they are tyrants. I already suspected that anyway . . . What is their economic program? Their ideology? The social base that they rely on?”

  They all exchanged glances again. Forester gaped at Maxim with his mouth hanging open.

  “Their economic program . . .” said Doc. “You’re asking too much of us. We’re not theoreticians, we’re practical activists. As for what they rely on, I can tell you that. Bayonets. Ignorance. The weariness of the nation. They won’t build a just society, they don’t even want to think about that . . . And they don’t have any economic program—they don’t have anything except bayonets, they don’t want anything except power. The most important thing for us is that they want to annihilate us. Quite simply, we’re fighting for our lives.” He started irritably stuffing his pipe.

  “I didn’t mean to offend anyone,” said Maxim. “I’m just trying to make sense of things.” He would have been glad to expound the fundamentals of the theory of historical sequentiality for Doc, but he didn’t have enough words. He still had to shift to thinking in Russian sometimes as it was. “All right. But you said ‘a just society.’ What is that? And what do you want? What are you striving for, apart from saving your own lives? And who are you?”

  Doc’s pipe rustled and crackled, and its oppressive stink spread through the cellar.

  “Let me,” Forester suddenly put in. “Let me tell him . . . Let me try . . . You, my good sir, are too . . . I don’t know how things are up in your mountains, but here people like to live. What kind of way to talk is that—‘apart from saving your own lives’? Maybe I don’t need anything apart from that! Isn’t that enough for you? You’re a fine, brave hero! You try living in a cellar when you have a house and a wife and a family, and everybody has disowned you . . . Come off it, now!”

  “Wait, Forester,” said the broad-shouldered man.

  “No, let him wait! So high and mighty! Give him society, give him some kind of base or other—”

  “Wait, my man,” said Doc. “Don’t be angry. You can see he doesn’t understand anything . . . You see,” he said to Maxim, “our movement is very heterogeneous. We don’t have any unified political program, and we couldn’t have one. We all kill because we are being killed. That’s what has to be understood. You must understand that. We’re all condemned to death; we don’t have much chance of surviving. And all our politics is basically overshadowed by biology. The most important thing is to survive. There’s no time to worry about a social base. So if you’ve shown up with some kind of social program, you won’t get anywhere with it.”

  “What’s the basic problem?” Maxim asked.

  “We are regarded as degenerates. Where the idea came from, I can’t even remember anymore. But right now it’s advantageous for the Unknown Fathers to hound us—it distracts the people’s attention from internal problems, from the corruption of the financiers, who rake in money from military contracts and building towers. If we didn’t exist, the Fathers would have invented us.”

  “That’s already something,” said Maxim. “So money’s at the basis of everything again. So the Unknown Fathers serve money. Who else are they shielding?”

  “The Unknown Fathers don’t serve anyone. They are money. They are everything. And at the same time, they’re nothing, because they’re anonymous, and they devour each other all the time . . . He should have talked to Wild Boar,” he said to the broad-shouldered man. “They would have understood each other.”

  “All right, I’ll talk to Wild Boar about the Fathers, but right now—”

  “You can’t talk to Wild Boar any longer,” Memo said in a spiteful tone. “Wild Boar’s been shot.”

  “He was the man with one hand,” Ordi explained. “You should remember him.”

  “I do remember him,” said Maxim. “But he wasn’t shot. He was sentenced to hard labor.”

  “That’s not possible,” the broad-shouldered man said. “Wild Boar? Hard labor?”

  “Yes,” said Maxim. “Gel Ketshef, sentenced to be executed; Wild Boar, sentenced to hard labor; and another man, who didn’t give his name, was taken by the man in civilian clothes. Obviously for counterintelligence.”

  They all fell silent again. Doc took a sip from his mug. The broad-shouldered man sat there with his head propped on his hands. Forester mournfully groaned and cast a pitying glance at Ordi, who tightly pursed her lips and looked down at the table. This was genuine grief, and only Memo in the corner was more fearful than sorrowful . . . Men like that shouldn’t be trusted with machine guns, Maxim fleetingly thought. He’ll shoot all of us right here.

  “All right, then,” said the broad-shouldered man. “Do you have any more questions?”

  “I have a lot of questions,” Maxim slowly replied. “But I’m afraid all of them are more or less tactless.”

  “Well, never mind, ask your tactless questions.”

  “All right, my final question. What do the antiballistic defense towers have to do with all of this? What do you have against them?”

  They all laughed in a rather unpleasant manner. “What a fool,” said Forester. “There he goes again—give him a social base . . .”

  “They’re not ADTs,” said Doc. “They’re our curse. They invented a kind of radiation that helped them create the concept of the degenerate. Most people—you, for instance—don’t even notice this radiation, as if it doesn’t even exist. But owing to certain peculiarities of their biology, an unfortunate minority suffer agonizing pains when exposed to it. Some of us—only very few—can tolerate this pain, but some can’t bear it and they scream out loud, some lose consciousness, and some actually go insane and die . . . The towers aren’t antiballistic defense structures—no defenses of that kind exist. They’re not necessary, because neither Hontia nor Pandeia have any ballistic missiles or aircraft. They have no time for any of that; their civil war has been going on for more than three years. The towers are radiation transmitters. They’re switched on twice every twenty-four hours, all across the country, and then they catch us while we’re lying there helpless with pain. And in addition, there are limited-range devices in patrol vehicles, plus freestanding mobile transmitters, plus random radiation transmissions at night. There’s nowhere for us to hide; there are no screens against it. We go insane, shoot ourselves, comm
it stupid acts in our desperation. We’re dying out . . .”

  Doc broke off, grabbed his mug, and drained it in a single gulp. Then he started furiously lighting his pipe, with his face twitching.

  “Yeeeah, we had a fine life once,” Forester mournfully said. “The bastards,” he added after a pause.

  “There’s no point in telling him about it,” Memo suddenly said. “He doesn’t know what it’s like. He has no idea what it means—waiting for the next session every day . . .”

  “All right,” said the broad-shouldered man. “He has no idea, so there’s nothing to talk about. Bird has spoken in his favor. Who else is for or against?”

  Forester opened his mouth to speak, but Ordi got her word in first. “I want to explain why I’m for him. First, I trust him. I’ve already said that, but perhaps that’s not so important, because it only concerns me. But this man has abilities that could be useful to all of us. He can heal other people’s wounds as well as his own—and far better than you, Doc, no offense intended.”

  “What kind of doctor am I?” asked Doc. “A mere forensic specialist . . .”

  “But that’s still not all,” Ordi went on. “He can relieve the pain.”

  “How do you mean?” Forester asked.

  “I don’t know how he does it. He massages your temples and whispers something, and the pain passes off. It grabbed me twice at my mother’s place, and both times he helped me. The first time not a lot, but even so I didn’t pass out as usual. And the second time there was no pain at all.”

  And immediately everything changed. Just a moment ago they had been judges, a moment ago they had thought they were deciding if he should live or die, but now the judges had disappeared and there remained only tormented, doomed people who suddenly felt hope. They looked at him as if they were expecting him to immediately, this very moment, take away this nightmare that had tormented them every minute, every day, and every night for years on end . . . Well now, Maxim thought, at least here I’ll be needed for healing and not for killing. But somehow the idea failed to bring him any satisfaction. The towers, he thought. How repulsive . . . Someone had to invent them. But you’d have to be a sadist to invent them . . .

  “Can you really do that?” Doc asked.

  “What?”

  “Relieve the pain.”

  “Relieve the pain . . . Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t explain it to you. I don’t have enough words for that, and you don’t have enough knowledge . . . Surely you must have some medication, some kind of analgesic drugs?”

  “No drugs are any help against this . . . Except perhaps a fatal dose.”

  “Listen,” said Maxim. “Of course I’m prepared to alleviate the pain . . . I’ll do my best. But that’s not a solution. You have to look for some kind of large-scale remedy . . . Do you have any chemists?”

  “We have everyone,” said the broad-shouldered man, “But this problem can’t be solved, Mak. If it could, the state prosecutor wouldn’t suffer the same torments as we do. He’d be certain to get hold of the medication. But now before every regular transmission he gets dead drunk and soaks in a hot bath.”

  “The state prosecutor is a degenerate?” asked Maxim, bewildered.

  “According to the rumors,” said the broad-shouldered man. “But we’ve gotten distracted. Have you finished, Bird? Who else wants to speak?”

  “Wait, General,” said Forester. “So what do we have here? Doesn’t this mean that he can help us? Can you take away my pain? . . . Why, this man is absolutely priceless, I won’t let him out of this cellar! Begging your pardon, but the pains I get are absolutely unbearable . . . And maybe he’ll invent some kind of powders or something? You will invent some, won’t you, eh? Oh no, gentlemen and comrades, we have to take good care of this man . . .”

  “So you’re ‘for,’ then?” General asked.

  “I’m so much ‘for’ that if anyone lays a finger on him . . .”

  “Clear enough. And you, Doc?”

  “I would be ‘for’ even without this,” Doc growled, puffing on his pipe. “I have the same impression as Bird. He’s not one of us yet, but he will be—it can’t be any other way. He’s no good to them in any case. Too intelligent.”

  “All right,” said General. “And you, Hoof?”

  “I’m ‘for,’” said Memo. “He’s a useful man.”

  “Well then,” said General. “I’m ‘for’ as well. I’m very glad for you, Mak. You’re a likable young guy, and I would have been sorry to kill you.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s eat,” he said. “There’s a transmission soon, and Mak can demonstrate his skill to us. Pour him some beer, Forester, and put some of that celebrated cheese of yours on the table. Hoof, you go and relieve Green—he hasn’t eaten since morning.”

  10

  General called the final consultation before the operation at the Castle of the Two-Headed Horse. This was the ruins of a museum outside of town that had been destroyed during the war. It was an isolated spot that the townsfolk didn’t visit, because of the close proximity of a malarial swamp, and it also had a bad reputation among the local people as a hangout for thieves and bandits. Maxim arrived on foot together with Ordi. Green arrived on a motorcycle and brought Forester with him. General and Memo/Hoof were already waiting for them in an old sewage pipe that opened directly into the swamp. General was smoking and the morose Memo was frenziedly waving away the mosquitoes with an incense stick.

  “Did you bring it?” he asked Forester.

  “Sure I did,” said Forester, tugging a tube of insect repellent out of his pocket. They all smeared themselves with it, and General opened the meeting.

  Memo laid out a diagram and ran through the sequence of the operation once again. They already knew it all by heart. At one in the morning the group creeps up to the barbed wire entanglement from four sides and places the elongated demolition charges. Forester and Memo each act alone—from the north and the west, respectively. General and Ordi approach together from the east. Maxim and Green approach together from the south. The detonations take place simultaneously at precisely one in the morning, and immediately General, Green, Memo, and Forester dash through the gaps, their task being to run to the fortified bunker and attack it with grenades. As soon as the firing from the bunker stops or slackens off, Maxim and Ordi run up to the tower with magnetic mines and place them for detonation, having each first tossed another two grenades into the bunker to be on the safe side. Then they activate the detonators, collect the wounded—only the wounded!—and withdraw to the east through the forest to the road, where Tiny Tot will be waiting by a boundary marker with the motorcycle. The seriously wounded are loaded into the motorcycle; those who are lightly wounded or unhurt leave on foot. The assembly point is Forester’s little house. Wait at the assembly for no more than two hours, and then leave in the usual manner. Any questions? No. That’s all.

  General tossed away his cigarette butt, reached inside his jacket, and took out a small bottle of yellow tablets. “Attention,” he said. “By decision of HQ the plan of the operation has been slightly changed. The commencement of the operation has been moved to twenty-two hundred hours.”

  “Massaraksh!” said Memo. “What kind of news is this?”

  “Don’t interrupt,” said General. “At precisely ten o’clock the evening transmission begins. Several seconds before that each one of us will take two of these tablets. After that everything follows the old plan, with one exception. Bird advances as a grenade thrower, together with me. Mak will have all the mines—he’ll blow up the tower alone.”

  “How’s that?” Forester pensively asked, examining the diagram. “I can’t understand this at all. Twenty-two hundred—that’s the evening session . . . I’m sorry, but once I lie down, I won’t get back up, I’ll just be lying flat out . . . I’m sorry, but you won’t pry me back up with a stake.”

  “Just a moment,” said General. “I repeat once again. At ten seconds to ten, everyone take
s this painkiller. Do you understand, Forester? You’ll take a painkiller. So by ten o’clock—”

  “I know those pills,” said Forester. “Two short minutes of relief, and then you get completely tied in knots . . . We know, we’ve tried them.”

  “These are new pills,” General patiently said. “They act for up to five minutes. We’ll have time to run up to the bunker and fling our grenades, and Mak will do the rest.”

  Silence fell. They were thinking. Slow-witted Forester rummaged in his hair with a scraping sound, biting on his lower lip. They could see the idea slowly getting through to him. He started rapidly blinking, left his hair in peace, and looked around at them all with a glance of realization, suddenly coming to life, and slapping himself on the knees. Forester was a marvelous, good-hearted fellow, who had been slashed and scarred from head to foot by life but still hadn’t learned anything about life. He didn’t need anything and he didn’t want anything, except to be left in peace and allowed to go back to his family and plant beets. He had spent the war in the trenches and had been less afraid of atomic shells than he was of his own corporal, a countryman just like him, but a very cunning man, and a great villain. Now Forester had taken a great liking to Maxim and felt eternally grateful to him for healing an old fistula on his shin, and ever since that, he had believed that as long as Maxim was there, nothing bad could happen to him. For the last month Maxim had spent the night in Forester’s cellar, and every time they went to bed, Forester told Maxim a story, the same story every time, but with different endings: “There was this toad that lived in a swamp, a great fool he was, so stupid nobody could even believe it, and then this fool got into the habit . . .” Maxim simply couldn’t imagine Forester involved in bloody work, although he’d been told that Forester was a skillful and merciless fighter.

  “The new plan has the following advantages,” said General. “First, they don’t expect us at that time. The advantage of surprise. Second, the previous plan was devised a long time ago, and there’s a quite real danger that the enemy already knows about it. This way we get a head start on the enemy. The probability of success is increased . . .”