Noon, 22nd Century Read online

  “Don’t even think of taking him,” Falkenstein said in Japanese. “I don’t like him.”

  “Why not?” asked Gorbovsky.

  Gorbovsky was taking his ease on the couch, and Falkenstein and Sidorov were sitting by the table. On the table lay shiny skeins of videotape.

  “I advise against it,” said Falkenstein.

  Gorbovsky put his hands behind his head.

  “I don’t have any relatives,” Sidorov said. Gorbovsky looked at him sympathetically. “No one to cry over me.”

  “Why ‘cry’?” asked Gorbovsky.

  Sidorov frowned. “I mean that I know what I’m getting into. I need data. They’re waiting up for me on Earth. I’ve been sitting here over Vladislava for a year already. A year gone almost for nothing.”

  “Yes, that’s annoying,” Gorbovsky said.

  Sidorov linked his fingers together. “Very annoying, sir. I thought there would be a landing on Vladislava soon. I couldn’t care less about being among the first ones down. I just need data, do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Gorbovsky said. “Indeed so. You, as I recall, are a biologist.”

  “Yes. Besides that, I passed the cosmonaut-pilot courses and graduated with honors. You gave me my examinations, sir. But of course you don’t remember me. I’m a biologist first and last, and I don’t want to wait any more. Quippa promised to take me with him. But he made two landing attempts and then gave up. Then Sterling came. There was a real daredevil. But he didn’t take me along either. He didn’t have the chance—he went for a landing on the second run, and he didn’t come back.”

  “He was an idiot!” said Gorbovsky, looking at the ceiling. “On a planet like this you have to make at least ten runs. What did you say his name was? Sterling?”

  “Sterling,” Sidorov answered.

  “An idiot,” declared Gorbovsky. “A brainless idiot.”

  Falkenstein looked at Sidorov’s face and muttered, “Well, there we have it. We’ve got ourselves a hero here.”

  “Speak Russian,” Gorbovsky said sternly.

  “What for? He knows Japanese.”

  Sidorov flushed. “Yes,” he said. “I know it. Only I’m no hero. Sterling—there’s a hero. But I’m a biologist, and I need data.”

  “How much data did you get from Sterling?” asked Falkenstein.

  “From Sterling? None,” said Sidorov. “He got killed, after all,”

  “So why are you so thrilled with him?”

  Sidorov shrugged. He did not understand these strange people. They were very strange people-Gorbovsky, Falkenstein, and probably their friends too. To call the remarkable daredevil Sterling a brainless idiot… He remembered Sterling—tall, broad-shouldered, with a booming carefree laugh and sure gestures. And how Sterling had said to Bader, “The careful ones stay on Earth, August. It’s a qualification for the job, August!” and snapped his sturdy fingers. Brainless idiot…

  Okay, thought Sidorov, that’s their business. But what should I do? Sit back again with folded hands and radio Earth that our allotment of cyberscouts have burned up in the atmosphere; that the scheduled attempt to land hasn’t succeeded; that the scheduled detachment of explorer spacers refused to take me along on a search run; that I argued myself blue in the face with Bader again and he still insists he won’t trust me with a ship, and that he’s expelling me from “the little corner of the universe entrusted to his care” for “systematic impertinence”? And once again kind old Rudolf Kruetzer in Leningrad, shaking his head under his academic skullcap, will put forward his intuitive notions in favor of the existence of life in systems of blue stars, and that mad dog Gadzhibekov will roar on about his experimental conclusions denying the possibility of life in the systems of blue stars; and again Rudolf Kruetzer will tell everyone about the same eighteen bacteria caught by Quippa’s expedition in the atmosphere of the planet Vladislava; and Gadzhibekov will deny any link whatsoever between these eighteen bacteria and the atmosphere of Vladislava, alluding with full justification to the difficulty of identification given the actual conditions of the experiment in question. And once again the Academy of Biology will leave open the question of the existence of life in the systems of blue stars. But there is life, there is, is, is, and we only need to reach out to it. Reach out to Vladislava, a planet of the blue star EN 17.

  Gorbovsky looked at Sidorov and said affectionately, “When all is said and done, why is it so necessary to come with us? We have our own biologist—Percy Dickson, a wonderful scientist. He’s a little crazy but he’ll get you samples, whatever sort you like, and in any quantity.”

  “Eh,” Sidorov said, and waved his hand.

  “Honestly,” said Gorbovsky. “You wouldn’t like it at all if you did come along. And so everything will be all right. We’ll land and get you everything you need. Just give us instructions.”

  “And you’ll do everything backward,” said Sidorov. “Quippa asked for instructions too, and then brought back two containers full of penicillium. An ordinary terrestrial mold. You yourself don’t know the working conditions on Vladislava. You won’t be in the mood for my instructions there.”

  “You’ve got a point,” sighed Gorbovsky. “We don’t know the conditions. You’ll have to wait a little longer, Comrade Sidorov.”

  Falkenstein nodded in satisfaction.

  “All right,” said Sidorov. His eyes were almost closed. “Then at least take the instructions.”

  “Absolutely,” said Gorbovsky. “Immediately.”

  In the course of the next forty cycles, Gorbovsky made sixteen search runs. He was using an excellent impulse craft which Bader had supplied him, the Skiff-Aleph. He did the first five runs by himself, testing Vladislava’s exosphere at the poles, at the equator, at different latitudes. Finally he selected the north polar region and started taking Falkenstein with him. Time after time they plunged into the atmosphere of the orange-black planet, and time after time they jumped back out like corks from water. But each time they plunged deeper.

  Bader assigned three observatories to the work of the Assaultmen. They continually kept Gorbovsky informed about the movements of weather fronts in Vladislava’s atmosphere. The production of atomic hydrogen—the fuel for the Skiff-Alepb—began on Bader’s order: the fuel expenditure had turned out to be enormous, beyond expectations. The research into the chemical composition of the atmosphere by means of bomb probes with meson emitters was curtailed.

  Falkenstein and Gorbovsky would return from a run exhausted, worn to shreds, and they would greedily rush to a meal, after which Gorbovsky would force his way to the nearest sofa and lie there for a long time, amusing his friends with various maxims.

  Sidorov, on Gorbovsky’s invitation, remained on the Tariel. He was allowed to place trap containers for biosamples, and an automatic biological laboratory, in the Skiff-Aleph’s test-equipment slots. In the course of this he cut into the domain of Ryu, the atmosphere physicist. But Sidorov had little to show for his efforts—the containers came back empty, the recordings of the autolab did not yield to decipherment. The influence on the instruments of the wild atmosphere’s magnetic fields fluctuated chaotically, and the autolab required human direction. When he came out of the airlock, Gorbovsky would first of all see Sidorov’s gleaming skull and would wordlessly clap his hand to his forehead. Once he said to Sidorov, “The thing is, Mikhail, that all biology flies out of my head at the one-hundred-twenty-kilometer mark. It’s simply knocked out. It’s very dangerous there. Just sneeze, and you’re dead.”

  Sometimes Gorbovsky took Dickson with him. After each such run the long-haired biologist rested in bed. At Sidorov’s timid request that Dickson look after the instruments, he answered straight out that he did not plan on worrying about any side issues. “There’s just not enough time, kid.”

  None of them is planning on worrying about side issues, Sidorov thought bitterly. Gorbovsky and Falkenstein are looking for a city, Falkenstein and Ryu are studying the atmosphere, and Dickson is observ
ing the godlike pulses of all three of them. And they put off the landing, put it off, put it off… Why don’t they hurry? Can they really not care?

  It seemed to Sidorov that he would never understand these strange creatures called Assaultmen. Everyone in the whole huge world knew of the Assaultmen and was proud of them. It was considered an honor just to be the personal friend of an Assaultman. But now it turned out that no one knew clearly what an Assaultman was. On the one hand, it was something incredibly daring—on the other, something shamefully cautious; they kept coming back. They always died natural deaths.

  They said, “An Assaultman is one who prudently waits for the exact moment when he can afford to be imprudent.” They said, “An Assaultman stops being an Assaultman when he gets killed.” They said, “An Assaultman goes places that machines don’t come back from.” They also said, “You can say, ‘He lived and died a biologist.’ But you have to say, ‘He lived an Assaultman and died a biologist.’” All these sayings were very emotional, but they explained absolutely nothing. Many outstanding scientists and explorers were Assaultmen. There was a time when Sidorov had been thrilled by the Assaultmen too. But it was one thing to be thrilled sitting at a school desk, and quite another to see Gorbovsky crawl like a tortoise over miles that could be covered in a single risky but lightning-fast swoop.

  When he returned from the sixteenth run, Gorbovsky declared that he intended to move on to the exploration of the last and most complex part of the path to the surface of Vladislava. “There are twenty-five kilometers of an unknown layer left before the surface,” he said, blinking his sleepy eyes and gazing over their heads. “Those are very dangerous miles, and I will move with particular caution. Falkenstein and I will make at least another ten or fifteen runs. If, of course, Director Bader will furnish us with the fuel.”

  “Director Bader will furnish you with the fuel,” Bader said majestically. “You need not have the least doubt about that, Leonid.”

  “Wonderful!” said Gorbovsky. “The fact is that I will be extremely cautious, and for that reason I feel justified in taking Sidorov with me.”

  Sidorov jumped up. Everyone looked at him.

  “Well, so you’ve waited it out, kid,” said Dickson.

  “Yes. We have to give a new boy a chance,” said Bader.

  Waseda only smiled, shaking his handsome head. And even Falkenstein remained silent, although he was displeased. Falkenstein did not like heroes.

  “It’s the thing to do,” Gorbovsky said. He stepped back and, without looking behind him, sat down with enviable precision on the sofa. “Let the new boy go.” He smiled and lay down. “Get your containers ready, Mikhail—we’re taking you along.”

  Sidorov tore himself from the spot and ran out of the wardroom. When he had left, Falkenstein said, “Bad move.”

  “Don’t be selfish, Mark,” Gorbovsky drawled lazily. “The kid has been sitting here for a year already. And all he needs is to collect some bacteria from the atmosphere.”

  Falkenstein shook his head and said, “It’s a bad move. He’s a hero.”

  “That’s nothing,” Gorbovsky said. “I remember him now—the cadets called him Athos. Besides, I read a little book of his. He’s a good biologist and he won’t act up. There was a time when I was a hero too. And you. And Ryu. Right, Ryu?”

  “Right, captain,” Waseda said.

  Gorbovsky narrowed his eyes and rubbed his shoulder. “It aches,” he said in a plaintive voice. “Such a horrible turn. And against the wind at that. How’s your knee, Mark?”

  Falkenstein raised his leg and flexed it several times. Everyone followed his movements attentively. “‘Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,’” he said in a drawl.

  “I’ll give you a massage right now,” Dickson said, and got up ponderously.

  The Tariel moved along a meridional orbit, passing over Vladislava’s north pole every three and a half hours. Toward the end of the cycle, the landing craft, with Gorbovsky, Falkenstein, and Sidorov aboard, separated from the starship and dropped down, into the very center of a black spiral funnel that slowly twisted inside the orange haze covering Vladislava’s north pole.

  At first everyone was silent. Then Gorbovsky said, “They must have landed at the north pole.”

  “Who?” asked Sidorov.

  “Them,” Gorbovsky explained. “And if they built their city anywhere, then it’s right at the north pole.”

  “In the place where the north pole was back then,” Falkenstein said.

  “Yes, of course, there. Like on Mars.”

  Sidorov tensely watched an orange kernel and black spots on the screen fly headlong from some sort of weather center. Then this motion slowed down. The Skiff-Aleph was braking. Now they were descending vertically.

  “But they could have landed at the south pole too,” said Falk-enstein.

  “They could have,” Gorbovsky agreed.

  If Gorbovsky did not find the extraterrestrials’ settlement at the north pole, Sidorov thought, he would dawdle around the south pole just as methodically, and then, if he found nothing at the south pole, he would crawl over the whole planet, until he did find something. He even began to pity Gorbovsky and his colleagues. Especially his colleagues.

  “Mikhail,” Gorbovsky suddenly called.

  “Yes?” Sidorov called back.

  “Mikhail, did you ever see elves dancing on the green?”

  “Elves?” asked Sidorov in surprise.

  He looked back. Gorbovsky was sitting turned half toward him, staring at him with a wicked look in his eyes. Falkenstein sat with his back to Sidorov.

  “Elves?” asked Sidorov. “What elves?”

  “With wings. You know, like this…” Gorbovsky took one hand off the control keys and moved his fingers vaguely. “You haven’t? A pity. I haven’t either. Nor Mark nor anyone else that I know of. But it would be interesting to watch, wouldn’t it?”

  “Undoubtedly,” Sidorov said dryly.

  “Leonid,” said Falkenstein. “Why didn’t they dismantle the shells of their stations?”

  “They didn’t need to,” said Gorbovsky.

  “It’s uneconomical,” said Falkenstein.

  “So they were uneconomical.”

  “Wastrel explorers,” Falkenstein said, and fell silent.

  The craft shook.

  “It’s got us, Mark,” Gorbovsky said in an unfamiliar voice.

  The craft began to shake horribly. It was impossible to imagine that they could endure such violent shaking. The Skiff-Aleph was entering the atmosphere, where wild horizontal currents roared, dragging long black stripes of crystalline dust after them; where the radar was blinded; where lightning of unimaginable force flashed in the thick orange fog. Here powerful, completely inexplicable surges of magnetic fields deflected instruments and broke up the plasma cord in a photon rocket’s reactor. Photon rockets were no good here, but neither were things pleasant on the first-line atomic intrasystem craft Skiff-Alepk.

  But it was quiet in the control room. Gorbovsky, lashed to his seat by straps, writhed in front of the control panel. Black hair fell into his eyes, and at every shock he bared his teeth. The shocks continued without interruption, and he looked as if he were laughing. But it was not laughter. Sidorov had never dreamed that Gorbovsky could look like that—not merely strange, but somehow alien. Gorbovsky was like a devil. Falkenstein was like a devil too. His legs spread apart, he hung over the atmosphere traps, jerking his stretched-out neck. It was surprisingly quiet. But the needles of the instruments, the green zigzags and spots on the fluorescent screens, the black and orange spots on the periscope screen-everything rushed about, circled around in a merry dance, and the deck swayed from side to side like a shortened pendulum, and the ceiling jerked, fell, and jumped up again.

  “The cybernavigator,” Falkenstein croaked hoarsely.

  “Too early,” Gorbovsky said, and once again bared his teeth.

  “We’re getting carried away. There’s a lot of dust.�
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  “Damn it, it’s too early,” said Gorbovsky. “I’m going for the pole.”

  Sidorov did not hear Falkenstein’s answer, because the autolab had started working. The indicator light flashed, and under the transparent plastic plate, the recording tape had started inching along. “Ha!” shouted Sidorov. There was protein outside. Living protoplasm. There was a lot of it, and with every second there was more. “What’s going on?” Sidorov said then. The width of the tape was not sufficient for the recorder, and the instrument automatically switched over to the zero level. Then the indicator light died out, and the tape stopped. Sidorov gave a growl, tore off the factory seal, and dug into the instrument’s mechanism with both hands. He knew this instrument well. He himself had taken part in its construction and he could not imagine what had gone wrong. Under great strain, trying to keep his balance, Sidorov groped at the block of printed circuits. They could fracture from shocks. He had completely forgotten about that. They could have fractured twenty times over during the previous runs. Just as long as they haven’t fractured, he thought. Just as long as they’re still intact

  The ship shook unbearably, and Sidorov banged his forehead several times against a plastic panel. Once he banged the bridge of his nose, and for a while was completely blinded by tears. Evidently the circuit blocks were intact. Then the Skiff-Aleph turned sharply over on its side.

  Sidorov was thrown from his seat. He flew across the control room, clenching in both arms fragments of panel torn out by the anchors. He did not even realize at first what had happened. Then he realized, but could not believe it.

  “Should have strapped in,” said Falkenstein. “Some pilot.”

  Sidorov managed to crawl back to his seat on hands and knees along the dancing deck. He fastened the straps and stared dully at the smashed interior of the instrument.

  The craft lurched as if it had run into a wall. His dry mouth gaping, Sidorov swallowed air. It was very quiet in the control room, except for Falkenstein’s wheezing—his throat had filled with blood. “The cybernavigator,” he said. At that moment the walls again shuddered. Gorbovsky remained silent.