“Now, now,” the little man in the lab coat said, as if chastising a child. “I am hardly in a position to ask you to disarm, but our meeting will go more smoothly if you refrain from such posturing. I myself am wearing an array of defensive clothing and underclothing, created of technologies several generations ahead of any you might have access to. ‘Always be prepared,’ that’s the motto of our little society.”
Levin looked carefully at Federov. “What is it that you want?”
“Each of you, in your own way, is now as much an enemy of the Ministry as we are. You have come to understand what we have long understood: that our benevolent protectors are at heart neither benevolent, nor protective. Soon all Russia will know it, too, and they will need their leaders.”
The squat, strange little man turned to Konstantin Dmitrich and looked him directly in the eye. “Levin, we beg you to travel with your household to Moscow, and wait there until such time as you can be of use.”
Vronsky sneered, and spoke derisively, “You ask us to enter into conspiracy with the greatest criminals in Russian history.”
“Yes,” Levin echoed, his mind racing. “How can we?”
“By knowing this: we have never committed a single one of the violent acts attributed to us by the Ministry. Yes, we left the government laboratories en masse because we did not like certain orders we had been given, the path our rulers demanded technological innovation travel down. But we have never committed a single act of violence.”
The funny little man leaned forward, his eyes welling with tears: “Not a single one. The emotion bombs, the malfunctions-the Ministry itself has done it all. Remember, if you want to control someone, first protect them. And if you will protect someone, you need something to protect them from.”
Vronsky snorted with derision, and shook his head, but Levin trembled like a man hearing the word of God. He was moved beyond words to see that tears were openly rolling down Federov’s dirty, bearded face. “I apologize for becoming so emotional,” said Federov. “But we have spent a generation outside of possibility, and now I stare at you two proud Russian gentlemen, and I cannot help it-I feel-hope.”
BOOM!
The forest exploded with fire.
“No,” cried Federov. “An emotion bomb! I should have known.”
BOOM! A second hope-bomb rattled the treeline, and with a terrible crack a massive oak tree splintered and fell before them, its leaves alive with fire. All three men ducked down to the earth, covering their ears against the concussive roar of the detonations. “It is me,” screamed Federov. “My hope! My-”
BOOM! A third blast, the loudest yet, knocked Vronsky’s massive Exterior to the ground and tore the roof from the Huntshed. Levin caught a glimpse of the tops of the Surceased Huntbears, their fight grimaces glinting in the fire-lit darkness, before a burning branch cracked free and landed across his back.
“Ahh!” he screamed in terrible pain, and Vronsky rolled atop him, causing him exquisite agony but extinguishing the blaze. Levin wailed helplessly, while Vronsky screamed to Federov. “It is a trap! You have trapped us here! What have you done? You’ve killed him!”
“I did not cause this attack!” shouted Federov, staggering to his feet. “But I can still the hope that provokes it!” Levin, moaning, clutching at himself with his badly scalded hands, sat up and stared-as Federov pulled out a dagger and drove it into his own heart.
Levin gasped; the man from UnConSciya screamed and doubled forward, pushing the knife in to the hilt. No further bombs were heard, only the eerie crackling of the burning forest.
“Remember these words, men,” Federov said between clenched teeth, sinking to his knees. “Rearguard… Action.”
“Rearguard…,” intoned Levin, as if hypnotized.
“Action,” Vronsky mumbled.
CHAPTER 14
VRONSKY HAD AGREED to pursue the tête-à-tête at the Huntshed partly because he was attracted, as all cocksure men are, by a chance for further adventures-just as the tippler, once he has tasted wine, will again and again reactivate the II/Barrel/4. But also Vronsky was bored in the country and wanted to show Anna his right to independence. He had not in the least expected that the tête-à-tête would so interest him, so keenly excite him, and that he would be so good at this kind of thing.
After burying the body of the UnConSciya man in a circular hollow a hundred or so paces from the Huntshed, Levin and he stopped to discuss the remarkable events, and to enjoy smoking cigars. They spoke in a calm and happy way-though, while they seemed to be perfect allies and friends, their past rivalry forgotten, Levin did not mention that his Class III still lived, buried in a Urgensky smoke factory; and Vronsky did not bring up his cherished hope, that if only he could get Anna to “see it right,” they would give up their share in rebellion entirely.
They were thus smoking and talking, when Lupo was beamed a communiqué and promptly lit it up on his monitor.
It was from Anna, and before Vronsky watched it, he already knew its contents. Expecting the tête-à-tête to be over in five days, he had promised to be back on Friday. Today was Saturday, and he knew that the communiqué contained reproaches for not being back at the fixed time.
The missive was not unexpected, but the form of it was unexpected, and particularly disagreeable to him. Anna’s face flashed red in the projection, as she bitterly pronounced, “Annie is very ill, and Placebo”-a Vozdvizhenskoe decom who had once been beloved-companion to a great Moscow doctor-“says it may be inflammation. I am losing my head all alone. I expected you the day before yesterday, and yesterday, and now I am sending to find out where you are and what you are doing. I wanted to come myself, but thought better of it, knowing you would dislike it. Send some answer, that I may know what to do.”
Vronsky played the communiqué again, to ensure he had it right, and again watched the pleading face of Anna Karenina. Send some answer, that I may know what to do. The child ill, yet she had thought of coming herself. Their daughter ill, and this hostile tone. The adrenalin-flushed excitement of the meeting in the woods and this gloomy, burdensome love to which he had to return struck Vronsky by their contrast. But he had to go, and immediately he bid Levin farewell and set off home.
CHAPTER 15
BEFORE VRONSKY’S DEPARTURE for the tête-à-tête, Anna had reflected that the scenes constantly repeated between them each time he left their fortifications might only make him cold to her instead of attaching him to her, and resolved to do all she could to control herself so as to bear the parting with composure. But the cold, severe glance with which he had looked at her when he came to tell her he was departing for the meeting had wounded her, and before he had started, her peace of mind was already destroyed.
In solitude afterward, thinking over that glance which had expressed his right to freedom, she came, as she always did, to the same point-the sense of her own humiliation. “He has the right to go away when and where he chooses,” she complained to Android Karenina. “Not simply to go away, but to leave me. He has every right, and I have none. But knowing that, he ought not to do it.” Together they had fled Petersburg, together they had built Vozdvizhenskoe on the old abandoned patch of farmland. But now while he was out playing the role of dashing rebel leader, she waited for him alone in the autumn cold.
“What has he done, though?… He looked at me with a cold, severe expression. Of course that is something indefinable, impalpable, but it has never been so before, and that glance means a great deal,” she concluded, as Android Karenina softly stroked her flowing hair. “That glance shows the beginning of indifference.”