“I WILL PUNISH HIM, AND I WILL ESCAPE FROM THIS HATEFUL MACHINE THAT I HAVE BECOME”
CHAPTER 19
ANDROID KARENINA, HAVING ESCAPED the crowd of Toy Soldiers who set upon her at the carriage and having found Anna nowhere in sight, retreated to the safe house in an obscure Moscow neighborhood where her one confidante in this world awaited: a squat and bearded man in a dusty white laboratory coat, who wore a small box with numerous small buttons on his belt.
The man from UnConSciya recounted to Android Karenina what had become of Anna Arkadyevna. The Class IX robot from the future took the news of Anna’s fate with evident sadness, her eyebank flashing to melancholy blue.
“And the body?”
He nodded, smoothed his dirty beard. “We shall disintegrate all trace of it, that Tsar Alexei may not discover the Mechanism.”
“No,” said Android Karenina, softly. “I have another idea.”
The Phoenix godmouth disgorged Anna Karenina’s body in the same place, on the magnet bed of the Moscow Grav, on a cold day some years earlier. At the moment the body emerged from the maw of the godmouth, the sky ricocheted with a queer sort of thunder-a crack in the sky that echoed across all the infinities of that instant and was noted with apprehension both by Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, who was at the station to meet his mother, and by Anna Arkadyevna Karenina, a fashionable lady and the wife of a prominent government minister.
Shortly thereafter, there occurred a frightful commotion on the platform, as the news raced about of a grim discovery: a pair of battered bodies, a man and a woman, evidently smashed by the rushing weight of the oncoming Grav, had been discovered together upon the magnet bed. Count Vronsky, who only moments earlier had been introduced to Anna Karenina and utterly bewitched, now felt deeply disconcerted by the sight of these two corpses, man and woman, lying together amid the grim finality of death.
Though station workers had quickly covered the bodies under a cloth, a delicate hand could be seen extending outward plaintively toward the platform. Vronsky looked again at Anna, with whom he had been so immediately smitten, to find her staring in unspeaking horror at the scene. Overcome by a distinct sense of cosmic unease, he bowed politely and bid her farewell. If she took notice of him, she gave no sign.
Vronsky made no further effort to pursue an acquaintance with Madame Karenina; did not ask her for the mazurka at Kitty Shcherbatsky’s float; and remained in Moscow for the remainder of the season.
EPILOGUE: THE NEW HISTORY
IN THE SLANTING EVENING SHADOWS cast by the baggage piled up on the platform, Vronsky in his long regimental overcoat and gleaming silver hat, with his hands in his pockets, strode up and down, like a proud lion displaying himself for an admiring crowd, turning sharply after twenty paces. His beloved-companion robot, Lupo, strutted along behind him as always, the silver paneling of his lupine frame glimmering beautifully in the late-day sun, as together man and machine awaited departure on their newest assignment.
Vronsky’s old friend and fellow soldier Yashvin fancied, as he approached him, that Vronsky saw him but was pretending not to see. This did not affect Yashvin in the slightest: interested only in his own advancement, and distinctly aware of the high regimental perch Vronsky now inhabited, Yashvin was above all personal dignity. At that moment Yashvin looked upon Vronsky as a man at the pinnacle of a remarkable career, and would think himself foolish to miss any opportunity to thrust himself before the great man. He went up to him.
Vronsky stood still, looked intently at him, recognized him, and going a few steps forward to meet him, shook hands with him very warmly.
“Well, now, Alexei Kirillovich,” said Yashvin. “As strange as it feels to see any Russian soldier setting off on such a mission, I can imagine none other but you undertaking it. Did you ever imagine we would see such a day arrive?”
“I have had a feeling for some years that things were going this way,” said Vronsky, turning his head for a moment to admire the figure of a fashionable woman with a charming, fuchsia Class III. “Since the rise of Stremov, you know, with his decidedly liberal bent on the Robot Question. After the death of the… oh, dear, you know the fellow I mean. With the unusual face.”
Yashvin hurried to fill in the gap, eager to impress Vronsky with his understanding. “Karenin.”
“Yes, that’s right. Karenin.”
Vronsky’s jaw twitched impatiently from the incessant, gnawing toothache that prevented him from even speaking with a natural expression. The Karenin affair had been rather a shocking incident, now that he recalled it: a minister of the Higher Branches, murdered by his wife in his own bed. “He was a hardliner on mechanical development, that Karenin. Stremov always gave every impression of seeing things in a different light. Though it will certainly feel strange, as you say, to sit on the opposite side of a bargaining table with UnConSciya.”
“Yes, well…,” Yashvin began. Vronsky looked off into the distance as they heard the pleasant thrum of the arriving Grav. Right on time, reliable and efficient as always.
“I am sorry to intrude upon your solitude. I merely meant to offer you my services,” saidYashvin finally, scanning Vronsky’s face. “To deliver one’s brother-men from endless war is an aim worth death and life. God grant you success outwardly-and inwardly peace,” he added, and he held out his hand. Vronsky warmly pressed his outstretched hand, and began to respond, when suddenly he could hardly speak for a throbbing ache in his strong teeth, which were like rows of ivory in his mouth. And all at once a different pain, not an ache, but an inner trouble that set his whole being in confusion, made him for an instant forget his toothache. To make peace with UnConScyia was unquestionably a great boon for Russia and the Russian people, but what did it mean for him? The only purpose his life had known, the only star around which the planet of his being had ever revolved, was the making of war, the heavy grinding power of the Exterior suit in motion, the searing flash of the whip. Vronsky’s eyes took in the arriving Grav, elegantly whooshing forward on its magnet bed. He thought suddenly of a half-remembered girl, of Princess Kitty Shcherbatskaya: one of a dozen or more such girls whose head he had turned, at one time or another, with easy talk of love. She is married now, Vronsky thought, to that funny man, that miner…
For one cold moment, Vronsky saw himself reflected in the mighty silver prow of the Grav in the most uncharitable and unforgiving light: a body approaching middle age, a soldier lacking a war, a man lacking a wife.
He rubbed at his aching chin, and Lupo let out a little querying yelp.
“Yes, yes, old friend. Of course. I still have you.”
Just at that moment, the sun dipped below the horizon line, and Vronsky and his Class III climbed aboard the Grav.
EPILOGUE: THE OLD FUTURE
CHAPTER 1
ALMOST TWO MONTHS had passed since Anna’s suicide at the Grav. The hot summer was half over, and Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky was on his way to deep space.
The horrifying death of Anna Arkadyevna Karenina had generated the inevitable deluge of scandalous conversation; but, as is so often the case, even this most salacious bit of gossip grew stale, and soon gave way to the next item of interest. Which, in this case, was a most shocking item indeed: The home planet of the Honored Guests had been located. A speck on the star maps of the astronomers, a smear of red dust flickering in the shadow of the moon, this planetoid was quickly dubbed the Nest by a public hungry for news of the invaders; it became de rigeur at society gatherings for someone to trot out a telescope, so all present could glance with fearful wonderment at the home of the enemy.