“Splendid! Together!” cried Levin. Oh, yes, what was it that was unpleasant? he wondered. Yes, Kitty’s ill… Well, it can’t be helped; I’m very sorry, he thought.
They tromped back to Levin’s estate, and did not see that, as soon as they turned their backs, a head like that of a worm, only closer in size to a dog’s head, emerged from the rough forest ground as if from a tunnel; and they did not see this worm head open a grotesque, gaping mouth and suck up the shattered groznium skeleton of the Huntbear cub, before disappearing again beneath the earth’s surface.
CHAPTER 9
ALTHOUGH ALL VRONSKY’S INNER LIFE was absorbed in his passion, his external life unalterably and inevitably followed along the old accustomed lines of his social and regimental ties and interests. The interests of his regiment, the Circling Hawks of the Borderland, took an important place in Vronsky’s life, both because he was fond of the regiment, and because his regiment was fond of him. They were not only fond of Vronsky in his regiment, they respected him too, and were proud of him; proud that this man, with his immense wealth, his brilliant education and abilities, and the path open before him to every kind of success, distinction, and ambition, had disregarded all that, and of all the interests of life had the interests of his Border regiment and his comrades nearest to his heart. Vronsky was aware of his comrades’ view of him, and in addition to his liking for the life, he felt bound to keep up that reputation.
It need not be said that he did not speak of his love to any of his comrades, nor did he betray his secret even in the wildest drinking bouts (though indeed he was never so drunk as to lose all control of himself). And he shut up any of his thoughtless comrades who attempted to allude to his connection. But in spite of that, his love was known to all the town; everyone guessed with more or less confidence at his relations with Madame Karenina. The majority of the younger men envied him for just what was the most irksome factor in his love-the exalted position of Karenin, and the consequent publicity of their connection in society. Only a few of the younger members, men who harbored half-secret jealousies of Vronsky’s rank and ambition, whispered that such an assignation-to the wife of a man in the secretive world of the Higher Branches-might carry dangers beyond that attending to a commonplace adulterous intrigue.
Besides the service and society, Vronsky had another great interest-the annual gladiatorial contest, known as the Cull, by which advancement in the regiment was determined. He was passionately fond of these contests, had done particularly well in the last, and looked forward with savage glee to the next, which was now rapidly approaching.
The contest took place in a great arena, witnessed by vast crowds of spectators. Every member of the regiment donned their own customized, death-dealing, armor-plated suit known as an Exterior, and entered into mass free-for-all combat, man against man against man, until the weaker ones were destroyed. Those that emerged victorious-as Vronsky, so far, always had-earned not only glory but advancement in rank.
That year’s intra-regimental Exterior battle had been arranged for the officers and was rapidly approaching. In spite of his love affair, he was looking forward to the match with intense, though reserved, excitement.
These two passions did not interfere with one another. On the contrary, he needed occupation and distraction quite apart from his love, so as to recruit and rest himself from the violent emotions that agitated him.
CHAPTER 10
AKIND OF METAL SHED known as “the silo” had been put up close to the battle arena, and there Vronsky’s Exterior was to have been taken the previous day. He had not yet seen her there. During the last few days he had not ridden her out for practice himself, and so now he positively did not know in what condition his Exterior had arrived yesterday and was in today.
Vronsky was justifiably proud of his Exterior, Frou-Frou, which he had built and modified to his tastes, in consultation with a brilliant English engineer whom he retained as mécanicien at great cost. Frou-Frou’s every movement was controlled by Vronsky, encased inside her, his body attached to her delicate sensory system by dozens of wires.
“Well, how’s Frou-Frou?” Vronsky asked the engineer in English.
“All right, sir,” the Englishman’s voice responded somewhere in the inside of his throat. “Come along, then,” said the Englishman, frowning and speaking with his mouth shut, and with swinging elbows he went on in front with his disjointed gait.
They went into the little yard in front of the shed. A target boy, trembling a bit in the head-to-toe padded suit he wore, followed them. As they walked through the silo Vronsky knew five other Exteriors stood in their separate stalls, and he knew that Matryoshka, the Exterior belonging to his chief rival, Mahutin, had been brought there, and must be standing among them.
Even more than his own Exterior, Vronsky longed to see Matryoshka, whom he had never seen. But he knew that by the etiquette of the Cull it was not merely impossible for him to see another of the exoskeletons, but improper even to ask questions about it. Just as he was passing along the passage, the boy opened the door into the second stable on the left, and Vronsky caught a glimpse of exactly that fighting machine he was most curious about: Matryoshka was a curiously innocent-looking Exterior, with an immense and rounded bottom, a smaller but equally rounded upper portion, and the crude, clownishly painted face of a bearded old peasant man. He lingered, surprised that Mahutin’s Exterior should be so pleasant, even silly looking; then, with the feeling of a man turning away from another man’s open letter, he turned round and went into Frou-Frou’s stall.
Frou-Frou was an Exterior of medium size, constructed to roughly humanoid shape from a dozen enormous, curved, and overlapping metal plates. He had paid dearly to acquire the masses of groznium alloy required to plate her entire body, and such was the cleverness of her jointures that no enemy ordnance Vronsky had yet encountered could pierce her. As to offensive capability, Frou-Frou was equipped with a trio of rotating heavy-fires set in cones at chest level, plus a grill across the “face” of the machine, from which, when Vronsky wished it, could launch cannonball-sized bursts of globular electricity, directed at the opponent of his choosing.
About all Frou-Frou’s figure, and especially her head, there was a certain expression of energy, of overwhelming offensive capability, and yet of softness. Some Exteriors seem only like deadly furniture, large weapons with a hole to climb inside; but Frou-Frou was one of those Exteriors-less than a Class III but more than a simple Class II-which seem not to speak only because they were built without a mouth hole. To Vronsky, at any rate, it seemed that she understood all he felt at that moment as he looked at her.
As soon as Vronsky was attached to the dozen pulse-point electrodes allowing him to communicate with Frou-Frou’s control relays, she shifted the massive armor plates at the joints, rotated her eyes in their cavernous ocular cavities, and pointed her three heavy-fires in three different directions.
“There, you see how fidgety she is,” said the Englishman.
“There, darling! There!” said Vronsky, speaking soothingly to the suit. “Quiet, darling, quiet!” he said, patting her again over her rear section, which glinted in the dim light of the shed. “Let’s give her a go.”
In another moment the engineer had opened her metal torso, and Vronsky had climbed inside, attaching the dozen wires to the corresponding input points along Frou-Frou’s contact board. Vronsky felt that his heart was throbbing, and that he, too, like the suit, longed to move, to open fire; it was a feeling both dreadful and delicious. As the machine warmed up, and Vronsky felt the familiar delectable tingle of his limbs seeming to merge with the synthetic reflexes of the suit, the target boy made a run for it, but was corralled by Lupo, who growled warningly to hold him at bay until Vronsky was ready to test-fire.