“Massaraksh,” Maxim murmured. “I completely forgot about those gizmos!”
“You forgot about lots of things,” Wanderer growled. “You forgot about the mobile radiation emitters, you forgot about the Island Empire, you forgot about the economy… Are you aware that there is inflation in this country? Do you even have any idea what inflation is? Are you aware that famine is imminent, that the land is infertile? Are you aware that we have not had time to establish reserves of bread or reserves of medical supplies here yet? Do you know that in twenty percent of cases this radiation deprivation of yours leads to schizophrenia? Huh?”
He wiped his mighty forehead with the receding hair at the temples. “We need doctors… twelve thousand doctors. We need protein synthesizers. We need to decontaminate a hundred million hectares of polluted soil—just for a start. We need to halt the degeneration of the biosphere… Massaraksh, we need at least one earthman on the Islands, in that blackguard’s admiralty… Nobody can stay in place there—none of our men can even get back and tell us for certain what’s going on there…”
Maxim didn’t say anything. They reached the vehicles blocking the way through, and a dark-faced, stocky officer, waving his arm in a strangely familiar manner, walked up to them and demanded their documents in a croaking voice. Wanderer angrily and impatiently thrust a glittering ID card under his nose. The officer morosely saluted and glanced at Maxim. It was Mr. Cornet—no, now already Mr. Brigadier of Guards Chachu. His eyes opened wide. “Is this man with you, Your Excellency?” he asked.
“Yes. Order them to let me through immediately.”
“I beg your pardon, Your Excellency, but this man—”
“Let me through immediately,” Wanderer barked.
Brigadier Chachu sullenly saluted, swung around, and waved to the soldiers. One of the trucks moved aside and Wanderer hurled the car into the gap that opened up.
“That’s the way it is,” he said. “They’re ready; they were always ready. And you thought it was all Abracadabra and it’s done. Shoot Wanderer, hang the Fathers, disband the cowards and fascists at your HQ, and the revolution will be over.”
“I never thought that,” said Maxim. He was feeling very miserable, crushed, helpless, and hopelessly stupid.
Wanderer squinted at him and gave a crooked grin. “Well, all right, all right,” he said. “I’m just angry. Not with you—with myself. I answer for everything that happens here, and it’s my fault that things have turned out this way. I simply couldn’t keep up with you.” He grinned again. “You guys in the FSG are quick on your feet.”
“No,” said Maxim, “don’t torment yourself like that. I’m not tormenting myself—I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
“Call me Rudolf.”
“Yes… I’m not tormenting myself, Rudolf. And I don’t intend to. I intend to work. And make a revolution.”
“You’d better intend to go home,” said Wanderer.
“I am home,” Maxim impatiently said. “Let’s not talk about that any more… I’m interested in the mobile radiation emitters. What can be done about them?”
“Nothing has to be done about them,” Wanderer replied. “You’d do better to think about what can be done about inflation.”
“I’m asking about the radiation emitters,” said Maxim.
Wanderer sighed. “They work on batteries,” he said. “And they can only be recharged at my institute. In three days’ time they’ll croak… But in a month’s time an invasion is due to begin. Usually we manage to throw the submarines off course so that only a few of them reach the coast. But this time they’re assembling an armada… I was counting on the depressive radiation, but now we’ll simply have to sink them…” He paused for a moment. “So you’re at home, are you? Well, let’s suppose you are… Then what precisely do you intend to do now?”
They were already approaching the department. The heavy gates were tightly closed, and there were black gun ports that Maxim had never seen before in the stone wall. The department had become like a fortress, ready for battle. But three men were standing in front of the pavilion, and Zef’s ginger beard blazed as brightly as an exotic flower among the greenery.
“I don’t know,” said Maxim. “I’m going to do what well-informed people tell me to do. If I have to, I’ll deal with inflation. If I have to, I’ll sink submarines… But I know my most important task now: as long as I’m alive, nobody will ever be able to build another Center. Not even with the very best intentions in the world.”
Wanderer didn’t say anything to that. The gates were very close now. Zef scrambled through the hedge and walked out into the road. His automatic rifle was hanging behind his shoulder, and it was obvious from a distance that he was angry, and now he would start cursing and demanding explanations for why, massaraksh, they had dragged him away from his work, filled his head with all sorts of nonsense about Wanderer, and left him hanging around here among the flowers for more than an hour like a little kid.
AFTERWORD
BY BORIS STRUGATSKY
It is known with absolute certainty when this novel was conceived—on June 12, 1967, the following entry appeared in our work journaclass="underline" “We need to compose a proposal for an optimistic story about [first] contact.” And immediately thereafter:
We have composed the proposal. The story The Inhabited Island. The plot: Ivanov crash-lands. The situation. Capitalism. Oligarchy. Control via psychowaves. Sciences only utilitarian. No progress. The machine is controlled by votaries. A means of ideal propaganda has just been discovered. Unstable equilibrium. Infighting in the government. The people are pulled from one side to the other, depending on who can reach the button. The psychology of tyranny: What does a tyrant want? It’s not push-button power; what’s wanted is sincerity, great deeds. There is a percentage of the population on whom the rays have no effect. Some of them eagerly strive to join the oligarchs (the oligarchs are also not susceptible). Some of them flee to the underground to avoid elimination as recalcitrant material. Some of them are revolutionaries like the Decembrists and the Narodnik populists. Following trials and tribulations Ivanov finds himself in the underground.
It is curious that this emphatically cheerful entry is situated precisely between two profoundly somber ones—06/12/67: “B. has arrived in Moscow in connection with the rejection of TоТ by Detgiz”; and 06/13/67: “Offensive snub at Young Guard with TоТ.”[1] This double blow stunned us, uncoupling us from reality for a while. We were left, so to speak, in a state of “artistic punch-drunkenness.”
I remember very clearly how, discouraged and angry, we said to each other, “Ah, you don’t want satire? You don’t need Saltykov-Shchedrins any longer? Contemporary problems no longer perturb you? Aaall right! You’ll get an empty-headed, harebrained, absolutely toothless, entertaining novel about the adventures of spunky kid, a twenty-second-century Young Communist…” We humorous lads seemingly intended to punish someone among the holders of power for rejecting the serious themes and problems we were offering. Punish Comrade Farfurkis with a frivolous novel! Laughable. It is laughable and a little embarrassing to remember it now. But at that time, in the summer and autumn of 1967, when all the editorial offices who were friendliest to us had, one after another, rejected Tale of the Troika and Ugly Swans, we failed to see anything amusing in what was happening.
1
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: “B.” is Boris Strugatsky; “ToT” is the Strugatsky novel