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crawled on until he was able to stand up from the kneeling position. He
wanted to get to the Blood Door, hoping that it, too, would be open. He was
right, and he crawled into the ruined shrine. He could wait there till dark
in the familiar niche and at night he could make his way to the aged Nepts,
a couple who were friendly with Kutsi's parents. They lived in a former
miners' settlement near Pleasure City. Their youngest daughter, Lada, was
married to a roundhead who had been educated in Danjab. They had flown to
Space Station Deimo together.
Only Kutsi Merc, with his insatiable lust for life, could have made it
to the Nepts that night.
When he entered their home, he collapsed on the floor in a dead faint.
The solicitous old couple, both overweight, flabby and white-haired,
looking very much like one another as is often the case with a married pair
who have lived together for a long time, carried his heavy, bleeding body
across the room with difficulty and laid it down on some bedding in the
corner.
Kutsi Merc had overlooked the fact that the cover of his "hump" had
been riddled with bullet-holes and the subterranean air had been leaking
into the charge. Although the detonator had not been activated, it was sure
to explode after a time because of contact with the air.
That explosion was being awaited with terror by Ruler Dobr Mar, who was
tired of guessing when it might happen. By destroying the anti-torpedo
defence, the explosion would be the signal for a strike, with no chance of
retaliation, against Powermania by rockets armed with disintegration
warheads, as was desired by the proprietors who had put Dobr Mar in power.
Against any possible emergency, Dobr Mar had taken refuge in a deep
bunker, still hoping that Kutsi Merc would be killed before he could
detonate his "hump" and that the war desired by the Great Circle of
proprietors would be postponed for a time. The Ruler of Danjab was preparing
for a war, but he was afraid of it.
Above all, he wanted the disintegration weapon to stay where it was and
things to settle down somehow ... at least, until the next election.
Deep down below, a luxurious government office had been reproduced in
every detail, circular in shape with a vaulted ceiling and highly placed
oval windows that looked out on nothing. The communications monitors had
been mounted underneath them.
Dobr Mar had changed. His face had lost its hardness and his eyes their
penetration. He had become garrulous and seemed to be justifying himself to
someone all the time. He even said to one of his military leaders with the
intention of making it known to everyone:
"History will not forget the Ruler who started the disintegration war.
Is that not so?" And he stared past the other man.
Dobr Mar was troubled by Ave Mar's sudden departure for outer space,
not because of his son's fate, but because of Kutsi Merc. Why had the man
allowed that flight? And what had become of him? Had he really perished in
the end?
But everything turned out differently from what Dobr Mar had been
expecting, and not as his enemy. Dictator Yar Jupi, had planned. Nor as the
proprietors of the Great Circle or of the Blood Council had planned.
The moment came when the fuse in Kutsi Merc's artificial hump
functioned of its own accord. A deep underground disintegration explosion
took place.
Kutsi Merc, who had been sitting on the Nepts' bedding, felt himself
hurled upwards. The floor of the cabin shook, the crockery rattled on the
rickety shelves and the portrait of Dictator Yar Jupi fell down from its
place on the wall. The transparent film in the window was torn apart and a
violent gust of wind blew into the humble room, overturning the table. The
sheets of paper covered with writing over which old Nept had bent his back,
having taken it into his head to learn to write in his declining years,
began whirling about in mid-air.
Kutsi Merc cringed as he waited for the blast. But the ceiling did not
collapse. Kutsi limped over to the window.
Nothing, apparently, had happened. But there was no sign of the black
spire over the Temple of Eternity.
One of Kutsi Merc's eyebrows shot up. The left side of his face smiled,
the other remained watchful. Suddenly, his face grew longer, his eyes
widened and he turned pale.
Directly in front of the window, an enormous flowerbed rose up in the
centre of the square and out from underneath it glided a smooth cylindrical
body with a pointed nose. It grew taller before Kutsi Merc's eyes and became
a lofty tower. A moment later, black smoke began billowing from the shaft
hidden underneath and the tower began, to rise on a column of fire. Then it
detached itself from the square, gained height and set course for the ocean.
Soon, the rear end of the rocket turned into a fiery cross which steadily
diminished to a tiny glittering star. Only then did it vanish altogether.
Kutsi Merc's hair stood on end. He already knew that not only here, but
at a thousand other points on the continent, from identical subterranean
shafts, from under the surface of the seas, perhaps even from buildings,
terrible rockets were bursting forth to head in a deadly swarm for Danjab.
Kutsi Merc was right. Activated by the automatic systems, the rockets
had indeed burst out of their hiding places and, programmed to hit the vital
points of Danjab, were speeding across the ocean. One of those rockets rose
from the multistorey block in which Ave and Kutsi had been staying, and
another was to soar straight up from the Temple of Eternity, where it had
been camouflaged as one of the columns. The temple had collapsed at the
subterranean explosion of Kutsi's "hump". However, the Central Automatic
Defence Console, which was at a great depth, had not been damaged. Its
sensitive instruments, only just detecting the radiation caused by the
disintegration explosion, immediately sent their signals to thousands of
rocket installations.
Dictator Yar Jupi was terrified when the bunker shook. He learned from
the instruments about the explosion and the response of the automatic
systems and he realised that the disintegration war had begun earlier than
he had intended. He rushed up and down the cramped shelter. He craved
action. But it had all been done without him.
He was alone. No one could see him except the mindless secretary box
which was unable to appreciate the Dictator's joy and triumph. Forgetful of
his personal fears, he giggled and danced about. He was filled with a
delicious excitement at the knowledge that in a short time the cities and
industrial centres of Dan jab would be destroyed and tens, perhaps hundreds
of millions of enemy Faetians would cease to exist. He had never experienced
a pleasure like this before. Now that the war had started, let it spread! He
had achieved his aim: to command life and death over the whole of the planet
Faena! And so, grimacing because of a nervous tic, he pulled back the
curtain in front of the live screens.
The questioning and distraught faces of the military leaders were
staring at him from them. Yar Jupi directed a mad glare at the servile faces
and, foaming at the mouth in a burst of inspiration, he screamed:
"What? You weren't expecting it? You were marking time? Well, hear
this. I've done it! I! I've blown up the Temple of Eternity and the palace
to activate the automatic systems! What? Are you frightened?"
He ran round the bunker, shouting, although the screens were blacking
out one after another. The military leaders were obviously not in agreement
with their lord and master and preferred to take cover as quickly as
possible in their bunkers, which were similar to the Dictator's own. When
the secret screens of the Blood Council's members were switched on, they
revealed the unhooded, frightened faces of the first proprietors of the
ancient continent.
The barbarians' rockets went above the limits of the atmosphere as they
flew over the ocean. Their approach was spotted at once by the ever-vigilant
automatic observers far from the targets to which the rockets were flying.
Without any help from the military or from Ruler Dobr Mar, the rocket
defence system went automatically into action. A flock of defence missiles
soared up from Danjab and headed for the disintegration armada. They were
themselves packed with disintegration warheads intended to explode when
close to any missiles that flew towards them.
And the disintegration explosions occurred one after another in the
upper layers of the atmosphere, over the ocean. The shock waves threw the
rockets off course or simply destroyed them. Mangled fragments and sometimes
even whole torpedoes fell into the ocean, to the great horror of seafarers
from both continents. It was as if a meteorite shower had plunged into the
ocean, raising to the cloudy sky columns of water like the weird trees of a
forest that had suddenly sprung up in the sea.
Over eight hundred rockets were destroyed by Danjab's automatic
sentinels. But over two hundred continued on their way.
During those first moments of the disintegration war, not a single
Faetian took part except for the wounded Kutsi Merc. Not one Faetian was
killed in that appalling battle of the rockets.
But this was only during the first few moments.
Soon, Danjab began to tremble under disintegration explosions in
hundreds of different places.
A disintegration explosion!
Is there anything to compare with it? Perhaps only the supernovas or
the mysterious processes which astronomers have observed on Sol, when
enormous tongues of white-hot matter have been ejected over distances many
times greater than the star's diameter.
Matter itself was disintegrating, part of it was ceasing to be matter,
its mass was diminishing. The energy of the internal bonds was being
unleashed and, converted into heat energy according to the laws of nature,
was raising the heat level at the place of disintegration by a factor of
millions. All the surrounding matter that remained as matter was instantly
converted into white-hot gas that shot out in all directions, wiping out
everything in its path. But even faster was the action of the radiation that
accompanies the disintegration of matter. Penetrating living tissue, its
impact was fatal. Even long after the explosion, the impact of those rays
was to destroy all who had survived the firestorm or the devastating
hurricane.
On the site of each disintegration explosion, a fireball rose up first,
immeasurably brighter than Sol itself. Light of such brilliance had never
been known on the gloomy planet Faena. This brilliant ball became a pillar
of fire that rose up like the white trunk of a magic, gigantic tree, growing
up and soaring into the sky, where it spread out in a swirling canopy.
Shuddering, Dobr Mar saw on the communications monitors those ominous
mushrooms sprouting on the sites of flourishing cities.
He was appalled. As he paced round his study, he felt himself keeling
over; his knees buckled and he slumped into an armchair, scarcely able to
clutch hold of it.
What had happened? How had the enemy anticipated him? What about Kutsi?
What had become of the Faetians who were to elect him for another term?
They were dead, dead! Thousands, maybe millions, maybe hundreds of millions
had ceased to exist!
The military leaders rushed into his office and hastened to help the
old Faetian with the shaking head... He was groaning; his left leg was
twitching, but his right leg, like his arm, had gone numb.
The military leaders bustled about the circular office and sent for the
Sister of Health. They tried to pour water and broke the tumblers. No one
was yet capable of understanding the full gravity of the position.
The disintegration war, when they mentioned it, sounded like something
horrible but impossible, like a children's fairy tale. Even now, when the
ominous mushrooms could be seen on nearly all the monitors in the bunker and
many of the screens were black and networking, the scurrying Faetians still
didn't want to believe that it was all over up above. It was somewhere far
away, but here, what was close and visible was the Ruler's weakness, the
Sister of Health fussing over him and the unpleasant odour of medicines.
The dejected military leaders made no decisions and issued no orders.
Once again, commands were given by automatic systems.
Dictator Yar Jupi, who had not such secret communications with the
enemy continent like those maintained by Kutsi Merc through the roundheads
did not suspect that Danjab had no less reliable a "retaliation system" than
the Superiors.
Instruments recording the disintegration radioactivity in the air, the
seismic effects of the explosions on Danjab territory and the force of the
heat blasts, gave firing commands to countless rocket installations, also
camouflaged on the seabed, in deep mine shafts and in mountain gorges. An
armada of vengeance had already set off to fly across the ocean to
Powermania.
Only Kutsi Merc had foreseen this. No sooner had the coloured, swirling
cloud risen up before his eyes than he managed to dive into a disused shaft
in which Nept had worked all his life and over which, when it was exhausted,
he had built his own cabin. Kutsi Merc took cover in a narrow stone well
down which he climbed by means of damp metal rungs.
His weakness seemed to have passed off. Nervous tension had given him
back his strength.
He couldn't see anything any more, but could hear and, it seemed, felt
with every cell in his body the terrible explosion that rocked the vicinity.
Stones rained down on Kutsi; one of them struck him painfully on the
shoulder. But Kutsi clung convulsively to the rungs. Even now, he refused to
give in.
Chapter Five
The exultant and triumphant news about the outbreak of a disintegration
war was picked up by Ala Veg on Space Station Dei-mo.
Terribly frightened, unable to believe her own eyes, she read the
automatically taped report in which there was news of disintegration strike
unleashed on Danjab, the continent of the Gutturals, about the extermination
of tens of millions of the enemy, if not more.
With the sole feeling that the explosions had fortunately taken place
on the other continent and her children were alive, Ala Veg ran out to
report about this terrible event to Mrak Luton, the station commander.
He did not admit her. Puffed up and pompous, as if his office had been
invaded by dozens of Faetians awaiting an audience, he made Ala Veg stand
for a long time outside the door before he let her in.
He glanced over the proffered papers, stood up and shouted hoarsely:
"Joy! This means happiness for us! May they be without end, the cycles
in the blissful life of Dictator Yar Jupi! At last it has come to pass! The
continent of Danjab is being cleansed of the scum that settled there!"
Nega Luton ran in and, after a glance at the papers, threw her arms
round Ala Veg's neck.
"What happiness, my dear! At last our mission here is being
accomplished and the roundheads needn't move to this accursed Mar, but will
be settled on the newly available spaces of Faena. I've been so homesick for
comforts, services and refined society. Haven't you too, my dear?"
Ala Veg seemed turned to stone.
"Is the disintegration war over already?" was all she could manage to
say.
"Not yet, of course!" announced Mrak Luton portentously, "but this war
will be won by whoever delivers the most devastating salvo. And we are going
to do the same too."
"Who are 'we'?" asked Ala Veg uncomprehendingly.
Mrak Luton sounded the general alarm and left his office for the big
cabin next door in which Mada and Ave had stayed only recently.
Soon, the entire crew of the space station was assembled there. The
timid Tycho Veg came, as did the flustered, out-of-breath Brat and Lada Lua.
Mrak Luton read out the news concerning the annihilation of Danjab's
main cities.
Nega Luton closely watched the expressions on the faces of those
present. She did not miss Brat Lua's horror. His now pale face was like
polished bone. Lada Lua burst into tears.
"I will not tolerate treachery," Mrak Luton shouted at her, "even if it
expresses itself in pity for the enemy. I order an automatic ship to be sent
to Phobo immediately."
"What? To the enemy?" said Nega Luton in astonishment.
"With a disintegration warhead," explained Mrak Luton.
"That's another matter." And Nega Luton sighed with relief.
"The gentle lady should be ashamed to say such things!" Lada Lua could
not help saying. "She is a Sister of Health, after all!"
"Silence!" roared Mrak Luton. "Engineer Tycho Veg and assistant servant
Brat Lua! In the name of the Dictator, I order you to fit a missile with a
disintegration warhead on the station's ship and program it for automatic
flight to Phobo."
"A disintegration warhead?" asked Tycho Veg. "But there isn't one on
the station."
Mrak Luton roared with laughter so that his flabby jowls quivered.
"Don't be so naive. Engineer Tycho Veg! You will find the warhead in
space at the end of the greenhouse to which it was delivered as a spare
cabin for the ship."
"I object, profoundly thoughtful Mrak Luton," exclaimed Brat Lua. "The
blessed Dictator of Powermania concluded a treaty with the Ruler of Dan jab.
There cannot be any disintegration weapon in space."
"Treachery!" roared Mrak Luton. "You're under arrest, you roundhead
traitor! Engineer Tycho Veg, tie the mutineer's hands!"
Tycho Veg glanced in indecision at his wife.
"If the disintegration war has begun, it means... Clearly, all treaties
are invalid," she said timidly.
Tycho Veg reluctantly obeyed the order. He and Mrak Luton pushed Brat
Lua into the chief's office. Mrak Luton locked the door.
"Now proceed to the greenhouse, quickly," he ordered Tycho Veg. "I took
measures for the disintegration warhead to be close at hand!.."
With a glance at his wife, Tycho Veg went despondently to the
lift-cage.
"I proclaim the station to be in a state of emergency. Any act of
disobedience will be dealt with not by arrest, but with a poisoned bullet!"
And Mrak Luton brandished his pistol.
"Gentle sir, please spare my husband. He didn't know that the treaty
wasn't valid any more," said Lada Lua, rushing up to the station chief.
"Quick march to your stations, all of you!" roared Mrak Luton. "The
astronomer Ala Veg will report all space observations to me and maintain
electromagnetic communications. But your place, roundhead woman, is in the
kitchen."
Mrak Luton collapsed into his armchair, exhausted. His rectangular face
with the pendulous jowls went purple, his neck swelled. He tugged at his
collar, unable to breathe properly for want of air.
On the other Marian orbit, on the station near Phobo, news of the
disintegration war had been brought by Engineer Vydum (Inventor) Polar. His
intelligent face, always keenly alert, now expressed horror and dismay. He
had earned his name for an early inclination to invention. He had once built
a walking steamcar, had made magnetic fastenings for clothes and sprung
running shoes, and had obtained a fine strip of dried wood which in some
other age on some other planet would have been called paper. He was
invariably assisted by his friend, the talented, always cheerful, small and
mercurial craftsman Al Ur, who regarded Vydum as an unrecognised genius. He
was with him this time too, and had hurried after him into the station
chief's office to back his friend's demands.
There was one more Faetian who had taken note of the unsuccessful
inventor. This was Dovol (Content) Sirus, a powerful proprietor. He was not
averse to profiting by Vydum Polar's abilities, and, on his wife's advice,
had married Vydum to Sveta, his daughter by his first marriage, a mild,
quiet girl, totally submissive to her powerful stepmother, who ruled the
family with a rod of iron in order to further its social influence.
Dovol Sirus, a sleek, almost bald Faetian with heavy features and thin
lips, took fright on meeting Vydum Polar.
Usually genial, always ready to agree with the other person, he was the
personification of prosperity, sufficiency and equanimity. But his peace of
mind had now been shattered. His small eyes darted here and there almost in
dismay. When he heard Vydum Polar's news, he promptly sent out a call for
the greenhouse nurserywoman, his wife Vlasta Sirus.
Vydum Polar passionately tried to drive his point home to the station
chief.
"I am prepared personally to take a ship to Deimo, and I am prepared to
take my wife and Mila Ur. Her husband will stay behind with you to look
after the machinery. Space has been declared peaceful. The war of
disintegration that has just broken out is our common misfortune: we must
share it with the personnel on Deimo."
Dovol Sirus nodded his agreement, glancing at the door from time to
time.
Sveta was his favourite.
On the insistence of his vociferous wife Vlasta, Dovol Sirus had made
use on Faena of the pre-war jitters to acquire influence over Dobr Mar in
Danjab. He had even obtained the rank of general from him. True, when a
disintegration war became imminent, Vlasta Sirus made General Sirus get as
far away from Faena as possible and become chief of a space station, taking
his stepdaughter with him and her luckless husband.
"You'll fly from here, but what about us?" asked Dovol Sirus
uncertainly.
"We'll come back as soon as we've discussed with our unfortunate
brothers from Faena what's to be done next.."
"What's the meaning of all this gadding about?" came the fruity voice
of Vlasta Sirus as she entered the room. "I shall never let Sveta go. I am
as a mother to her."
"But, my dear-" objected the station chief.
"What if the people on Deimo take our ship for a torpedo? They've got
defence rockets too, you know."
"But, my dear..."
"'My dear, my dear'!" mimicked Vlasta. "We have a daughter we love. She
must be rescued. By any possible means."
Vlasta Sirus cast a withering glance at her husband from under knitted
brows and compressed her thin lips.
"But my dear... I promise you. Our ship will surely fly to Station
Deimo. And you and I, you and I only, will appoint the crew members."
Vlasta Sirus slapped the table with the flat of her hand.
"Exactly-you and I. And that will be the most reliable crew! We must
preserve our lives! Preserve them! In this war, what matters most is to
survive!" And she ran a glare of hatred over all three Faetians. "To
survive!"
Helplessly wringing his hands. Brat Lua was pacing up and down inside
the office that was now his prison.
Tycho Veg was uncomplainingly carrying out his assignment without even
giving a thought to the possibility that the disintegration warhead in the
spare cabin might be inadequately screened and dangerous to any Faetian who
approached it.
To get to the spare cabin, he had to float all the way along the
greenhouse through the air-roots that seemed to be trying to hold him back.
But he pulled his weightless body forward by clutching at them so as to
carry out as quickly as possible the chief's order, which had been confirmed
by a nod from Ala Veg. He tried not to think about his children's fate, as
he tried not to think about anything at all: neither the Faetians on Station
Phobo, nor himself. In spite of himself, however, he was thinking that there
were only two spaceships at the station. Would six people be able to fly to
their native planet in one ship? Of course not! It was only a three-seater.
Evidently, they would have to wait for another ship from Faena.
The spare cabin, which resembled a conical cap, was floating not far
from the long cigar of the ship, to which it was attached by a cable.
Tycho Veg put on his space-suit and, securing himself with a line,
kicked himself off from the greenhouse airlock and floated off into the
silvery darkness of space.
He miscalculated and did not reach his goal straightway. He had to wind
himself back by pulling in the line hand over hand and then push off again.
This time, he propelled himself with one leg only so as to give his
jump better direction.
The spare cabin looked rough to him, like a meteorite. Tycho Veg clung
to it and crawled towards the base of the cone, where the cable to the
spaceship was secured.
He seized hold of the metal bracket outside the spare cabin and taking
up the cable that ran to the ship, began pulling it towards him together
with the cabin. After a short time, the cabin came into contact with the
ship. Tycho Veg had steeled himself for a tough job. To his great
astonishment, however, he noticed that the parts of the ship had been
designed for instant replacement. It only needed one contact with the joint
for the automatic machinery inside to be activated and for the old cabin to
detach itself easily from this ship and sail away towards the stars. The new
cabin fitted itself into place with the same ease.
Tycho Veg crawled inside to set the automatic pilot.
Another surprise awaited him inside: there was no need for him to
readjust the settings.
The impersonal voice of the automatic machine warned him about this the
moment he touched the control panel. All he had to do was to switch on the
automatic pilot and go back to the greenhouse.
As soon as he was there, he saw the rocket's nozzles begin blazing;
after making a precisely calculated turn, the ship headed for Phobo on a
course that had been unerringly checked by the machines.
Tycho Veg sighed. He had only been doing his duty. He never even gave a
thought to whether the warhead had been properly screened.
When he emerged from the lift-cage into the station corridor, he was
met by a pale and trembling Ala Veg.
"What's happened, darling?" asked Tycho.
"Our children... Children..." was all that she could say, and she burst
into tears.
She was holding in her hands a tablet inscribed with the latest news by
electromagnetic communication. Tycho read it and swayed, resting his hand on
the lift-cage door.
The news was that flocks of disintegration torpedoes from Danjab had
descended on the continent of the Superiors. There had been devastation and
casualties... But Yar Jupi foresaw victory and demanded rejoicing.
Mrak Luton ran into the corridor, waving his arms.
"The Dictator is alive! The Dictator is alive! The Blood Council is
continuing the struggle! To your stations! This is a space outpost!"
"Can our observer be in her place?" sneered Nega Luton, who had
appeared after him. "She should be worrying about her relatives, not about
winning the war."
Her eyes flashing, Ala Veg went into the observatory.
Tycho Veg was left standing in the corridor. He just couldn't make
sense of what was happening; he just couldn't believe that his native
Pleasure City might be lying in ruins, and his children...
He followed his wife into the observatory.
"I can't keep watch because of my tears," said Ala Veg as she turned to
him. "Take my place at the instrument. A strange star has appeared in that
quarter."
"Could it be our ship with the warhead?" "No, it's somewhere else."
Tycho began helping his wife and they soon established that the unknown
star was not obeying the usual laws of celestial mechanics and seemed to be
choosing its own flight trajectory.
Summoned by the alarm signal, Mrak Luton rushed into the observatory
and peered suspiciously at Tycho and Ala Veg.
"News from Faena? Orders from the Dictator? An instruction from the
Blood Council?"
"No," replied Ala Veg. "Communications have broken down. We have also
lost contact with Station Phobo."
"With Phobo?" bellowed Mrak Luton. "Treachery? Who dared to communicate
with Phobo, the enemy fortress in space?" He drew his pistol and brandished
it threateningly at them.
"I am simply reporting that communications with them do not exist. The
former channel has gone dead, as if something had happened there."
"It hasn't happened yet! But it soon will! Are you watching our
torpedo's flight?"
"It's flying dead on course, but..."
"What else?"
"It's being intercepted by an unidentified ship. Apparently from Phobo.
It seems to be heading for us. Is it possible that the station personnel
have packed and are flying to us?"
Mrak Luton roared with laughter.
"So as to surrender? To dump themselves on us? To gobble up our food
supplies? To breathe our oxygen? Or do they want to escape the punitive
torpedo?"
"But they might not know we sent it."
"But I know their ship's coming our way. Engineer Tycho Veg, I order
you to fire a defence rocket. The approaching ship must be destroyed."
"What d'you mean 'destroyed'?" protested Ala Veg. "Mightn't there be
living Faetians on board?"
"Living Faetians?" jeered Mrak Luton. "As if there were living Faetians
flying in our ship with the warhead! I've issued my orders. Send out defence
rockets, knock it out, destroy it!" Mrak Luton stamped his foot in a frenzy
and brandished his pistol.
Tycho Veg left the observatory. He knew where the defence rockets were.
They were not covered by the Agreement on Peace in Outer Space. They were
short-range missiles and could not reach another station, but they were
capable of locating in space and destroying the target approaching Deimo.
To activate these defence weapons, Tycho Veg did not have to descend
into the greenhouse. It was enough to go to Station Deimo's Central Console.
He fired the defence rockets when the ship from Station Phobo was
clearly distinguishable as a point glittering in Sol's rays.
He returned to his wife in the observatory, looking dejected and
drained of his strength. He felt he had done something dreadful.
Ala Veg could not hold back her tears.
"There are Faetians on board, there could be living Faetians on board,"
she kept repeating. "And no news from Faena."
"Our children can't possibly have been killed," said Tycho Veg, who had
no grounds whatever for such a statement.
He squinted through the eyepiece and saw something flare up in space
like a nova. One of defence rockets had exploded on encountering the ship
from Phobo.
On the big screen displaying the image, the ship-star plunged steeply
after the explosion towards the surface of Mar. It had been knocked out of
orbit by the force of the blast, but not destroyed.
All the Faetians on the station assembled in the observatory, except
for the imprisoned Brat Lua.
Mrak Luton personally came to fetch him.
"Let him watch!" he said, pushing Lua into the observatory and showing
him the mass of Mar in the porthole. "Let him watch with his own eyes!"
"Are you so sure that'll knock some sense into him?" asked Nega Luton
quietly.
Her husband grinned complacently.
"I know the inner world of the Faetians too well to be wrong. Otherwise
I wouldn't be Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard."
The six Faetians on Deimo saw another star flare up in space and go out
again.
"They've knocked out our torpedo!" And Mrak Luton stamped his foot.
Then, on the surface of Mar, two disintegration explosions occurred in
succession. In the russet deserts, the trunks of fabulous trees could be
seen from space as they soared up into the sky, billowing out into swirling
canopies. The distinct shadows of first one and then a second gigantic
mushroom lay across the sandy wilderness.
"What did I tell you!" roared Mrak Luton. "They wanted to be the .first
to wipe us out. Their ship with its warhead exploded first. But you were
just whining, you were talking about living Faetians."
"The station chief is right," sighed Tycho Veg. "He can see into the
Faetian soul."
"Engineer Tycho Veg! Stop drivelling! I know what I'm worth! Go back to
the greenhouse at once and fit one more ship with a torpedo."
"But we won't have any more ships left," said Tycho in an attempt at
protest.
"Victory! Victory at all costs! A ship will be sent for us as heroes of
the disintegration war from the triumphant continent of the Superiors."
"To hear is to obey," said Tycho Veg with a covert glance at Ala Veg.
But she sat with bowed head, her hands dangling down in despair.
Tycho Veg left to set up another ship-torpedo.
However, this second missile was also knocked out by defence rockets
fired by the Culture Is on Phobo.
A second volley of defence rockets was launched from Deimo to beat off
yet another ship that was glittering in the rays of Sol and might also have
been primed with a disintegration warhead.
Both ships, the one from Phobo and the one from Deimo, blew up almost
side by side in the deserts of Mar. First, monstrous mushrooms on stalks of
smoke rose up on the site of the explosions, and then, when the smoke had
dispersed, it was possible to see from above craters in the deserts of Mar
which had not been there before.
"How amazed the astronomers would be," said Ala Veg in a sinking voice,
"if they found craters like that on Mar."
Tycho did not react at all to these words. He had barely reached the
Central Console from which he had been discharging the defence rockets. He
was feeling really ill this time. It seemed to him that there had been
children flying to them in the ships and that they had been killed.
Chapter Six
Sheltering in the deep abandoned mine-shaft, Kutsi Merc had survived
the disintegration blast. The thunder above had long since died away.
It was damp underfoot. The raindrops were falling from above as if
counting the moments. It seemed to Kutsi that they were measuring out
infinite time. He sat there without strength or thoughts, dozing or in a
faint. Only hunger made him rise to his feet. But he was afraid to see what
awaited him above; he was afraid even to imagine it.
The raindrops were falling noisily, the only sounds to indicate that
the world still existed. The world? What world? Dead puddles and dead
raindrops?
His ravenous hunger drove Kutsi up the slippery metal rungs. Some of
them wobbled. Kutsi could fall to the bottom of the well. And it would all
be over. But the metal rungs held. There was a little blue circle high up
above. Strange! The Nepts' cabin had been built directly over the
mine-shaft.
The sky! With stars in it! Was it really night?
Kutsi climbed on upwards. The circle above him was growing bigger and
brighter, and the stars were gradually disappearing. But certainly not
because day was breaking. It was simply the effect of a darkened chimney,
when stars are visible from the bottom in the daytime. The circle overhead
was growing bigger while they were disappearing. Kutsi climbed out on to the
surface.
Sol was at its zenith. The Nepts' cabin no longer existed. It had
evidently been blown away when the stones were falling on to his shoulders.
The Faetian looked round and was dumbfounded. Not only had the Nepts'
cabin disappeared, not a single roundhead shack was left standing.
Everything around had been turned into an enormous refuse tip of garbage,
pathetic kitchen utensils, smashed furniture and rubble. A jagged wall rose
at an angle in the distance.
Kutsi made his way over to it. And immediately stumbled on the first
corpses. The Faetians had been killed by the windstorm that had followed the
disintegration explosion. Many were buried under the wreckage of their
shacks, many had been carried through the air and dashed against any solid
object in their way.
That was what had happened to the old Nept couple. Kutsi recognised
their mangled bodies by their clothes.
A chill ran up and down Kutsi's spine. He had heard plenty about the
disintegration weapon, but had never imagined that it would look like this
after an explosion.
The wall he had reached proved to be part of some huge workshops in a
suburb of Pleasure City. The building had collapsed, burying machines and
the Faetians who worked in it. In its place towered an ugly pile of rubble.
Had no one survived at all?
Kutsi Merc's two hearts were thudding painfully in his breast and his
temples throbbed accordingly. Why had the wounded one recovered?
Himself not knowing why, perhaps in the hope of meeting at least one
living Faetian,
Kutsi began wandering round Pleasure City.
His hunger, dulled by the initial horror, made itself felt again.
Kutsi's mind was in shock, and instinct was forcing him to look for
something edible in the mass of rubble.
Two mountainous ramparts rose like grey barkhans on either side of what
had been a street. In one place, under the fused stones, he thought he saw
food containers. He began digging into the pile and came upon a protruding
hand. He could not force himself to dig any further and went on between the
dunes of ash-covered rubble.
He had the feeling that he was wandering along an enormous dump of
builders' rubble.
Kutsi had never thought that the devastation could be so complete. It
was even impossible to make out the shapes of former buildings. There could
be no thought of finding something to eat in this pile of rubble.
Kutsi was suffering the torments of hunger. And this combination of
horror with the pangs of hunger was unnatural. He was disgusting even to
himself.
However, a more powerful emotion was beginning to get the better of
Kutsi.
Who was to blame for what had been done? Who had made a war of
disintegration the purpose of his doctrine? Who had turned the continent
into such a wilderness strewn with ashes?
Kutsi was overcome by a frenzied hatred of Dictator Yar Jupi; it
flooded his whole being, it overshadowed everything that he had known, even
the stipulations which the Great Circle of the proprietors had made about
unleashing a disintegration war and which he had once reported to Dobr Mar.
Kutsi Merc had failed to carry out his mission! The automatic systems
console was intact. Yar Jupi had begun the disintegration war first!
When he climbed up the cone of rubble, Kutsi saw the ocean. Its shore
was disfigured by a gigantic crater, now flooded with sea water. A torpedo
had evidently exploded in the port. The enormous crater was ringed by a
rampart that had covered part of the ruins. Clouds of sand and ooze had been
thrown up from the seabed into the air during the explosion and had then
fallen as dry ash onto the ruins.
Hatred, horror and the hopelessness of his position drove Kutsi further
on. The results of a shock wave are freakish. In one place, he stumbled on
the cross-section of a rocky hill with window openings and shapeless
patches. When he went closer, Kutsi saw a pile of scrap iron driven into a
wall.
In front of him he saw the wreckage of a steamcar that had been passing
that way at the time of the explosion.
Nearby, on the fused stone, shone patches vaguely suggestive of
Faetians.
Kutsi shuddered: "The white shadows of passers-by!" The pedestrians
themselves had been vapourised by the incredible heat, but their shadows had
been imprinted by the exploding star right there on the wall where the
outlines, the mangled images of those who not long ago had been living human
beings now showed up as lighter, less fused areas on the wall...
Kutsi could not bear it any longer. He ran back. His foot struck a
stone that rolled over the slag of the roadway. A smashed jar of something
edible! He picked it up. It proved to be carbon inside. The unprecedented
heat had coked the contents, converting it into a black, coagulated mass.
Kutsi wanted to get to the central quarters of the city. But he already
knew what he was going to see there: shadows on the walls, if the stones had
not been piled into shapeless heaps, and endless ramparts of rubble...
Then Kutsi made a decision. What he had been through had clouded his
mind. Not a single Faetian in possession of his faculties would have decided
on the crazy plan that hatched out in Kutsi's inflamed brain.
Kutsi knew that he was doomed: the deadly radiation had long since
penetrated his body. It would soon begin to make itself felt. There was very
little time left. He had no hope of survival whatever! Nor had he any desire
to live among the dead.
However, he considered himself under obligation to do his last duty.
With his characteristic determination, he went back across the heaps of
rubble to the Great Shore where, not so long ago, a sea wave had brought Ave
and Mada together.
The further away he was from the site of the explosion, the more hope
there was of finding something to eat. A house lizard with charred skin was
lying under a wall just like the bodies of the Nepts. The affectionate,
quick-moving, nimble lizard had, of course, been a general favourite of the
dead couple.
Kutsi laughed bitterly. The Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard had met
him on the ship and had called him a carrion-eater. Had it occurred to the
man that he would prove to be right?
Only at night did Kutsi reach the Temple of Eternity, or rather the
mountain of stones lying where it had once stood. If his "hump" had been the
cause of the explosion, then it might be possible to find a way into the
underground by way of the crater.
Kutsi was certain that the electric power system had been put out of
action and that the automatic doors would not be working.
He proved right in one respect and wrong in the other.
Only in the morning did he manage to find the way into the deep
corridor where the explosion had occurred. The gallery was less cluttered
with stones than everything else around, since the gases had shot out of it
as from a gun-barrel.
Kutsi's frenzied will-power helped him to dig out the entrance into the
underground where he had been "killed" by Yar Alt.
His old self again, Kutsi made his way like a spy along the walls,
lighting his path with a pocket torch. But suddenly a bright light came on
of its own accord. Kutsi Merc was overjoyed at this, but he was also
frightened by it. If the supply to the underground rooms was still working,
he would not be able to get through the closed walls. Yar Jupi was still
alive. He was still sending disintegration torpedoes against Danjab. Kutsi
Merc had no right to retreat.
A blank wall rose up in front of him. When Kutsi had crawled outside
from there, the walls had been divided, which meant that this must be
another route leading to the Dictator's underground Lair.
Kutsi Merc tried in vain to separate the walls, driving into a chink a
piece of metal he had picked out on the surface.
Beads of cold sweat started up on his brow. He could not back out, he
simply could not do it! He fixed a glare full of hatred at the spiral
ornament on the accursed wall.
The wall divided.
Kutsi was well versed in the technology of automatic machines that
could memorise the brain biocurrents. He instantly realised that they had
been programmed to a particularly strong character trait of the chosen
Faetians. For Yar Jupi himself, whom all automatic machines had, of course,
to obey, the predominant characteristic was hatred. It was answered by the
"blood doors", which were also tuned to Mada's kindly nature and that of her
nanny. But Kutsi's hatred now was evidently not inferior to that of the
Dictator himself. And so the automatic machines of the Lair went into
action.
Kutsi ran along the illuminated corridor. Each time the wall barred his
way, Kutsi's glare of hatred opened it.
After a steep downward slope, the corridor made a turn, emerging into a
spacious apartment reminiscent of a palace hall with a vaulted ceiling.
There was no furniture in it except for a huge cupboard with shining
vertical slits.
Two enormous robots with cubic heads and articulated tentacles came
rushing straight at him.
Kutsi guessed that he must have reached his goal. The Dictator's
bunker!
Hatred made Kutsi Merc invincible. He rushed at the robots, ordering
them to follow him. And the robots obeyed, programmed to respond to the
Dictator's principal emotion.
Kutsi Merc stopped before the secretary-box, not admitting to himself
wanted to get to the Blood Door, hoping that it, too, would be open. He was
right, and he crawled into the ruined shrine. He could wait there till dark
in the familiar niche and at night he could make his way to the aged Nepts,
a couple who were friendly with Kutsi's parents. They lived in a former
miners' settlement near Pleasure City. Their youngest daughter, Lada, was
married to a roundhead who had been educated in Danjab. They had flown to
Space Station Deimo together.
Only Kutsi Merc, with his insatiable lust for life, could have made it
to the Nepts that night.
When he entered their home, he collapsed on the floor in a dead faint.
The solicitous old couple, both overweight, flabby and white-haired,
looking very much like one another as is often the case with a married pair
who have lived together for a long time, carried his heavy, bleeding body
across the room with difficulty and laid it down on some bedding in the
corner.
Kutsi Merc had overlooked the fact that the cover of his "hump" had
been riddled with bullet-holes and the subterranean air had been leaking
into the charge. Although the detonator had not been activated, it was sure
to explode after a time because of contact with the air.
That explosion was being awaited with terror by Ruler Dobr Mar, who was
tired of guessing when it might happen. By destroying the anti-torpedo
defence, the explosion would be the signal for a strike, with no chance of
retaliation, against Powermania by rockets armed with disintegration
warheads, as was desired by the proprietors who had put Dobr Mar in power.
Against any possible emergency, Dobr Mar had taken refuge in a deep
bunker, still hoping that Kutsi Merc would be killed before he could
detonate his "hump" and that the war desired by the Great Circle of
proprietors would be postponed for a time. The Ruler of Danjab was preparing
for a war, but he was afraid of it.
Above all, he wanted the disintegration weapon to stay where it was and
things to settle down somehow ... at least, until the next election.
Deep down below, a luxurious government office had been reproduced in
every detail, circular in shape with a vaulted ceiling and highly placed
oval windows that looked out on nothing. The communications monitors had
been mounted underneath them.
Dobr Mar had changed. His face had lost its hardness and his eyes their
penetration. He had become garrulous and seemed to be justifying himself to
someone all the time. He even said to one of his military leaders with the
intention of making it known to everyone:
"History will not forget the Ruler who started the disintegration war.
Is that not so?" And he stared past the other man.
Dobr Mar was troubled by Ave Mar's sudden departure for outer space,
not because of his son's fate, but because of Kutsi Merc. Why had the man
allowed that flight? And what had become of him? Had he really perished in
the end?
But everything turned out differently from what Dobr Mar had been
expecting, and not as his enemy. Dictator Yar Jupi, had planned. Nor as the
proprietors of the Great Circle or of the Blood Council had planned.
The moment came when the fuse in Kutsi Merc's artificial hump
functioned of its own accord. A deep underground disintegration explosion
took place.
Kutsi Merc, who had been sitting on the Nepts' bedding, felt himself
hurled upwards. The floor of the cabin shook, the crockery rattled on the
rickety shelves and the portrait of Dictator Yar Jupi fell down from its
place on the wall. The transparent film in the window was torn apart and a
violent gust of wind blew into the humble room, overturning the table. The
sheets of paper covered with writing over which old Nept had bent his back,
having taken it into his head to learn to write in his declining years,
began whirling about in mid-air.
Kutsi Merc cringed as he waited for the blast. But the ceiling did not
collapse. Kutsi limped over to the window.
Nothing, apparently, had happened. But there was no sign of the black
spire over the Temple of Eternity.
One of Kutsi Merc's eyebrows shot up. The left side of his face smiled,
the other remained watchful. Suddenly, his face grew longer, his eyes
widened and he turned pale.
Directly in front of the window, an enormous flowerbed rose up in the
centre of the square and out from underneath it glided a smooth cylindrical
body with a pointed nose. It grew taller before Kutsi Merc's eyes and became
a lofty tower. A moment later, black smoke began billowing from the shaft
hidden underneath and the tower began, to rise on a column of fire. Then it
detached itself from the square, gained height and set course for the ocean.
Soon, the rear end of the rocket turned into a fiery cross which steadily
diminished to a tiny glittering star. Only then did it vanish altogether.
Kutsi Merc's hair stood on end. He already knew that not only here, but
at a thousand other points on the continent, from identical subterranean
shafts, from under the surface of the seas, perhaps even from buildings,
terrible rockets were bursting forth to head in a deadly swarm for Danjab.
Kutsi Merc was right. Activated by the automatic systems, the rockets
had indeed burst out of their hiding places and, programmed to hit the vital
points of Danjab, were speeding across the ocean. One of those rockets rose
from the multistorey block in which Ave and Kutsi had been staying, and
another was to soar straight up from the Temple of Eternity, where it had
been camouflaged as one of the columns. The temple had collapsed at the
subterranean explosion of Kutsi's "hump". However, the Central Automatic
Defence Console, which was at a great depth, had not been damaged. Its
sensitive instruments, only just detecting the radiation caused by the
disintegration explosion, immediately sent their signals to thousands of
rocket installations.
Dictator Yar Jupi was terrified when the bunker shook. He learned from
the instruments about the explosion and the response of the automatic
systems and he realised that the disintegration war had begun earlier than
he had intended. He rushed up and down the cramped shelter. He craved
action. But it had all been done without him.
He was alone. No one could see him except the mindless secretary box
which was unable to appreciate the Dictator's joy and triumph. Forgetful of
his personal fears, he giggled and danced about. He was filled with a
delicious excitement at the knowledge that in a short time the cities and
industrial centres of Dan jab would be destroyed and tens, perhaps hundreds
of millions of enemy Faetians would cease to exist. He had never experienced
a pleasure like this before. Now that the war had started, let it spread! He
had achieved his aim: to command life and death over the whole of the planet
Faena! And so, grimacing because of a nervous tic, he pulled back the
curtain in front of the live screens.
The questioning and distraught faces of the military leaders were
staring at him from them. Yar Jupi directed a mad glare at the servile faces
and, foaming at the mouth in a burst of inspiration, he screamed:
"What? You weren't expecting it? You were marking time? Well, hear
this. I've done it! I! I've blown up the Temple of Eternity and the palace
to activate the automatic systems! What? Are you frightened?"
He ran round the bunker, shouting, although the screens were blacking
out one after another. The military leaders were obviously not in agreement
with their lord and master and preferred to take cover as quickly as
possible in their bunkers, which were similar to the Dictator's own. When
the secret screens of the Blood Council's members were switched on, they
revealed the unhooded, frightened faces of the first proprietors of the
ancient continent.
The barbarians' rockets went above the limits of the atmosphere as they
flew over the ocean. Their approach was spotted at once by the ever-vigilant
automatic observers far from the targets to which the rockets were flying.
Without any help from the military or from Ruler Dobr Mar, the rocket
defence system went automatically into action. A flock of defence missiles
soared up from Danjab and headed for the disintegration armada. They were
themselves packed with disintegration warheads intended to explode when
close to any missiles that flew towards them.
And the disintegration explosions occurred one after another in the
upper layers of the atmosphere, over the ocean. The shock waves threw the
rockets off course or simply destroyed them. Mangled fragments and sometimes
even whole torpedoes fell into the ocean, to the great horror of seafarers
from both continents. It was as if a meteorite shower had plunged into the
ocean, raising to the cloudy sky columns of water like the weird trees of a
forest that had suddenly sprung up in the sea.
Over eight hundred rockets were destroyed by Danjab's automatic
sentinels. But over two hundred continued on their way.
During those first moments of the disintegration war, not a single
Faetian took part except for the wounded Kutsi Merc. Not one Faetian was
killed in that appalling battle of the rockets.
But this was only during the first few moments.
Soon, Danjab began to tremble under disintegration explosions in
hundreds of different places.
A disintegration explosion!
Is there anything to compare with it? Perhaps only the supernovas or
the mysterious processes which astronomers have observed on Sol, when
enormous tongues of white-hot matter have been ejected over distances many
times greater than the star's diameter.
Matter itself was disintegrating, part of it was ceasing to be matter,
its mass was diminishing. The energy of the internal bonds was being
unleashed and, converted into heat energy according to the laws of nature,
was raising the heat level at the place of disintegration by a factor of
millions. All the surrounding matter that remained as matter was instantly
converted into white-hot gas that shot out in all directions, wiping out
everything in its path. But even faster was the action of the radiation that
accompanies the disintegration of matter. Penetrating living tissue, its
impact was fatal. Even long after the explosion, the impact of those rays
was to destroy all who had survived the firestorm or the devastating
hurricane.
On the site of each disintegration explosion, a fireball rose up first,
immeasurably brighter than Sol itself. Light of such brilliance had never
been known on the gloomy planet Faena. This brilliant ball became a pillar
of fire that rose up like the white trunk of a magic, gigantic tree, growing
up and soaring into the sky, where it spread out in a swirling canopy.
Shuddering, Dobr Mar saw on the communications monitors those ominous
mushrooms sprouting on the sites of flourishing cities.
He was appalled. As he paced round his study, he felt himself keeling
over; his knees buckled and he slumped into an armchair, scarcely able to
clutch hold of it.
What had happened? How had the enemy anticipated him? What about Kutsi?
What had become of the Faetians who were to elect him for another term?
They were dead, dead! Thousands, maybe millions, maybe hundreds of millions
had ceased to exist!
The military leaders rushed into his office and hastened to help the
old Faetian with the shaking head... He was groaning; his left leg was
twitching, but his right leg, like his arm, had gone numb.
The military leaders bustled about the circular office and sent for the
Sister of Health. They tried to pour water and broke the tumblers. No one
was yet capable of understanding the full gravity of the position.
The disintegration war, when they mentioned it, sounded like something
horrible but impossible, like a children's fairy tale. Even now, when the
ominous mushrooms could be seen on nearly all the monitors in the bunker and
many of the screens were black and networking, the scurrying Faetians still
didn't want to believe that it was all over up above. It was somewhere far
away, but here, what was close and visible was the Ruler's weakness, the
Sister of Health fussing over him and the unpleasant odour of medicines.
The dejected military leaders made no decisions and issued no orders.
Once again, commands were given by automatic systems.
Dictator Yar Jupi, who had not such secret communications with the
enemy continent like those maintained by Kutsi Merc through the roundheads
did not suspect that Danjab had no less reliable a "retaliation system" than
the Superiors.
Instruments recording the disintegration radioactivity in the air, the
seismic effects of the explosions on Danjab territory and the force of the
heat blasts, gave firing commands to countless rocket installations, also
camouflaged on the seabed, in deep mine shafts and in mountain gorges. An
armada of vengeance had already set off to fly across the ocean to
Powermania.
Only Kutsi Merc had foreseen this. No sooner had the coloured, swirling
cloud risen up before his eyes than he managed to dive into a disused shaft
in which Nept had worked all his life and over which, when it was exhausted,
he had built his own cabin. Kutsi Merc took cover in a narrow stone well
down which he climbed by means of damp metal rungs.
His weakness seemed to have passed off. Nervous tension had given him
back his strength.
He couldn't see anything any more, but could hear and, it seemed, felt
with every cell in his body the terrible explosion that rocked the vicinity.
Stones rained down on Kutsi; one of them struck him painfully on the
shoulder. But Kutsi clung convulsively to the rungs. Even now, he refused to
give in.
Chapter Five
The exultant and triumphant news about the outbreak of a disintegration
war was picked up by Ala Veg on Space Station Dei-mo.
Terribly frightened, unable to believe her own eyes, she read the
automatically taped report in which there was news of disintegration strike
unleashed on Danjab, the continent of the Gutturals, about the extermination
of tens of millions of the enemy, if not more.
With the sole feeling that the explosions had fortunately taken place
on the other continent and her children were alive, Ala Veg ran out to
report about this terrible event to Mrak Luton, the station commander.
He did not admit her. Puffed up and pompous, as if his office had been
invaded by dozens of Faetians awaiting an audience, he made Ala Veg stand
for a long time outside the door before he let her in.
He glanced over the proffered papers, stood up and shouted hoarsely:
"Joy! This means happiness for us! May they be without end, the cycles
in the blissful life of Dictator Yar Jupi! At last it has come to pass! The
continent of Danjab is being cleansed of the scum that settled there!"
Nega Luton ran in and, after a glance at the papers, threw her arms
round Ala Veg's neck.
"What happiness, my dear! At last our mission here is being
accomplished and the roundheads needn't move to this accursed Mar, but will
be settled on the newly available spaces of Faena. I've been so homesick for
comforts, services and refined society. Haven't you too, my dear?"
Ala Veg seemed turned to stone.
"Is the disintegration war over already?" was all she could manage to
say.
"Not yet, of course!" announced Mrak Luton portentously, "but this war
will be won by whoever delivers the most devastating salvo. And we are going
to do the same too."
"Who are 'we'?" asked Ala Veg uncomprehendingly.
Mrak Luton sounded the general alarm and left his office for the big
cabin next door in which Mada and Ave had stayed only recently.
Soon, the entire crew of the space station was assembled there. The
timid Tycho Veg came, as did the flustered, out-of-breath Brat and Lada Lua.
Mrak Luton read out the news concerning the annihilation of Danjab's
main cities.
Nega Luton closely watched the expressions on the faces of those
present. She did not miss Brat Lua's horror. His now pale face was like
polished bone. Lada Lua burst into tears.
"I will not tolerate treachery," Mrak Luton shouted at her, "even if it
expresses itself in pity for the enemy. I order an automatic ship to be sent
to Phobo immediately."
"What? To the enemy?" said Nega Luton in astonishment.
"With a disintegration warhead," explained Mrak Luton.
"That's another matter." And Nega Luton sighed with relief.
"The gentle lady should be ashamed to say such things!" Lada Lua could
not help saying. "She is a Sister of Health, after all!"
"Silence!" roared Mrak Luton. "Engineer Tycho Veg and assistant servant
Brat Lua! In the name of the Dictator, I order you to fit a missile with a
disintegration warhead on the station's ship and program it for automatic
flight to Phobo."
"A disintegration warhead?" asked Tycho Veg. "But there isn't one on
the station."
Mrak Luton roared with laughter so that his flabby jowls quivered.
"Don't be so naive. Engineer Tycho Veg! You will find the warhead in
space at the end of the greenhouse to which it was delivered as a spare
cabin for the ship."
"I object, profoundly thoughtful Mrak Luton," exclaimed Brat Lua. "The
blessed Dictator of Powermania concluded a treaty with the Ruler of Dan jab.
There cannot be any disintegration weapon in space."
"Treachery!" roared Mrak Luton. "You're under arrest, you roundhead
traitor! Engineer Tycho Veg, tie the mutineer's hands!"
Tycho Veg glanced in indecision at his wife.
"If the disintegration war has begun, it means... Clearly, all treaties
are invalid," she said timidly.
Tycho Veg reluctantly obeyed the order. He and Mrak Luton pushed Brat
Lua into the chief's office. Mrak Luton locked the door.
"Now proceed to the greenhouse, quickly," he ordered Tycho Veg. "I took
measures for the disintegration warhead to be close at hand!.."
With a glance at his wife, Tycho Veg went despondently to the
lift-cage.
"I proclaim the station to be in a state of emergency. Any act of
disobedience will be dealt with not by arrest, but with a poisoned bullet!"
And Mrak Luton brandished his pistol.
"Gentle sir, please spare my husband. He didn't know that the treaty
wasn't valid any more," said Lada Lua, rushing up to the station chief.
"Quick march to your stations, all of you!" roared Mrak Luton. "The
astronomer Ala Veg will report all space observations to me and maintain
electromagnetic communications. But your place, roundhead woman, is in the
kitchen."
Mrak Luton collapsed into his armchair, exhausted. His rectangular face
with the pendulous jowls went purple, his neck swelled. He tugged at his
collar, unable to breathe properly for want of air.
On the other Marian orbit, on the station near Phobo, news of the
disintegration war had been brought by Engineer Vydum (Inventor) Polar. His
intelligent face, always keenly alert, now expressed horror and dismay. He
had earned his name for an early inclination to invention. He had once built
a walking steamcar, had made magnetic fastenings for clothes and sprung
running shoes, and had obtained a fine strip of dried wood which in some
other age on some other planet would have been called paper. He was
invariably assisted by his friend, the talented, always cheerful, small and
mercurial craftsman Al Ur, who regarded Vydum as an unrecognised genius. He
was with him this time too, and had hurried after him into the station
chief's office to back his friend's demands.
There was one more Faetian who had taken note of the unsuccessful
inventor. This was Dovol (Content) Sirus, a powerful proprietor. He was not
averse to profiting by Vydum Polar's abilities, and, on his wife's advice,
had married Vydum to Sveta, his daughter by his first marriage, a mild,
quiet girl, totally submissive to her powerful stepmother, who ruled the
family with a rod of iron in order to further its social influence.
Dovol Sirus, a sleek, almost bald Faetian with heavy features and thin
lips, took fright on meeting Vydum Polar.
Usually genial, always ready to agree with the other person, he was the
personification of prosperity, sufficiency and equanimity. But his peace of
mind had now been shattered. His small eyes darted here and there almost in
dismay. When he heard Vydum Polar's news, he promptly sent out a call for
the greenhouse nurserywoman, his wife Vlasta Sirus.
Vydum Polar passionately tried to drive his point home to the station
chief.
"I am prepared personally to take a ship to Deimo, and I am prepared to
take my wife and Mila Ur. Her husband will stay behind with you to look
after the machinery. Space has been declared peaceful. The war of
disintegration that has just broken out is our common misfortune: we must
share it with the personnel on Deimo."
Dovol Sirus nodded his agreement, glancing at the door from time to
time.
Sveta was his favourite.
On the insistence of his vociferous wife Vlasta, Dovol Sirus had made
use on Faena of the pre-war jitters to acquire influence over Dobr Mar in
Danjab. He had even obtained the rank of general from him. True, when a
disintegration war became imminent, Vlasta Sirus made General Sirus get as
far away from Faena as possible and become chief of a space station, taking
his stepdaughter with him and her luckless husband.
"You'll fly from here, but what about us?" asked Dovol Sirus
uncertainly.
"We'll come back as soon as we've discussed with our unfortunate
brothers from Faena what's to be done next.."
"What's the meaning of all this gadding about?" came the fruity voice
of Vlasta Sirus as she entered the room. "I shall never let Sveta go. I am
as a mother to her."
"But, my dear-" objected the station chief.
"What if the people on Deimo take our ship for a torpedo? They've got
defence rockets too, you know."
"But, my dear..."
"'My dear, my dear'!" mimicked Vlasta. "We have a daughter we love. She
must be rescued. By any possible means."
Vlasta Sirus cast a withering glance at her husband from under knitted
brows and compressed her thin lips.
"But my dear... I promise you. Our ship will surely fly to Station
Deimo. And you and I, you and I only, will appoint the crew members."
Vlasta Sirus slapped the table with the flat of her hand.
"Exactly-you and I. And that will be the most reliable crew! We must
preserve our lives! Preserve them! In this war, what matters most is to
survive!" And she ran a glare of hatred over all three Faetians. "To
survive!"
Helplessly wringing his hands. Brat Lua was pacing up and down inside
the office that was now his prison.
Tycho Veg was uncomplainingly carrying out his assignment without even
giving a thought to the possibility that the disintegration warhead in the
spare cabin might be inadequately screened and dangerous to any Faetian who
approached it.
To get to the spare cabin, he had to float all the way along the
greenhouse through the air-roots that seemed to be trying to hold him back.
But he pulled his weightless body forward by clutching at them so as to
carry out as quickly as possible the chief's order, which had been confirmed
by a nod from Ala Veg. He tried not to think about his children's fate, as
he tried not to think about anything at all: neither the Faetians on Station
Phobo, nor himself. In spite of himself, however, he was thinking that there
were only two spaceships at the station. Would six people be able to fly to
their native planet in one ship? Of course not! It was only a three-seater.
Evidently, they would have to wait for another ship from Faena.
The spare cabin, which resembled a conical cap, was floating not far
from the long cigar of the ship, to which it was attached by a cable.
Tycho Veg put on his space-suit and, securing himself with a line,
kicked himself off from the greenhouse airlock and floated off into the
silvery darkness of space.
He miscalculated and did not reach his goal straightway. He had to wind
himself back by pulling in the line hand over hand and then push off again.
This time, he propelled himself with one leg only so as to give his
jump better direction.
The spare cabin looked rough to him, like a meteorite. Tycho Veg clung
to it and crawled towards the base of the cone, where the cable to the
spaceship was secured.
He seized hold of the metal bracket outside the spare cabin and taking
up the cable that ran to the ship, began pulling it towards him together
with the cabin. After a short time, the cabin came into contact with the
ship. Tycho Veg had steeled himself for a tough job. To his great
astonishment, however, he noticed that the parts of the ship had been
designed for instant replacement. It only needed one contact with the joint
for the automatic machinery inside to be activated and for the old cabin to
detach itself easily from this ship and sail away towards the stars. The new
cabin fitted itself into place with the same ease.
Tycho Veg crawled inside to set the automatic pilot.
Another surprise awaited him inside: there was no need for him to
readjust the settings.
The impersonal voice of the automatic machine warned him about this the
moment he touched the control panel. All he had to do was to switch on the
automatic pilot and go back to the greenhouse.
As soon as he was there, he saw the rocket's nozzles begin blazing;
after making a precisely calculated turn, the ship headed for Phobo on a
course that had been unerringly checked by the machines.
Tycho Veg sighed. He had only been doing his duty. He never even gave a
thought to whether the warhead had been properly screened.
When he emerged from the lift-cage into the station corridor, he was
met by a pale and trembling Ala Veg.
"What's happened, darling?" asked Tycho.
"Our children... Children..." was all that she could say, and she burst
into tears.
She was holding in her hands a tablet inscribed with the latest news by
electromagnetic communication. Tycho read it and swayed, resting his hand on
the lift-cage door.
The news was that flocks of disintegration torpedoes from Danjab had
descended on the continent of the Superiors. There had been devastation and
casualties... But Yar Jupi foresaw victory and demanded rejoicing.
Mrak Luton ran into the corridor, waving his arms.
"The Dictator is alive! The Dictator is alive! The Blood Council is
continuing the struggle! To your stations! This is a space outpost!"
"Can our observer be in her place?" sneered Nega Luton, who had
appeared after him. "She should be worrying about her relatives, not about
winning the war."
Her eyes flashing, Ala Veg went into the observatory.
Tycho Veg was left standing in the corridor. He just couldn't make
sense of what was happening; he just couldn't believe that his native
Pleasure City might be lying in ruins, and his children...
He followed his wife into the observatory.
"I can't keep watch because of my tears," said Ala Veg as she turned to
him. "Take my place at the instrument. A strange star has appeared in that
quarter."
"Could it be our ship with the warhead?" "No, it's somewhere else."
Tycho began helping his wife and they soon established that the unknown
star was not obeying the usual laws of celestial mechanics and seemed to be
choosing its own flight trajectory.
Summoned by the alarm signal, Mrak Luton rushed into the observatory
and peered suspiciously at Tycho and Ala Veg.
"News from Faena? Orders from the Dictator? An instruction from the
Blood Council?"
"No," replied Ala Veg. "Communications have broken down. We have also
lost contact with Station Phobo."
"With Phobo?" bellowed Mrak Luton. "Treachery? Who dared to communicate
with Phobo, the enemy fortress in space?" He drew his pistol and brandished
it threateningly at them.
"I am simply reporting that communications with them do not exist. The
former channel has gone dead, as if something had happened there."
"It hasn't happened yet! But it soon will! Are you watching our
torpedo's flight?"
"It's flying dead on course, but..."
"What else?"
"It's being intercepted by an unidentified ship. Apparently from Phobo.
It seems to be heading for us. Is it possible that the station personnel
have packed and are flying to us?"
Mrak Luton roared with laughter.
"So as to surrender? To dump themselves on us? To gobble up our food
supplies? To breathe our oxygen? Or do they want to escape the punitive
torpedo?"
"But they might not know we sent it."
"But I know their ship's coming our way. Engineer Tycho Veg, I order
you to fire a defence rocket. The approaching ship must be destroyed."
"What d'you mean 'destroyed'?" protested Ala Veg. "Mightn't there be
living Faetians on board?"
"Living Faetians?" jeered Mrak Luton. "As if there were living Faetians
flying in our ship with the warhead! I've issued my orders. Send out defence
rockets, knock it out, destroy it!" Mrak Luton stamped his foot in a frenzy
and brandished his pistol.
Tycho Veg left the observatory. He knew where the defence rockets were.
They were not covered by the Agreement on Peace in Outer Space. They were
short-range missiles and could not reach another station, but they were
capable of locating in space and destroying the target approaching Deimo.
To activate these defence weapons, Tycho Veg did not have to descend
into the greenhouse. It was enough to go to Station Deimo's Central Console.
He fired the defence rockets when the ship from Station Phobo was
clearly distinguishable as a point glittering in Sol's rays.
He returned to his wife in the observatory, looking dejected and
drained of his strength. He felt he had done something dreadful.
Ala Veg could not hold back her tears.
"There are Faetians on board, there could be living Faetians on board,"
she kept repeating. "And no news from Faena."
"Our children can't possibly have been killed," said Tycho Veg, who had
no grounds whatever for such a statement.
He squinted through the eyepiece and saw something flare up in space
like a nova. One of defence rockets had exploded on encountering the ship
from Phobo.
On the big screen displaying the image, the ship-star plunged steeply
after the explosion towards the surface of Mar. It had been knocked out of
orbit by the force of the blast, but not destroyed.
All the Faetians on the station assembled in the observatory, except
for the imprisoned Brat Lua.
Mrak Luton personally came to fetch him.
"Let him watch!" he said, pushing Lua into the observatory and showing
him the mass of Mar in the porthole. "Let him watch with his own eyes!"
"Are you so sure that'll knock some sense into him?" asked Nega Luton
quietly.
Her husband grinned complacently.
"I know the inner world of the Faetians too well to be wrong. Otherwise
I wouldn't be Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard."
The six Faetians on Deimo saw another star flare up in space and go out
again.
"They've knocked out our torpedo!" And Mrak Luton stamped his foot.
Then, on the surface of Mar, two disintegration explosions occurred in
succession. In the russet deserts, the trunks of fabulous trees could be
seen from space as they soared up into the sky, billowing out into swirling
canopies. The distinct shadows of first one and then a second gigantic
mushroom lay across the sandy wilderness.
"What did I tell you!" roared Mrak Luton. "They wanted to be the .first
to wipe us out. Their ship with its warhead exploded first. But you were
just whining, you were talking about living Faetians."
"The station chief is right," sighed Tycho Veg. "He can see into the
Faetian soul."
"Engineer Tycho Veg! Stop drivelling! I know what I'm worth! Go back to
the greenhouse at once and fit one more ship with a torpedo."
"But we won't have any more ships left," said Tycho in an attempt at
protest.
"Victory! Victory at all costs! A ship will be sent for us as heroes of
the disintegration war from the triumphant continent of the Superiors."
"To hear is to obey," said Tycho Veg with a covert glance at Ala Veg.
But she sat with bowed head, her hands dangling down in despair.
Tycho Veg left to set up another ship-torpedo.
However, this second missile was also knocked out by defence rockets
fired by the Culture Is on Phobo.
A second volley of defence rockets was launched from Deimo to beat off
yet another ship that was glittering in the rays of Sol and might also have
been primed with a disintegration warhead.
Both ships, the one from Phobo and the one from Deimo, blew up almost
side by side in the deserts of Mar. First, monstrous mushrooms on stalks of
smoke rose up on the site of the explosions, and then, when the smoke had
dispersed, it was possible to see from above craters in the deserts of Mar
which had not been there before.
"How amazed the astronomers would be," said Ala Veg in a sinking voice,
"if they found craters like that on Mar."
Tycho did not react at all to these words. He had barely reached the
Central Console from which he had been discharging the defence rockets. He
was feeling really ill this time. It seemed to him that there had been
children flying to them in the ships and that they had been killed.
Chapter Six
Sheltering in the deep abandoned mine-shaft, Kutsi Merc had survived
the disintegration blast. The thunder above had long since died away.
It was damp underfoot. The raindrops were falling from above as if
counting the moments. It seemed to Kutsi that they were measuring out
infinite time. He sat there without strength or thoughts, dozing or in a
faint. Only hunger made him rise to his feet. But he was afraid to see what
awaited him above; he was afraid even to imagine it.
The raindrops were falling noisily, the only sounds to indicate that
the world still existed. The world? What world? Dead puddles and dead
raindrops?
His ravenous hunger drove Kutsi up the slippery metal rungs. Some of
them wobbled. Kutsi could fall to the bottom of the well. And it would all
be over. But the metal rungs held. There was a little blue circle high up
above. Strange! The Nepts' cabin had been built directly over the
mine-shaft.
The sky! With stars in it! Was it really night?
Kutsi climbed on upwards. The circle above him was growing bigger and
brighter, and the stars were gradually disappearing. But certainly not
because day was breaking. It was simply the effect of a darkened chimney,
when stars are visible from the bottom in the daytime. The circle overhead
was growing bigger while they were disappearing. Kutsi climbed out on to the
surface.
Sol was at its zenith. The Nepts' cabin no longer existed. It had
evidently been blown away when the stones were falling on to his shoulders.
The Faetian looked round and was dumbfounded. Not only had the Nepts'
cabin disappeared, not a single roundhead shack was left standing.
Everything around had been turned into an enormous refuse tip of garbage,
pathetic kitchen utensils, smashed furniture and rubble. A jagged wall rose
at an angle in the distance.
Kutsi made his way over to it. And immediately stumbled on the first
corpses. The Faetians had been killed by the windstorm that had followed the
disintegration explosion. Many were buried under the wreckage of their
shacks, many had been carried through the air and dashed against any solid
object in their way.
That was what had happened to the old Nept couple. Kutsi recognised
their mangled bodies by their clothes.
A chill ran up and down Kutsi's spine. He had heard plenty about the
disintegration weapon, but had never imagined that it would look like this
after an explosion.
The wall he had reached proved to be part of some huge workshops in a
suburb of Pleasure City. The building had collapsed, burying machines and
the Faetians who worked in it. In its place towered an ugly pile of rubble.
Had no one survived at all?
Kutsi Merc's two hearts were thudding painfully in his breast and his
temples throbbed accordingly. Why had the wounded one recovered?
Himself not knowing why, perhaps in the hope of meeting at least one
living Faetian,
Kutsi began wandering round Pleasure City.
His hunger, dulled by the initial horror, made itself felt again.
Kutsi's mind was in shock, and instinct was forcing him to look for
something edible in the mass of rubble.
Two mountainous ramparts rose like grey barkhans on either side of what
had been a street. In one place, under the fused stones, he thought he saw
food containers. He began digging into the pile and came upon a protruding
hand. He could not force himself to dig any further and went on between the
dunes of ash-covered rubble.
He had the feeling that he was wandering along an enormous dump of
builders' rubble.
Kutsi had never thought that the devastation could be so complete. It
was even impossible to make out the shapes of former buildings. There could
be no thought of finding something to eat in this pile of rubble.
Kutsi was suffering the torments of hunger. And this combination of
horror with the pangs of hunger was unnatural. He was disgusting even to
himself.
However, a more powerful emotion was beginning to get the better of
Kutsi.
Who was to blame for what had been done? Who had made a war of
disintegration the purpose of his doctrine? Who had turned the continent
into such a wilderness strewn with ashes?
Kutsi was overcome by a frenzied hatred of Dictator Yar Jupi; it
flooded his whole being, it overshadowed everything that he had known, even
the stipulations which the Great Circle of the proprietors had made about
unleashing a disintegration war and which he had once reported to Dobr Mar.
Kutsi Merc had failed to carry out his mission! The automatic systems
console was intact. Yar Jupi had begun the disintegration war first!
When he climbed up the cone of rubble, Kutsi saw the ocean. Its shore
was disfigured by a gigantic crater, now flooded with sea water. A torpedo
had evidently exploded in the port. The enormous crater was ringed by a
rampart that had covered part of the ruins. Clouds of sand and ooze had been
thrown up from the seabed into the air during the explosion and had then
fallen as dry ash onto the ruins.
Hatred, horror and the hopelessness of his position drove Kutsi further
on. The results of a shock wave are freakish. In one place, he stumbled on
the cross-section of a rocky hill with window openings and shapeless
patches. When he went closer, Kutsi saw a pile of scrap iron driven into a
wall.
In front of him he saw the wreckage of a steamcar that had been passing
that way at the time of the explosion.
Nearby, on the fused stone, shone patches vaguely suggestive of
Faetians.
Kutsi shuddered: "The white shadows of passers-by!" The pedestrians
themselves had been vapourised by the incredible heat, but their shadows had
been imprinted by the exploding star right there on the wall where the
outlines, the mangled images of those who not long ago had been living human
beings now showed up as lighter, less fused areas on the wall...
Kutsi could not bear it any longer. He ran back. His foot struck a
stone that rolled over the slag of the roadway. A smashed jar of something
edible! He picked it up. It proved to be carbon inside. The unprecedented
heat had coked the contents, converting it into a black, coagulated mass.
Kutsi wanted to get to the central quarters of the city. But he already
knew what he was going to see there: shadows on the walls, if the stones had
not been piled into shapeless heaps, and endless ramparts of rubble...
Then Kutsi made a decision. What he had been through had clouded his
mind. Not a single Faetian in possession of his faculties would have decided
on the crazy plan that hatched out in Kutsi's inflamed brain.
Kutsi knew that he was doomed: the deadly radiation had long since
penetrated his body. It would soon begin to make itself felt. There was very
little time left. He had no hope of survival whatever! Nor had he any desire
to live among the dead.
However, he considered himself under obligation to do his last duty.
With his characteristic determination, he went back across the heaps of
rubble to the Great Shore where, not so long ago, a sea wave had brought Ave
and Mada together.
The further away he was from the site of the explosion, the more hope
there was of finding something to eat. A house lizard with charred skin was
lying under a wall just like the bodies of the Nepts. The affectionate,
quick-moving, nimble lizard had, of course, been a general favourite of the
dead couple.
Kutsi laughed bitterly. The Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard had met
him on the ship and had called him a carrion-eater. Had it occurred to the
man that he would prove to be right?
Only at night did Kutsi reach the Temple of Eternity, or rather the
mountain of stones lying where it had once stood. If his "hump" had been the
cause of the explosion, then it might be possible to find a way into the
underground by way of the crater.
Kutsi was certain that the electric power system had been put out of
action and that the automatic doors would not be working.
He proved right in one respect and wrong in the other.
Only in the morning did he manage to find the way into the deep
corridor where the explosion had occurred. The gallery was less cluttered
with stones than everything else around, since the gases had shot out of it
as from a gun-barrel.
Kutsi's frenzied will-power helped him to dig out the entrance into the
underground where he had been "killed" by Yar Alt.
His old self again, Kutsi made his way like a spy along the walls,
lighting his path with a pocket torch. But suddenly a bright light came on
of its own accord. Kutsi Merc was overjoyed at this, but he was also
frightened by it. If the supply to the underground rooms was still working,
he would not be able to get through the closed walls. Yar Jupi was still
alive. He was still sending disintegration torpedoes against Danjab. Kutsi
Merc had no right to retreat.
A blank wall rose up in front of him. When Kutsi had crawled outside
from there, the walls had been divided, which meant that this must be
another route leading to the Dictator's underground Lair.
Kutsi Merc tried in vain to separate the walls, driving into a chink a
piece of metal he had picked out on the surface.
Beads of cold sweat started up on his brow. He could not back out, he
simply could not do it! He fixed a glare full of hatred at the spiral
ornament on the accursed wall.
The wall divided.
Kutsi was well versed in the technology of automatic machines that
could memorise the brain biocurrents. He instantly realised that they had
been programmed to a particularly strong character trait of the chosen
Faetians. For Yar Jupi himself, whom all automatic machines had, of course,
to obey, the predominant characteristic was hatred. It was answered by the
"blood doors", which were also tuned to Mada's kindly nature and that of her
nanny. But Kutsi's hatred now was evidently not inferior to that of the
Dictator himself. And so the automatic machines of the Lair went into
action.
Kutsi ran along the illuminated corridor. Each time the wall barred his
way, Kutsi's glare of hatred opened it.
After a steep downward slope, the corridor made a turn, emerging into a
spacious apartment reminiscent of a palace hall with a vaulted ceiling.
There was no furniture in it except for a huge cupboard with shining
vertical slits.
Two enormous robots with cubic heads and articulated tentacles came
rushing straight at him.
Kutsi guessed that he must have reached his goal. The Dictator's
bunker!
Hatred made Kutsi Merc invincible. He rushed at the robots, ordering
them to follow him. And the robots obeyed, programmed to respond to the
Dictator's principal emotion.
Kutsi Merc stopped before the secretary-box, not admitting to himself