Translated by Alex Miller
RADUGA PUBLISHERS MOSCOW
OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2/
Translation from the Russian
Illustrated and designed by Mikhail Verkholantsev
Original Russian title: ГИБЕЛЬ ФАЭНЫ
На английском языке
(c)Издательство "Детская литература" 1974
English translation (c)Raduga Publishers 1989
From the author
Part One. Tension
Chapter One. The Wave
Chapter Two. Two Shores
Chapter Three. The Masters
Chapter Four. The Temple of Eternity
Chapter Five. Blood
Chapter Six. No Happiness in this World
Chapter Seven. The Forgotten Hump
Part Two. Explosion
Chapter One. The Little World
Chapter Two. The Golden Apple
Chapter Three. Paradise Lost
Chapter Four. At the Peak of Civilisation
Chapter Five. Craters in the Wilderness
Chapter Six. Judgement
Chapter Seven. The Star of Hatred
Part Three. Fragments
Chapter One. Twilight
Chapter Two. Mutiny in Space
Chapter Three. In the Name of Reason
Chapter Four. Spiders in Jar
Chapter Five. The Naked Leader
Chapter Six. The Testament of the Great Elder
Epilogue. The Talking Beast
From the author
Cosmogony is no less full of riddles than the history of Earth. And
where there are riddles, there is room for fantasy. However, if it is
divorced from reality and rejects verisimilitude and authenticity, fantasy
is empty, it leaves no trace in the heart; the best it can do is to
titillate the reader's senses. But I have always wanted to achieve
"authenticity in the incredible", to write fantasy founded solely on real
facts and unsolved mysteries.
One such riddle that excited me was the ring of asteroids (minor
planets) between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter instead of the planet, as
predicted by Kepler's law, which had exploded for some unknown reason,
scattering fragments all round its orbit. How could that have happened?
If the planet had exploded from within because of certain processes,
its fragments would have flown in all directions as from a high-explosive
bomb and would have continued moving round the sun in elongated elliptical
orbits... But they are moving round in their former almost circular
planetary orbit. If the planet had perished because of a collision with
another cosmic body, their common fragments would have tended towards a
resultant, also acquiring elongated elliptical orbits; but they have
virtually stayed where they were.
The planet apparently cracked as the result of a powerful impact
received simultaneously from all directions; it then disintegrated under the
influence of the gravity of Mars and Jupiter. Its remains kept colliding and
breaking up, creating swarms of meteorites and stringing out round the whole
former orbit of the planet. But what kind of explosion was it? The explosion
of its water envelope, its oceans?
It so happened that I was able to put this question to the great
20th-century physicist. Nils Bohr when he met us Moscow writers.
"Can all a planet's oceans explode if a super powerful nuclear device
is detonated in their depths?" I asked him.
"I don't deny such a possibility," he replied, and added, "but even if
it weren't so, nuclear weapons must be banned in any case."
He understood it all at once! If the planet had perished when its
oceans exploded, then there was a civilisation on it that had destroyed
itself because of a nuclear war.
This was the stimulus for me as a novelist to write my trilogy The
Faetians. Other problems found their way into it. Why has the missing link
between man and the Earth's animal world never been discovered? Why does
Mars seem uninhabited, and was it always so? Why did great cataclysms occur
on Earth, such as the sinking of Atlantis and the rise of the Andes?
According to some theories, the cause was a gigantic asteroid that fell onto
Earth, or the appearance of the hitherto non-existent Moon in the sky over
Earth. Is this so?
The reader will learn all about it in the novel as he follows the lives
of the characters, who witnessed unprecedented catastrophes.
The author will be happy if this book helps the reader to acquire a
taste for the great secrets of the Universe and of Earth's history.
Alexander Kazantsev
Peace is the virtue of civilisation.
War is its crime.
Victor Hugo
Tension
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,Profaners of
this neighbour-stained steel.
Will they not hear?-
What ho! You men, you beasts.
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins.
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground...
W. Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet
Chapter One
Translation of an extraterrestrial message inscribed in the language of
the Faetians who lived on Faena a million years ago. (Books 2 and 3 of my
science-fantasy novel, The Faetians, tell of who wrote and sent this message
to Earth and who deciphered it.)
The only daughter of the Dictator of Powermania, an ancient continent
of Faena, was named Yasna after her mother. Her father, Yar Jupi, had been
hoping for a son, but he loved his daughter beyond measure. He kept dreaming
that she would grow up, get married and leave him. When, as was the custom,
he needed to give his grown-up daughter a final name, he could think of
nothing better than calling her Mada, which meant Falling-in-love. Surnames
on Faena were borrowed from the stars and planets. For example. Mar, Jupi,
Alt or Sirus.
Mada Jupi took after her mother: she was called beautiful. Her face
baffled the artists, being lively, always changing, now merry, now clear,
now pensive. How could they paint her? She typified the best of the
longfaces, but the oval of her features was moderate and soft, her nose was
straight and her lips were firmly compressed.
This blue-eyed Faetess (as they were called on Faena) was met on the
Great Shore by Ave Mar, a visitor to Powermania. The girl was coming out of
the water, having chosen the moment when a breaker had crashed on the shore
and was sliding back in a mass of hissing foam.
Ave wished he had been a sculptor. Everything he had heard about Mada
from his hunchbacked secretary Kutsi Merc was pale, inadequate and dull
compared with what he could see with his own eyes.
A fat, elderly Faetess, one of the roundheads, ran into the water and
wrapped the girl in a soft, fluffy sheet as she emerged.
Mada took no notice whatever of Ave, although from what her companion
had told her, she knew quite a lot about him. The nanny deftly put a folding
chair down on the sand and Mada sat on it, wrapping the sheet round her as
the ancients used to drape themselves in their robes.
Kutsi Merc noticed the impression that Mada had made on Ave, and he
hunched his back even more as he bent down to speak.
"Shall we show this to the local natives?"
And with a significant smile on his clever, evil face, he held a small,
smooth board out to Ave. Sitting on the sand and admiring Mada, Ave vaguely
replied:
"Well, I didn't realise we'd brought that with us!"
"The proud and beautiful Mada Jupi is here," said the secretary
encouragingly. Ave Mar stood up. Thanks to his impressive height, long,
strong neck and piercing eyes, he gave the impression of looking over the
heads of everybody else.
In obedience to his own impulse, as it seemed to him, he took the board
from Kutsi and walked boldly with it into the water.
Without taking her eyes off Kutsi, Mada's companion whispered into the
girl's ear:
"Look, Mada! The stranger from Danjab I was telling you about has taken
a board with him."
In spite of the breakwater, built to make swimming easier when the tide
was coming in, the waves were crashing violently onto the shore. Outside the
barrier, they were truly gigantic, rearing up their foaming crests one after
another as on the open sea.
"Where's he swimming to?" asked Mada's companion in alarm. "Shouldn't
we call the lifeguards?"
"He's a better swimmer than you think," commented Mada vaguely.
"But why's he taken that board? It's frightening to watch."
Even so, she couldn't take her eyes off him.
Ave swam as far as the breakwater and climbed over it. He had now
attracted the attention of many swimmers.
"Why did you decide he's that particular stranger?" asked Mada.
"Because of his companion. Roundheaded, like me; a hunchback into the
bargain, yet he's as proud as if he was strolling along the beach of Danjab.
I feel ashamed for our own people. Isn't anyone going to teach that show-off
how to swim?"
"No, I don't want to," said Mada, watching as the gigantic breakers
swept the foreign visitor up onto their crests.
And suddenly all the holidaymakers on the beach stirred in amazement.
The swimmer chose the moment when a particularly big wave lifted him up
on its crest, jumped to his feet and waved his arms, as if wanting to fly
like a bird. He did not take off, however, but simply kept his balance on
the slippery board. He stood like that on the foaming crest and with
frightening speed swept towards the shore, clad in foam and spray. It seemed
incredible that he should stay on the moving watery mountain. But the madman
not only held his position; laughing defiantly, he began gliding down the
steep watery slope, then allowed the wave to throw him upon its crest again.
The crowded beach gasped at this bold display of skill.
"But I must see how that's done," said Mada determinedly, casting off
the "ancient robe" and handing it to her worried nanny.
"What are you doing, my dear?" she protested, forgetting her recent
advice. "He'll bump you with his board. And is it fitting for the daughter
of Yar Jupi to swim beside him?"
Mada ran into the sea and dived into an oncoming wave. The dark cap of
stretch material protecting her thick hair from the water bobbed amid the
foaming crests.
Mada swam as far as the breakwater and climbed onto it. From there she
saw the foreign swimmer going back to the sea with his board for another
ride on the breakers. She waved to him, although he could not see her.
There was unlikely to be as skilful a swimmer on the Great Shore as
Mada. The ocean waves bore her up onto their crests and tried to hurl her
back. But she was not accustomed to giving up once she had set her heart on
something. She decided that she absolutely must stand on that magic board,
and no force in the world could have stopped her.
The foreigner swimming away from the shore didn't even look round.
Mada only had a glimpse of the stranger, but as she swam after him she
had the distinct impression of an athletic figure in a loincloth, strong
muscles rippling under the skin, and curly hair as tousled as that of a boy.
Suddenly, Mada saw him. He was standing on a foaming crest. The water
seemed to be boiling under him, and with reckless abandon he began gliding
down the watery slope straight at Mada.
Ave noticed her at the last moment and jumped, while Mada dived under
the board.
It seemed to her that the wave had crashed down on her, but it was just
the board grazing her slightly.
Mada surfaced and looked round. The stranger's eyes met hers as he
bobbed up to the surface. He laughed joyfully and promptly began swimming
towards her, seizing the board on the way.
"Hold on!" he shouted while still some distance off.
Mada could not make anything out, but she smiled in answer, since she
realised that he was hurrying to her assistance. When he swam up to her, she
said:
"I want to stand on that..." and she pointed at the board.
"Ave Mar will be happy to help..."
"Mada Jupi."
"You'll learn the meaning of joy, strength and happiness!"
The people standing on the shore watched what was happening on the
other side of the breakwater. A sigh coursed along the beach when the two
figures appeared standing straight up on the crest of a wave, holding on to
one another and each evidently standing with one foot on the board. It
seemed like a miracle. With their arms round each other's waists in full
view of the onlookers and without falling, they were borne on the foaming
crest towards the beach.
Never had Mada experienced such pleasure before.
Even so, when Mada and Ave crossed the breakwater and were returning
with the board to the crowded beach, Mada felt uneasy. If someone had told
her the day before that she was capable of such flightiness, she would have
burst out laughing.
Ave held the board in one hand and was ready to help Mada with the
other if the surf swept her off her feet. But Mada went ahead of him and,
skipping over the gurgling foam with a laugh, was the first to run up onto
the beach.
She seemed to be showing that, as the Dictator's daughter, she could do
whatever she liked!
Her anxious companion wrapped her charge up in the fluffy sheet.
"How good it was! If you only knew how good it was, Mother Lua!"
"As if I couldn't know," she grumbled. "I nearly died, waiting for you.
If anything happened to you, I'd surely be executed by order of Yar Jupi
(may he be happy, the great man!)"
"It's a good thing you're alive and can help me with one or two little
matters."
Mother Lua gave her a stern look.
"It frightens me to think of it, my dear."
Mother Lua had guessed rightly about her charge's intentions. Mada had
always dreamed about a real Faetian, manly, noble and pure. The uncultured
Faetians among the Superiors, flaunting a civilisation that had become
static since ancient times, repelled her with their boorishness, arrogance
and contempt for the roundheads, whose children her mother had once nursed.
The stranger, as her nanny had told her, was alien to all gloomy
superstitions of the Superiors; he was a scholar of Danjab who was not
afraid to break free of the Science of Death there and end up at loggerheads
with everybody. It was just such a Faetian that Mada could dream about, and
he had, on top of all that, turned out to be athletic, daring and handsome.
It was innate in Faetians to be mutually attracted "at first sight",
which they did not always admit even to themselves.
The daughter of Yar Jupi had justified the name her father had given
her-she had fallen in love straightway with a visitor clad in foam and, in
Mother Lua's opinion, had lost her wits.
"Think, my dear! If he was a longface, it would have been all right.
But they're going to call this one a half-breed. Contempt and hatred! Think
again, my dear! I taught you the truth about all the Faetians, but not for
that!.."
"No," replied Mada firmly. "Let it be the way I want it. You will go to
his companion and tell him where Ave and I are going to meet."
"You'll be noticed together! The Blood Guard will seize him. Don't wish
him harm."
"It shall be as I have said. Others will not be able to look at us. We
shall meet in the palace garden."
"The garden behind the Wall?" echoed Lua in alarm.
"You will escort them through the Blood Door."
Mother Lua looked downcast. But Mada paid no attention to her, walking
on with her chin up.
The Blood Door! It was one of the most reliable of the devices in the
Lair, as the Dictator's palace was called. Yar Jupi had long been racked by
persecution mania. It seemed to him that there were conspiracies under way
everywhere to assassinate him. Consequently, he had been living for many
cycles without leaving the territory of the Lair and never letting himself
be seen outside its walls. He communicated with his subordinates only over
closed TV. He trusted no one. Security was maintained at key points by
automatons who admitted only chosen Faetians with identifiable brain
biocurrents.
Only the Faetians closest to the Dictator could use the Blood Door.
There was no other key to it and no outsider could open it.
And now Mother Lua had to escort foreigners into the garden outside the
Wall. She knew that her charge would not change her mind. Moreover, she did
not want to obstruct Mada in any case.
Need it be said that Ave, the young Faetian, had also fallen in love?
Inclined to extremes by nature, time and time again he relived the moments
when, with their arms round each other's waists, he and the wonderful
Faetess had ridden the surf together. He was in a fever, but he could not
imagine how to see his beloved again, since she had turned out to be Yar
Jupi's daughter.
Grunting as if carrying a heavy load, Kutsi Merc trudged along behind
Ave. He was not in the least surprised to notice that the nurse had fallen
behind her charge and was adjusting a shoelace.
Letting Ave go ahead, the hunchback hung back near the roundhead, and
she, without straightening up, said almost inaudibly:
"As soon as shining Jupi rises in the sky, take your master to the
ruins of the old shrine in the Dread Wall."
Kutsi Merc nodded, grinned craftily and caught up with his master.
"Success is the envy of failures. A tryst has been made at the old
ruins in the light of Jupi, the brightest of planets."
Ave looked round suddenly.
"Are you jesting?"
"Jesting is of no avail in my profession. Kutsi Merc is too good a ...
helper."
By a whim of the Dictator's, the Dread Wall round his Lair ran through
a tiny ruined shrine dividing it into two halves. This screened from view
the Blood Door, which was hardly noticeable in any case. The wall in the
lower part divided in obedience to the brain biocurrents written into the
program of the electronic automatons.
Mother Lua nervously gave the door its mental instructions and it
opened.
Ave and Kutsi Merc, who were standing in the half-ruined portico,
quickly proceeded through the gap, Lua followed them and the Wall closed
behind her. Only the ruins on the inner side of the wall showed where to
look for the vanished door.
Ave looked round. He was in a luxuriant garden. Sinuous lianas hung
down like snakes guarding their prey. Beyond the shaggy tree-trunks lurked a
gloom that seemed dense and clammy. Lua, the nocturnal luminary whose name
the nurse bore, had not yet begun to rise, and Jupi, the brightest of the
planets, was only just silvering the tree-tops. Under them it was as dark as
on a starless night.
The young Faetian's heart was thudding in his breast.
Kutsi Merc's pulse was throbbing evenly enough. He had gained access to
the Lair, into which not even a snake could crawl its way...
Chapter Two
Ave Mar first met Kutsi Merc, his secretary, half a cycle before the
encounter with Mada on the Great Shore.
Ave Mar's steamcar stopped that day in a mountain pass on the continent
of the Culturals of Danjab.
The view took Ave's breath away. The ocean, revealed from high up,
seemed to ascend to the very heavens. The misty band of the horizon looked
like a ridge of lofty clouds.
Below lay Business City. The skyscrapers stood in concentric circles.
They were linked by ring and radial streets and avenues, on both sides of
which lay green parks and glittering lakes. In the city centre towered a
skyscraper resembling the conical axis of the monstrous Wheel of Business
Life.
Ave put his foot down on the pedal to open the high-pressure boiler
valve. The steam drive slowly moved the car from its place, accelerating it
to the required speed.
Steamcars had appeared very recently, but had quickly replaced the
obsolete vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. In their time,
these machines had poisoned the air of the cities with their exhaust gases.
The fuel they consumed could have served as chemical raw material for
clothing and other goods in daily use.
As he drove at top speed along the magnificent road, Ave Mar crossed
the outer circle avenue on which stood the tower blocks of Business City.
From a distance, they seemed conical. In fact, they were stepped. They
were girt by a spiral steamcar road which gave access to each storey in
succession and to the garage entrances outside every flat.
The conical towers housed shops with corridors leading to exits onto
the spiral road, restaurants, cafes, and also theatres and concert or
viewing halls. There were production workshops and business offices in the
centre of the multistorey building.
Moving staircases led to the garages under the living quarters.
The ordinary Faetians, toiling in the workshops, had no cars and hardly
ever left their cramped little rooms, unaware of any world other than that
shut in by the skyscraper's spiral roadway.
Ave stopped his steamcar. The garage doors opened automatically and
closed behind him when he had driven in.
The car needed no maintenance, being permanently ready for use with the
necessary steam pressure in its boiler. The heating device of disintegration
matter was, so to speak, part of the machine and wore out with it.
Ave Mar was in a dejected mood. He dropped in on one of his friends;
but the friend had summoned a secret meeting and had not invited Ave. Ave
understood what it was all about and drove off immediately.
On the way back he saw the pathetic hovels of the Faetians who worked
in the fields. He felt ashamed of himself for having, over his garage,
several living rooms in which no one lived, in fact, except for himself.
He had never known lack of room, but he had known loneliness and could
only call up his mother over the screen. Oh, Mother, Mother! Even at that
enormous distance, she unerringly guessed what was in her son's heart and
was always the first to appear on the screen.
Ave glumly stepped onto the upward moving staircase.
What was the meaning of life, if all that lay ahead was a blind alley
from which the Faetians could not escape? It was madness to seek deliverance
in wars of annihilation. Many Faetians understood as much...
But why did his friends not trust him? He needn't keep quiet with them.
Did he not also subscribe to the Doctrine of Justice? But they didn't need
him... No one needed him...
Ave went into the first of his round rooms and stopped dead in
amazement. A broad-shouldered, burly hunchback came up to meet him with a
guarded smile on his hard face.
"Ease and happiness!" said the stranger. "I am Kutsi Merc! The Ruler
Dobr Mar gave me the key of this flat as his son's secretary."
Ave smiled bitterly.
"Is my father worried that his son is gnawed by misery?"
"Your father was thinking of something more important."
"Will it deliver me from bitterness?"
"Would it be a bad thing to visit the ancient continent of Powermania?
High technology in the hands of barbarians who call themselves Superiors?"
"What's the sense of such dreams? I worked with Um Sat. I specialise in
the disintegration of matter, so I am not allowed to travel overseas. We
live in times of emptiness, disillusion, tension..."
"As your secretary, I shall help you in everything, even in a trip to
the continent of the barbarians."
So saying, the hunchback went into the other room. He soon returned
carrying vessels with beverages and two cylinders of compressed narcotic
smoke which the Culturals loved to inhale when relaxing. Kutsi Merc's
clothes were stretched tight over his hump, as if tailored for someone else.
Ave was amazed at the speed with which his new acquaintance made
himself at home. The neglected flat was transformed. Mechanisms, switched on
before the occupant's arrival, had cleaned the place up.
As he inhaled the smoke, the young Faetian studied Kutsi Merc.
"If only we journey to Powermania," he said reflectively, "before
misery kills desire..."
"Desires must be fulfilled. Otherwise it is not worth desiring. The
Faetesses over the ocean are very beautiful."
"How can that be of any importance? Even knowledge is powerless to lead
the Faetians out of their blind alley. Soulless power politics, blind
subordination to dogma! The blockheads refuse to listen to anything that is
unfamiliar to them!.." Ave was suffering from rejection of his ideas and was
airing his sense of injury.
"The great law of inertia! Inertia can be overcome by the application
of energy. The law must be interpreted more broadly."
"Kutsi Merc is undoubtedly more than adequately equipped for the
obligations of secretary."
"One must also overcome the inertia in oneself." Kutsi Merc blew out an
intricate pattern of smoke.
The hunchback was certainly astonishing Ave Mar; but there were still
more surprises to come.
Kutsi now came to see Ave Mar every day and tirelessly told stories
about the legendary continent of a very ancient civilisation. It turned out
that he knew Power-mania extremely well, was familiar with its history, art,
and architecture, had evidently been there a number of times, and was fluent
in the language of the barbarians, as he called the inhabitants of
Powermania.
"Look and marvel. The depths of ignorance and the heights of knowledge,
an alien technology and the wild theories of the Superiors, the slums of the
roundheaded monsters and the legendary beauty, Mada Jupi."
"The Dictator's daughter?" asked Ave, interested in spite of himself.
"Brought up by a most cultured nurse of roundhead stock. Became a
Sister of Health, looks after children in spite of her father's Doctrine of
Hatred. He loves her so much that he will tolerate any of her whims."
"What does she look like?" asked Ave vaguely.
Kutsi brightened up.
"The long legs of the runner, but feminine. The lines of her body would
make a classical sculpture. A soft heart and the hauteur of pride. It's hard
to win her indulgence."
"It looks as though Kutsi Merc has been having a try."
With a bitter smile, the hunchback pointed to his hump.
"Kutsi Merc bears too heavy a burden in life."
He had now completely relieved Ave Mar of his daily household chores.
He went on talking about Powermania, but didn't mention Mada again.
It was Ave Mar who raised the subject of a possible journey over the
sea.
Kutsi Merc had apparently been waiting for this.
"The berths on the ship have been booked."
Ave Mar stood on the deck of the ocean-going ship and looked into the
distance. This time, the ocean wasn't rising to heaven, as in the view from
the mountain pass, but it was as boundless and no less striking to the
imagination.
Dm Sat had confided a terrible secret to his pupil about this ocean.
Every secret is a burden, and this one, concerning the destiny of all
Faetians, was a particularly heavy weight on Ave's mind.
Kutsi warily tried to found out the cause of Ave's bad mood, but Ave
avoided the subject by holding forth against scientists who would not accept
his ideas about the possibility of life on other planets.
Kutsi grinned craftily and poked fun at the young Faetian, maintaining
that the real reason was that he hadn't yet fallen in love.
The barbarians' continent appeared on the horizon. Sharp arrows seemed
to be sticking up out of the water. Over the sea rose the weird buildings of
the ancient continent, on which the houses were not round, but rectangular
(how absurd!}. Incredibly crowded, they reached for the sky and gradually
merged into a pile of irregular acute-angled pillars that suggested a
cluster of crystals.
Almost leaping out of the water, a security launch raced towards the
ship.
They were faced with the control procedure. Kutsi Merc sought out his
master so as to be at his side.
Longfaced men with hooked noses were climbing aboard. They were all in
identical angular clothes with collars upraised at the back and short dark
hooded capes that became rectangular bands on the chest.
"Hey you, hunchbacked offspring of carrion-eaters! Make way before the
Blood Guard!" snarled the first of the longfaces as he drew level with Kutsi
Merc. "You'll have to get out of here and go back to your stinking island."
Ave Mar, who had specially learned the language of Powermania, flushed
with rage but, on catching Kutsi's sidelong glance of warning, he kept
quiet.
But Kutsi Merc arched his hump as he bowed, meekly lowering his head
and using a manner of speech not his own, but typical of the local dialect.
"Perhaps the officer of the Blood Guard will be interested to know that
the insignificant roundhead whom he sees before him is only secretary to
this distinguished traveller, the clear-thinking Ave Mar, son of the Ruler
of Danjab."
The longface, who was wearing a beard in imitation of Dictator Yar
Jupi, glanced contemptuously at Kutsi.
Ave Mar offered him his tokens.
"The athletic son of Ruler Dobr Mar is recognisable even without his
tokens," said the officer, showing off his familiarity with the old manner
of speech. "As for this contemptible roundheaded cripple, he should be
attached as if by a chain to his master while serving him, as is preordained
by nature." And the officer made for the other passengers.
Kutsi Merc ran after him, humbly begging the return of the tokens. The
officer threw them down; they landed on the deck with a jingle and nearly
rolled overboard. Kutsi Merc bent over to snatch them up and even went down
on his knees.
The officer laughed coarsely.
"That's how to welcome the land of Superiors-in the posture of the
lizard from which you are not so distantly descended."
"May happy days last for a long time here," replied Kutsi Merc humbly.
The ocean-going ship sailed into a harbour which was surrounded on all
sides by enormous, weirdly rectangular buildings. Among them, Ave Mar
immediately recognised several famous temples which had been built in
ancient times and had towered high over all the other buildings of that
period. The city had risen since then and had blotted them from view.
So this was what it was like. Pleasure City!
Some of the gigantic blocks were linked by fantastical multi-tiered
street-bridges crossing at various levels.
Ave thought that he was looking at a forest mound, which in his
homeland was built by little insects with many feet.
This impression of the maritime city of the Superiors was strengthened
even further when he and Kutsi Merc were on dry land. They were pushed and
jostled by crowds of hurrying Faetians. In addition to the steam-cars, there
were vehicles powered by obsolete internal combustion engines. Making an
appalling din and poisoning the air, this medley of heterogeneous vehicles
surged past the half-asphyxiated Ave or thundered overhead on the crazy
bridges between the massive artificial canyons of the buildings. Squeezed
into a corner of the tiny lift-cage by other Faetians, Ave and Kutsi were
taken up to the tiny room set aside for them in the expensive Palace of
Visitors.
While Kutsi Merc unpacked, Ave stood at the lancet window and looked
out on an alien world. He could not see any of the old-time romance for
which he had yearned since childhood. Everything here was an eyesore,
beginning with the uniform of the coarse Blood Guards and ending with the
awkward angles of the cramped little room.
"Don't torture your eyes with barbarian buildings," said Kutsi Merc.
"We'll be on the Great Shore tomorrow."
A roundhead servant of low stature appeared and asked whether the new
arrivals would prefer vegetable or animal food with blood for dinner, and
whether they wanted, like all travellers, to look round the densely
populated quarters of the city, and whether they had any other orders for
him.
Kutsi Merc considered it necessary to display the traditional
curiosity, so he and Ave did not allow themselves time for a rest, but
trailed off into the famous roundhead quarters.
Although he knew the slums of his native continent, Ave had never
imagined that Faetians could live in such filthy and overcrowded conditions.
It was only possible to breathe on a street when it became a suspension
bridge. But where the street was hemmed in by buildings and ran between them
like a tunnel, it became, as it were, part of the living quarters. Not shy
of passers-by, the Faetians kept their doors open, got on with their
household chores, sat at the table with children born before the roundheads
were banned from having children, ate their simple but acrid-smelling food
and went to bed. The Faetesses poked their heads out of the open doors and,
shouting loudly, conversed with the inhabitants on the second or third
stories up. Here and there, only just above the heads of the passers-by, the
inmates' washing had been hung out to dry; most of them did not know whether
they would have to sweat at work on the next day as well.
Ave very much wanted to hold his nose when, accompanied by Kutsi, he
fled from those evil-smelling quarters, famed for their openly exhibited
poverty. The Power of Justice had only existed for a hundred and three days
and it had not been able to help the residents...
"So what's the answer to this?" wondered Ave. "Is it really in the
monstrous law of a Dictator who has forbidden these families to have
children?"
Was it really to see all this that he had dreamed of coming here from
across the ocean ever since childhood?
But next day he saw the Great Shore and Mada.
Chapter Three
Dictator Yar Jupi's palace was part of the Temple of Eternity, in which
worship had ceased after the Faetians forgot their religion. Now the Dread
Wall separated the temple from the monastery buildings that had been
converted for the Dictator's use. The soaring spire of black stone resembled
a torpedo with a disintegration warhead. The ancient architects never
suspected that they were anticipating the outlines of a future weapon. Even
less could they have imagined that, in the event of a disintegration war,
the cellars under the Temple of Eternity would house the Central Control
Panel of Defence Automatons. The machines could unleash a death-dealing
swarm of disintegration torpedoes against Danjab.
A session of Peaceful Space was now being held over these fearsome
machines in the former shrine of the temple with its black columns soaring
up into the sky. Its chairman was Dm Sat of Danjab, who had in his time
discovered the disintegration of matter (By the disintegration of matter,
the Faetians meant the nuclear reactions of fissionand synthesis, as a
result of which, as is known, a deficiency of mass is observed; that is,
matter diminishes; it disintegrates, releasing an enormous amount of energy)
and had made a terrible mistake by publishing his discovery on both
continents simultaneously. The great roundhead, as he was called, and the
planet's first authority on matter, had decided that he was as great an
authority on life. Believing that the simultaneous appearance of a
superpowerful weapon on both continents would create a "balance of fear", he
hoped that war would become impossible. However, the tension of the
relations between the continents was growing. Urn Sat had only hit on one of
the causes: overpopulation and hostility because of the lack of room. But
the hostility over profits was far more dangerous. Overpopulation was
aggravating all aspects of the struggle even further. The proprietors on
both continents, while suppressing dissatisfaction of the toilers by force,
were also threatening one another with force across the ocean. It seemed to
them that they could, at the expense of their competitors, not only boost
profits, but could pacify the malcontents in their own country with a small
handout.
The horrified Um Sat was beginning to realise the inevitability of a
disintegration war and he considered himself responsible for it. That is why
he was now trying to find a solution for everything in the exploration of
new space continents, dreaming about the partial resettlement of Faetians on
them and about universal reconciliation.
Heavy responsibility, disillusion, care and fatigue had left their mark
on the old Faetian's face. His high forehead under the dense shock of hair
was furrowed by deep lines. The big, sad eyes were full of kindly wisdom and
understanding. But with it all went a weak chin covered by a greying beard.
In spite of the Sat's tragic mistake, he was still respected for his
tremendous achievements in science and for his unquestionable integrity of
purpose. Consequently, the sages of learning from both continents met him in
the hall with the greatest respect.
But at that moment, within only a hundred paces of the Temple of
Eternity, behind the wall of the Lair, there was another world-famous
Faetian whom no one respected but all feared.
Yar Jupi became Dictator during the black days when the Power of
Justice was suppressed.
Before his daughter was born, he was merely an inconspicuous tradesman
who did business with the roundheads. To please his clients, he took Mother
Lua into service for Mada, who had lost her mother. The nurse replaced the
child's real mother at the memorable time when the fury of the oppressed
burst into the open. The uprising shook Powermania, depriving the
proprietors of power and possessions.
Lying low in their burning hatred, they refused to reconcile themselves
to defeat. They had the brutal experience of struggle amongst themselves.
They had always fought to the death with the toilers and with one another.
However, they were now ready to forget their own quarrels.
There were proprietors on both sides of the ocean. But since the
discovery and settlement of the new continent of Danjab, the Faetians had
lived there without the ancient prejudices; there wasn't even any favourable
soil on which they could flourish. The result was that, under the new
circumstances, both roundheads and longheads began enjoying equal rights and
opportunities to make others work for them. Be that as it may, it led to the
rapid growth of, if not a culture, at least a technology. The products of
the Gutturals, as its inhabitants began to style themselves, invariably
proved better and cheaper than those of Powermania's barbarians. And the
proprietors of Danjab inundated the old continent with their products. In
Powermania, crude and primitive means of manufacture still prevailed. The
proprietors of that continent found themselves under threat of ruin. No
matter how much they oppressed their toilers, the profits were slipping out
of their hands. They came to seethe with hatred for everything from Danjab.
Only a defeat in the struggle with the Justice Movement temporarily
relegated a reckoning with the overseas proprietors to the background.
When Yar Jupi proclaimed his Doctrine of Hatred, he had only heard
about the Council of Blood, not suspecting who the members might be. Once,
when summoned to a secret meeting of the council in a cellar, he was shaken
to recognise, under the cowls of those present, two important workshop
proprietors and one big land proprietor.
"Our choice has fallen on you, Yar Jupi," declared the land proprietor.
"Your Doctrine of Hatred could unite, for nothing unites better than common
hatred. With its help, the Movement of Blood should suppress the Movement of
Justice. But do not forget that purity of blood," he added significantly,
"though regarded as the supreme ideal, is still only a weapon for
suppressing the power of the riff-raff."
"The Movement of Blood will justify its name," affirmed Yar Jupi, who
already considered himself as one of its leaders.
The proprietors exchanged glances.
"We shall deal with the roundheads both here and overseas," said the
future Dictator with inspiration.
"You traded with the roundheads, your wife nursed their children,"
began a workshop proprietor insinuatingly, and he threw back his cowl. "That
is advantageous to us, because, however loudly you may shout about hatred,
the overseas proprietors can still trust you most of all for having been
able to get on with the roundheads. You will go overseas and convince them
that what has happened here will happen to them too. Let them help us to
deal with the power of the 'seekers after justice', having thereby preserved
their own possessions. Let them send good weapons to the contingents of your
cutthroats. You will know how to use it. Both now ... and later. You
understand?" And the workshop proprietor pulled the hood with its eyeslits
down over his face.
Yar Jupi understood everything perfectly. Shrewd and cunning, he made
his Doctrine of Hatred the main weapon against the Power of Justice. He even
did not hesitate to publicise his maniacal plan for the seizure of the whole
planet by the longfaces. The overseas proprietors turned a blind eye to
this. It was most important of all for them to help the leader to deal with
the hated power of the toilers, and if he also spouted empty phrases about
conquests, then let him amuse himself, but he would at least be doing his
job.
The ex-tradesman not only fooled the overseas proprietors, he
surrounded himself with bands of cutthroats lusting for booty. He distracted
the unstable elements from the defence of their own interests by encouraging
them to persecute the roundheads. In a word, he did everything that was
required.
The Power of Justice was smashed. Its leaders from among the toilers
and also many roundfaced Faetians were exterminated. The continent swam in
blood. Yar Jupi was carried to the top on a crest of bloody foam.
The Council of Blood made the subtle and obliging shopkeeper Dictator
of Power-mania, counting on his subservience. No one, apart from him, knew
who was a member of the Council of Blood and whose interests it defended.
After dealing with the toilers' revolt, the new Dictator proclaimed all
roundheads (mostly toilers) to be inferior citizens. In the name of struggle
with overpopulation on the planet, he forbade them to have children. Newborn
infants and their parents were threatened with the death penalty. But the
roundheads had to labour twice as hard as the rest. The use of overseas
products was declared incompatible with the principles of blood. The
proprietors of Powermania sighed with relief: their profits were safe.
The overseas proprietors came to their senses too late. Yar Jupi not
only deprived them of profits on the old continent, but threatened them with
a war of disintegration, of total annihilation. They had no option but to
prepare for such a war in defence, above all, of their own power and
profits.
The military leaders of both sides, fearing a disintegration war,
intended to deliver the strike first. To ensure that it would also be the
last, they demanded the build-up of disintegration weapons. The proprietors
of both continents, equally demented and camouflaging their intentions
behind phrases about a love of peace, compelled their workshops to produce
even more frenziedly.
The naive hopes of Um Sat, the great Elder of learning, for a peaceful
"balance of fear" came down with a crash and he now began voicing a demand
for the total elimination of all reserves of disintegration weapons and a
ban on their use. Many sober minds supported him.
In the tense pre-war atmosphere, Yar Jupi found himself hearing more
and more often the name of Um Sat, who had discovered the secret of the
disintegration of matter and was now appealing to the conscience of the
Faetians so that it could be "covered up again".
The Dictator received reports of dangerous conversations: "If the
roundheads could give the planet a Faetian like Um Sat, then how can they be
declared inferior? Why do the roundheads have to work twice as hard as
others, but throughout the life of one generation they must yield their
place on Faena to the longfaces?"
Yar Jupi sensed a threat in these "brazen" questions!
Fearing another Uprising of Justice, the Dictator lost his peace of
mind. He fell prey to persecution mania. He no longer left the Lair, where
he led an ostentatiously ascetic life. He was equally mistrustful of the
roundheads and the longfaces, and even of the proprietors of the Council of
Blood, whom he served and to whom he could become useless.
RADUGA PUBLISHERS MOSCOW
OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2/
Translation from the Russian
Illustrated and designed by Mikhail Verkholantsev
Original Russian title: ГИБЕЛЬ ФАЭНЫ
На английском языке
(c)Издательство "Детская литература" 1974
English translation (c)Raduga Publishers 1989
From the author
Part One. Tension
Chapter One. The Wave
Chapter Two. Two Shores
Chapter Three. The Masters
Chapter Four. The Temple of Eternity
Chapter Five. Blood
Chapter Six. No Happiness in this World
Chapter Seven. The Forgotten Hump
Part Two. Explosion
Chapter One. The Little World
Chapter Two. The Golden Apple
Chapter Three. Paradise Lost
Chapter Four. At the Peak of Civilisation
Chapter Five. Craters in the Wilderness
Chapter Six. Judgement
Chapter Seven. The Star of Hatred
Part Three. Fragments
Chapter One. Twilight
Chapter Two. Mutiny in Space
Chapter Three. In the Name of Reason
Chapter Four. Spiders in Jar
Chapter Five. The Naked Leader
Chapter Six. The Testament of the Great Elder
Epilogue. The Talking Beast
From the author
Cosmogony is no less full of riddles than the history of Earth. And
where there are riddles, there is room for fantasy. However, if it is
divorced from reality and rejects verisimilitude and authenticity, fantasy
is empty, it leaves no trace in the heart; the best it can do is to
titillate the reader's senses. But I have always wanted to achieve
"authenticity in the incredible", to write fantasy founded solely on real
facts and unsolved mysteries.
One such riddle that excited me was the ring of asteroids (minor
planets) between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter instead of the planet, as
predicted by Kepler's law, which had exploded for some unknown reason,
scattering fragments all round its orbit. How could that have happened?
If the planet had exploded from within because of certain processes,
its fragments would have flown in all directions as from a high-explosive
bomb and would have continued moving round the sun in elongated elliptical
orbits... But they are moving round in their former almost circular
planetary orbit. If the planet had perished because of a collision with
another cosmic body, their common fragments would have tended towards a
resultant, also acquiring elongated elliptical orbits; but they have
virtually stayed where they were.
The planet apparently cracked as the result of a powerful impact
received simultaneously from all directions; it then disintegrated under the
influence of the gravity of Mars and Jupiter. Its remains kept colliding and
breaking up, creating swarms of meteorites and stringing out round the whole
former orbit of the planet. But what kind of explosion was it? The explosion
of its water envelope, its oceans?
It so happened that I was able to put this question to the great
20th-century physicist. Nils Bohr when he met us Moscow writers.
"Can all a planet's oceans explode if a super powerful nuclear device
is detonated in their depths?" I asked him.
"I don't deny such a possibility," he replied, and added, "but even if
it weren't so, nuclear weapons must be banned in any case."
He understood it all at once! If the planet had perished when its
oceans exploded, then there was a civilisation on it that had destroyed
itself because of a nuclear war.
This was the stimulus for me as a novelist to write my trilogy The
Faetians. Other problems found their way into it. Why has the missing link
between man and the Earth's animal world never been discovered? Why does
Mars seem uninhabited, and was it always so? Why did great cataclysms occur
on Earth, such as the sinking of Atlantis and the rise of the Andes?
According to some theories, the cause was a gigantic asteroid that fell onto
Earth, or the appearance of the hitherto non-existent Moon in the sky over
Earth. Is this so?
The reader will learn all about it in the novel as he follows the lives
of the characters, who witnessed unprecedented catastrophes.
The author will be happy if this book helps the reader to acquire a
taste for the great secrets of the Universe and of Earth's history.
Alexander Kazantsev
Peace is the virtue of civilisation.
War is its crime.
Victor Hugo
Tension
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,Profaners of
this neighbour-stained steel.
Will they not hear?-
What ho! You men, you beasts.
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins.
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground...
W. Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet
Chapter One
Translation of an extraterrestrial message inscribed in the language of
the Faetians who lived on Faena a million years ago. (Books 2 and 3 of my
science-fantasy novel, The Faetians, tell of who wrote and sent this message
to Earth and who deciphered it.)
The only daughter of the Dictator of Powermania, an ancient continent
of Faena, was named Yasna after her mother. Her father, Yar Jupi, had been
hoping for a son, but he loved his daughter beyond measure. He kept dreaming
that she would grow up, get married and leave him. When, as was the custom,
he needed to give his grown-up daughter a final name, he could think of
nothing better than calling her Mada, which meant Falling-in-love. Surnames
on Faena were borrowed from the stars and planets. For example. Mar, Jupi,
Alt or Sirus.
Mada Jupi took after her mother: she was called beautiful. Her face
baffled the artists, being lively, always changing, now merry, now clear,
now pensive. How could they paint her? She typified the best of the
longfaces, but the oval of her features was moderate and soft, her nose was
straight and her lips were firmly compressed.
This blue-eyed Faetess (as they were called on Faena) was met on the
Great Shore by Ave Mar, a visitor to Powermania. The girl was coming out of
the water, having chosen the moment when a breaker had crashed on the shore
and was sliding back in a mass of hissing foam.
Ave wished he had been a sculptor. Everything he had heard about Mada
from his hunchbacked secretary Kutsi Merc was pale, inadequate and dull
compared with what he could see with his own eyes.
A fat, elderly Faetess, one of the roundheads, ran into the water and
wrapped the girl in a soft, fluffy sheet as she emerged.
Mada took no notice whatever of Ave, although from what her companion
had told her, she knew quite a lot about him. The nanny deftly put a folding
chair down on the sand and Mada sat on it, wrapping the sheet round her as
the ancients used to drape themselves in their robes.
Kutsi Merc noticed the impression that Mada had made on Ave, and he
hunched his back even more as he bent down to speak.
"Shall we show this to the local natives?"
And with a significant smile on his clever, evil face, he held a small,
smooth board out to Ave. Sitting on the sand and admiring Mada, Ave vaguely
replied:
"Well, I didn't realise we'd brought that with us!"
"The proud and beautiful Mada Jupi is here," said the secretary
encouragingly. Ave Mar stood up. Thanks to his impressive height, long,
strong neck and piercing eyes, he gave the impression of looking over the
heads of everybody else.
In obedience to his own impulse, as it seemed to him, he took the board
from Kutsi and walked boldly with it into the water.
Without taking her eyes off Kutsi, Mada's companion whispered into the
girl's ear:
"Look, Mada! The stranger from Danjab I was telling you about has taken
a board with him."
In spite of the breakwater, built to make swimming easier when the tide
was coming in, the waves were crashing violently onto the shore. Outside the
barrier, they were truly gigantic, rearing up their foaming crests one after
another as on the open sea.
"Where's he swimming to?" asked Mada's companion in alarm. "Shouldn't
we call the lifeguards?"
"He's a better swimmer than you think," commented Mada vaguely.
"But why's he taken that board? It's frightening to watch."
Even so, she couldn't take her eyes off him.
Ave swam as far as the breakwater and climbed over it. He had now
attracted the attention of many swimmers.
"Why did you decide he's that particular stranger?" asked Mada.
"Because of his companion. Roundheaded, like me; a hunchback into the
bargain, yet he's as proud as if he was strolling along the beach of Danjab.
I feel ashamed for our own people. Isn't anyone going to teach that show-off
how to swim?"
"No, I don't want to," said Mada, watching as the gigantic breakers
swept the foreign visitor up onto their crests.
And suddenly all the holidaymakers on the beach stirred in amazement.
The swimmer chose the moment when a particularly big wave lifted him up
on its crest, jumped to his feet and waved his arms, as if wanting to fly
like a bird. He did not take off, however, but simply kept his balance on
the slippery board. He stood like that on the foaming crest and with
frightening speed swept towards the shore, clad in foam and spray. It seemed
incredible that he should stay on the moving watery mountain. But the madman
not only held his position; laughing defiantly, he began gliding down the
steep watery slope, then allowed the wave to throw him upon its crest again.
The crowded beach gasped at this bold display of skill.
"But I must see how that's done," said Mada determinedly, casting off
the "ancient robe" and handing it to her worried nanny.
"What are you doing, my dear?" she protested, forgetting her recent
advice. "He'll bump you with his board. And is it fitting for the daughter
of Yar Jupi to swim beside him?"
Mada ran into the sea and dived into an oncoming wave. The dark cap of
stretch material protecting her thick hair from the water bobbed amid the
foaming crests.
Mada swam as far as the breakwater and climbed onto it. From there she
saw the foreign swimmer going back to the sea with his board for another
ride on the breakers. She waved to him, although he could not see her.
There was unlikely to be as skilful a swimmer on the Great Shore as
Mada. The ocean waves bore her up onto their crests and tried to hurl her
back. But she was not accustomed to giving up once she had set her heart on
something. She decided that she absolutely must stand on that magic board,
and no force in the world could have stopped her.
The foreigner swimming away from the shore didn't even look round.
Mada only had a glimpse of the stranger, but as she swam after him she
had the distinct impression of an athletic figure in a loincloth, strong
muscles rippling under the skin, and curly hair as tousled as that of a boy.
Suddenly, Mada saw him. He was standing on a foaming crest. The water
seemed to be boiling under him, and with reckless abandon he began gliding
down the watery slope straight at Mada.
Ave noticed her at the last moment and jumped, while Mada dived under
the board.
It seemed to her that the wave had crashed down on her, but it was just
the board grazing her slightly.
Mada surfaced and looked round. The stranger's eyes met hers as he
bobbed up to the surface. He laughed joyfully and promptly began swimming
towards her, seizing the board on the way.
"Hold on!" he shouted while still some distance off.
Mada could not make anything out, but she smiled in answer, since she
realised that he was hurrying to her assistance. When he swam up to her, she
said:
"I want to stand on that..." and she pointed at the board.
"Ave Mar will be happy to help..."
"Mada Jupi."
"You'll learn the meaning of joy, strength and happiness!"
The people standing on the shore watched what was happening on the
other side of the breakwater. A sigh coursed along the beach when the two
figures appeared standing straight up on the crest of a wave, holding on to
one another and each evidently standing with one foot on the board. It
seemed like a miracle. With their arms round each other's waists in full
view of the onlookers and without falling, they were borne on the foaming
crest towards the beach.
Never had Mada experienced such pleasure before.
Even so, when Mada and Ave crossed the breakwater and were returning
with the board to the crowded beach, Mada felt uneasy. If someone had told
her the day before that she was capable of such flightiness, she would have
burst out laughing.
Ave held the board in one hand and was ready to help Mada with the
other if the surf swept her off her feet. But Mada went ahead of him and,
skipping over the gurgling foam with a laugh, was the first to run up onto
the beach.
She seemed to be showing that, as the Dictator's daughter, she could do
whatever she liked!
Her anxious companion wrapped her charge up in the fluffy sheet.
"How good it was! If you only knew how good it was, Mother Lua!"
"As if I couldn't know," she grumbled. "I nearly died, waiting for you.
If anything happened to you, I'd surely be executed by order of Yar Jupi
(may he be happy, the great man!)"
"It's a good thing you're alive and can help me with one or two little
matters."
Mother Lua gave her a stern look.
"It frightens me to think of it, my dear."
Mother Lua had guessed rightly about her charge's intentions. Mada had
always dreamed about a real Faetian, manly, noble and pure. The uncultured
Faetians among the Superiors, flaunting a civilisation that had become
static since ancient times, repelled her with their boorishness, arrogance
and contempt for the roundheads, whose children her mother had once nursed.
The stranger, as her nanny had told her, was alien to all gloomy
superstitions of the Superiors; he was a scholar of Danjab who was not
afraid to break free of the Science of Death there and end up at loggerheads
with everybody. It was just such a Faetian that Mada could dream about, and
he had, on top of all that, turned out to be athletic, daring and handsome.
It was innate in Faetians to be mutually attracted "at first sight",
which they did not always admit even to themselves.
The daughter of Yar Jupi had justified the name her father had given
her-she had fallen in love straightway with a visitor clad in foam and, in
Mother Lua's opinion, had lost her wits.
"Think, my dear! If he was a longface, it would have been all right.
But they're going to call this one a half-breed. Contempt and hatred! Think
again, my dear! I taught you the truth about all the Faetians, but not for
that!.."
"No," replied Mada firmly. "Let it be the way I want it. You will go to
his companion and tell him where Ave and I are going to meet."
"You'll be noticed together! The Blood Guard will seize him. Don't wish
him harm."
"It shall be as I have said. Others will not be able to look at us. We
shall meet in the palace garden."
"The garden behind the Wall?" echoed Lua in alarm.
"You will escort them through the Blood Door."
Mother Lua looked downcast. But Mada paid no attention to her, walking
on with her chin up.
The Blood Door! It was one of the most reliable of the devices in the
Lair, as the Dictator's palace was called. Yar Jupi had long been racked by
persecution mania. It seemed to him that there were conspiracies under way
everywhere to assassinate him. Consequently, he had been living for many
cycles without leaving the territory of the Lair and never letting himself
be seen outside its walls. He communicated with his subordinates only over
closed TV. He trusted no one. Security was maintained at key points by
automatons who admitted only chosen Faetians with identifiable brain
biocurrents.
Only the Faetians closest to the Dictator could use the Blood Door.
There was no other key to it and no outsider could open it.
And now Mother Lua had to escort foreigners into the garden outside the
Wall. She knew that her charge would not change her mind. Moreover, she did
not want to obstruct Mada in any case.
Need it be said that Ave, the young Faetian, had also fallen in love?
Inclined to extremes by nature, time and time again he relived the moments
when, with their arms round each other's waists, he and the wonderful
Faetess had ridden the surf together. He was in a fever, but he could not
imagine how to see his beloved again, since she had turned out to be Yar
Jupi's daughter.
Grunting as if carrying a heavy load, Kutsi Merc trudged along behind
Ave. He was not in the least surprised to notice that the nurse had fallen
behind her charge and was adjusting a shoelace.
Letting Ave go ahead, the hunchback hung back near the roundhead, and
she, without straightening up, said almost inaudibly:
"As soon as shining Jupi rises in the sky, take your master to the
ruins of the old shrine in the Dread Wall."
Kutsi Merc nodded, grinned craftily and caught up with his master.
"Success is the envy of failures. A tryst has been made at the old
ruins in the light of Jupi, the brightest of planets."
Ave looked round suddenly.
"Are you jesting?"
"Jesting is of no avail in my profession. Kutsi Merc is too good a ...
helper."
By a whim of the Dictator's, the Dread Wall round his Lair ran through
a tiny ruined shrine dividing it into two halves. This screened from view
the Blood Door, which was hardly noticeable in any case. The wall in the
lower part divided in obedience to the brain biocurrents written into the
program of the electronic automatons.
Mother Lua nervously gave the door its mental instructions and it
opened.
Ave and Kutsi Merc, who were standing in the half-ruined portico,
quickly proceeded through the gap, Lua followed them and the Wall closed
behind her. Only the ruins on the inner side of the wall showed where to
look for the vanished door.
Ave looked round. He was in a luxuriant garden. Sinuous lianas hung
down like snakes guarding their prey. Beyond the shaggy tree-trunks lurked a
gloom that seemed dense and clammy. Lua, the nocturnal luminary whose name
the nurse bore, had not yet begun to rise, and Jupi, the brightest of the
planets, was only just silvering the tree-tops. Under them it was as dark as
on a starless night.
The young Faetian's heart was thudding in his breast.
Kutsi Merc's pulse was throbbing evenly enough. He had gained access to
the Lair, into which not even a snake could crawl its way...
Chapter Two
Ave Mar first met Kutsi Merc, his secretary, half a cycle before the
encounter with Mada on the Great Shore.
Ave Mar's steamcar stopped that day in a mountain pass on the continent
of the Culturals of Danjab.
The view took Ave's breath away. The ocean, revealed from high up,
seemed to ascend to the very heavens. The misty band of the horizon looked
like a ridge of lofty clouds.
Below lay Business City. The skyscrapers stood in concentric circles.
They were linked by ring and radial streets and avenues, on both sides of
which lay green parks and glittering lakes. In the city centre towered a
skyscraper resembling the conical axis of the monstrous Wheel of Business
Life.
Ave put his foot down on the pedal to open the high-pressure boiler
valve. The steam drive slowly moved the car from its place, accelerating it
to the required speed.
Steamcars had appeared very recently, but had quickly replaced the
obsolete vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. In their time,
these machines had poisoned the air of the cities with their exhaust gases.
The fuel they consumed could have served as chemical raw material for
clothing and other goods in daily use.
As he drove at top speed along the magnificent road, Ave Mar crossed
the outer circle avenue on which stood the tower blocks of Business City.
From a distance, they seemed conical. In fact, they were stepped. They
were girt by a spiral steamcar road which gave access to each storey in
succession and to the garage entrances outside every flat.
The conical towers housed shops with corridors leading to exits onto
the spiral road, restaurants, cafes, and also theatres and concert or
viewing halls. There were production workshops and business offices in the
centre of the multistorey building.
Moving staircases led to the garages under the living quarters.
The ordinary Faetians, toiling in the workshops, had no cars and hardly
ever left their cramped little rooms, unaware of any world other than that
shut in by the skyscraper's spiral roadway.
Ave stopped his steamcar. The garage doors opened automatically and
closed behind him when he had driven in.
The car needed no maintenance, being permanently ready for use with the
necessary steam pressure in its boiler. The heating device of disintegration
matter was, so to speak, part of the machine and wore out with it.
Ave Mar was in a dejected mood. He dropped in on one of his friends;
but the friend had summoned a secret meeting and had not invited Ave. Ave
understood what it was all about and drove off immediately.
On the way back he saw the pathetic hovels of the Faetians who worked
in the fields. He felt ashamed of himself for having, over his garage,
several living rooms in which no one lived, in fact, except for himself.
He had never known lack of room, but he had known loneliness and could
only call up his mother over the screen. Oh, Mother, Mother! Even at that
enormous distance, she unerringly guessed what was in her son's heart and
was always the first to appear on the screen.
Ave glumly stepped onto the upward moving staircase.
What was the meaning of life, if all that lay ahead was a blind alley
from which the Faetians could not escape? It was madness to seek deliverance
in wars of annihilation. Many Faetians understood as much...
But why did his friends not trust him? He needn't keep quiet with them.
Did he not also subscribe to the Doctrine of Justice? But they didn't need
him... No one needed him...
Ave went into the first of his round rooms and stopped dead in
amazement. A broad-shouldered, burly hunchback came up to meet him with a
guarded smile on his hard face.
"Ease and happiness!" said the stranger. "I am Kutsi Merc! The Ruler
Dobr Mar gave me the key of this flat as his son's secretary."
Ave smiled bitterly.
"Is my father worried that his son is gnawed by misery?"
"Your father was thinking of something more important."
"Will it deliver me from bitterness?"
"Would it be a bad thing to visit the ancient continent of Powermania?
High technology in the hands of barbarians who call themselves Superiors?"
"What's the sense of such dreams? I worked with Um Sat. I specialise in
the disintegration of matter, so I am not allowed to travel overseas. We
live in times of emptiness, disillusion, tension..."
"As your secretary, I shall help you in everything, even in a trip to
the continent of the barbarians."
So saying, the hunchback went into the other room. He soon returned
carrying vessels with beverages and two cylinders of compressed narcotic
smoke which the Culturals loved to inhale when relaxing. Kutsi Merc's
clothes were stretched tight over his hump, as if tailored for someone else.
Ave was amazed at the speed with which his new acquaintance made
himself at home. The neglected flat was transformed. Mechanisms, switched on
before the occupant's arrival, had cleaned the place up.
As he inhaled the smoke, the young Faetian studied Kutsi Merc.
"If only we journey to Powermania," he said reflectively, "before
misery kills desire..."
"Desires must be fulfilled. Otherwise it is not worth desiring. The
Faetesses over the ocean are very beautiful."
"How can that be of any importance? Even knowledge is powerless to lead
the Faetians out of their blind alley. Soulless power politics, blind
subordination to dogma! The blockheads refuse to listen to anything that is
unfamiliar to them!.." Ave was suffering from rejection of his ideas and was
airing his sense of injury.
"The great law of inertia! Inertia can be overcome by the application
of energy. The law must be interpreted more broadly."
"Kutsi Merc is undoubtedly more than adequately equipped for the
obligations of secretary."
"One must also overcome the inertia in oneself." Kutsi Merc blew out an
intricate pattern of smoke.
The hunchback was certainly astonishing Ave Mar; but there were still
more surprises to come.
Kutsi now came to see Ave Mar every day and tirelessly told stories
about the legendary continent of a very ancient civilisation. It turned out
that he knew Power-mania extremely well, was familiar with its history, art,
and architecture, had evidently been there a number of times, and was fluent
in the language of the barbarians, as he called the inhabitants of
Powermania.
"Look and marvel. The depths of ignorance and the heights of knowledge,
an alien technology and the wild theories of the Superiors, the slums of the
roundheaded monsters and the legendary beauty, Mada Jupi."
"The Dictator's daughter?" asked Ave, interested in spite of himself.
"Brought up by a most cultured nurse of roundhead stock. Became a
Sister of Health, looks after children in spite of her father's Doctrine of
Hatred. He loves her so much that he will tolerate any of her whims."
"What does she look like?" asked Ave vaguely.
Kutsi brightened up.
"The long legs of the runner, but feminine. The lines of her body would
make a classical sculpture. A soft heart and the hauteur of pride. It's hard
to win her indulgence."
"It looks as though Kutsi Merc has been having a try."
With a bitter smile, the hunchback pointed to his hump.
"Kutsi Merc bears too heavy a burden in life."
He had now completely relieved Ave Mar of his daily household chores.
He went on talking about Powermania, but didn't mention Mada again.
It was Ave Mar who raised the subject of a possible journey over the
sea.
Kutsi Merc had apparently been waiting for this.
"The berths on the ship have been booked."
Ave Mar stood on the deck of the ocean-going ship and looked into the
distance. This time, the ocean wasn't rising to heaven, as in the view from
the mountain pass, but it was as boundless and no less striking to the
imagination.
Dm Sat had confided a terrible secret to his pupil about this ocean.
Every secret is a burden, and this one, concerning the destiny of all
Faetians, was a particularly heavy weight on Ave's mind.
Kutsi warily tried to found out the cause of Ave's bad mood, but Ave
avoided the subject by holding forth against scientists who would not accept
his ideas about the possibility of life on other planets.
Kutsi grinned craftily and poked fun at the young Faetian, maintaining
that the real reason was that he hadn't yet fallen in love.
The barbarians' continent appeared on the horizon. Sharp arrows seemed
to be sticking up out of the water. Over the sea rose the weird buildings of
the ancient continent, on which the houses were not round, but rectangular
(how absurd!}. Incredibly crowded, they reached for the sky and gradually
merged into a pile of irregular acute-angled pillars that suggested a
cluster of crystals.
Almost leaping out of the water, a security launch raced towards the
ship.
They were faced with the control procedure. Kutsi Merc sought out his
master so as to be at his side.
Longfaced men with hooked noses were climbing aboard. They were all in
identical angular clothes with collars upraised at the back and short dark
hooded capes that became rectangular bands on the chest.
"Hey you, hunchbacked offspring of carrion-eaters! Make way before the
Blood Guard!" snarled the first of the longfaces as he drew level with Kutsi
Merc. "You'll have to get out of here and go back to your stinking island."
Ave Mar, who had specially learned the language of Powermania, flushed
with rage but, on catching Kutsi's sidelong glance of warning, he kept
quiet.
But Kutsi Merc arched his hump as he bowed, meekly lowering his head
and using a manner of speech not his own, but typical of the local dialect.
"Perhaps the officer of the Blood Guard will be interested to know that
the insignificant roundhead whom he sees before him is only secretary to
this distinguished traveller, the clear-thinking Ave Mar, son of the Ruler
of Danjab."
The longface, who was wearing a beard in imitation of Dictator Yar
Jupi, glanced contemptuously at Kutsi.
Ave Mar offered him his tokens.
"The athletic son of Ruler Dobr Mar is recognisable even without his
tokens," said the officer, showing off his familiarity with the old manner
of speech. "As for this contemptible roundheaded cripple, he should be
attached as if by a chain to his master while serving him, as is preordained
by nature." And the officer made for the other passengers.
Kutsi Merc ran after him, humbly begging the return of the tokens. The
officer threw them down; they landed on the deck with a jingle and nearly
rolled overboard. Kutsi Merc bent over to snatch them up and even went down
on his knees.
The officer laughed coarsely.
"That's how to welcome the land of Superiors-in the posture of the
lizard from which you are not so distantly descended."
"May happy days last for a long time here," replied Kutsi Merc humbly.
The ocean-going ship sailed into a harbour which was surrounded on all
sides by enormous, weirdly rectangular buildings. Among them, Ave Mar
immediately recognised several famous temples which had been built in
ancient times and had towered high over all the other buildings of that
period. The city had risen since then and had blotted them from view.
So this was what it was like. Pleasure City!
Some of the gigantic blocks were linked by fantastical multi-tiered
street-bridges crossing at various levels.
Ave thought that he was looking at a forest mound, which in his
homeland was built by little insects with many feet.
This impression of the maritime city of the Superiors was strengthened
even further when he and Kutsi Merc were on dry land. They were pushed and
jostled by crowds of hurrying Faetians. In addition to the steam-cars, there
were vehicles powered by obsolete internal combustion engines. Making an
appalling din and poisoning the air, this medley of heterogeneous vehicles
surged past the half-asphyxiated Ave or thundered overhead on the crazy
bridges between the massive artificial canyons of the buildings. Squeezed
into a corner of the tiny lift-cage by other Faetians, Ave and Kutsi were
taken up to the tiny room set aside for them in the expensive Palace of
Visitors.
While Kutsi Merc unpacked, Ave stood at the lancet window and looked
out on an alien world. He could not see any of the old-time romance for
which he had yearned since childhood. Everything here was an eyesore,
beginning with the uniform of the coarse Blood Guards and ending with the
awkward angles of the cramped little room.
"Don't torture your eyes with barbarian buildings," said Kutsi Merc.
"We'll be on the Great Shore tomorrow."
A roundhead servant of low stature appeared and asked whether the new
arrivals would prefer vegetable or animal food with blood for dinner, and
whether they wanted, like all travellers, to look round the densely
populated quarters of the city, and whether they had any other orders for
him.
Kutsi Merc considered it necessary to display the traditional
curiosity, so he and Ave did not allow themselves time for a rest, but
trailed off into the famous roundhead quarters.
Although he knew the slums of his native continent, Ave had never
imagined that Faetians could live in such filthy and overcrowded conditions.
It was only possible to breathe on a street when it became a suspension
bridge. But where the street was hemmed in by buildings and ran between them
like a tunnel, it became, as it were, part of the living quarters. Not shy
of passers-by, the Faetians kept their doors open, got on with their
household chores, sat at the table with children born before the roundheads
were banned from having children, ate their simple but acrid-smelling food
and went to bed. The Faetesses poked their heads out of the open doors and,
shouting loudly, conversed with the inhabitants on the second or third
stories up. Here and there, only just above the heads of the passers-by, the
inmates' washing had been hung out to dry; most of them did not know whether
they would have to sweat at work on the next day as well.
Ave very much wanted to hold his nose when, accompanied by Kutsi, he
fled from those evil-smelling quarters, famed for their openly exhibited
poverty. The Power of Justice had only existed for a hundred and three days
and it had not been able to help the residents...
"So what's the answer to this?" wondered Ave. "Is it really in the
monstrous law of a Dictator who has forbidden these families to have
children?"
Was it really to see all this that he had dreamed of coming here from
across the ocean ever since childhood?
But next day he saw the Great Shore and Mada.
Chapter Three
Dictator Yar Jupi's palace was part of the Temple of Eternity, in which
worship had ceased after the Faetians forgot their religion. Now the Dread
Wall separated the temple from the monastery buildings that had been
converted for the Dictator's use. The soaring spire of black stone resembled
a torpedo with a disintegration warhead. The ancient architects never
suspected that they were anticipating the outlines of a future weapon. Even
less could they have imagined that, in the event of a disintegration war,
the cellars under the Temple of Eternity would house the Central Control
Panel of Defence Automatons. The machines could unleash a death-dealing
swarm of disintegration torpedoes against Danjab.
A session of Peaceful Space was now being held over these fearsome
machines in the former shrine of the temple with its black columns soaring
up into the sky. Its chairman was Dm Sat of Danjab, who had in his time
discovered the disintegration of matter (By the disintegration of matter,
the Faetians meant the nuclear reactions of fissionand synthesis, as a
result of which, as is known, a deficiency of mass is observed; that is,
matter diminishes; it disintegrates, releasing an enormous amount of energy)
and had made a terrible mistake by publishing his discovery on both
continents simultaneously. The great roundhead, as he was called, and the
planet's first authority on matter, had decided that he was as great an
authority on life. Believing that the simultaneous appearance of a
superpowerful weapon on both continents would create a "balance of fear", he
hoped that war would become impossible. However, the tension of the
relations between the continents was growing. Urn Sat had only hit on one of
the causes: overpopulation and hostility because of the lack of room. But
the hostility over profits was far more dangerous. Overpopulation was
aggravating all aspects of the struggle even further. The proprietors on
both continents, while suppressing dissatisfaction of the toilers by force,
were also threatening one another with force across the ocean. It seemed to
them that they could, at the expense of their competitors, not only boost
profits, but could pacify the malcontents in their own country with a small
handout.
The horrified Um Sat was beginning to realise the inevitability of a
disintegration war and he considered himself responsible for it. That is why
he was now trying to find a solution for everything in the exploration of
new space continents, dreaming about the partial resettlement of Faetians on
them and about universal reconciliation.
Heavy responsibility, disillusion, care and fatigue had left their mark
on the old Faetian's face. His high forehead under the dense shock of hair
was furrowed by deep lines. The big, sad eyes were full of kindly wisdom and
understanding. But with it all went a weak chin covered by a greying beard.
In spite of the Sat's tragic mistake, he was still respected for his
tremendous achievements in science and for his unquestionable integrity of
purpose. Consequently, the sages of learning from both continents met him in
the hall with the greatest respect.
But at that moment, within only a hundred paces of the Temple of
Eternity, behind the wall of the Lair, there was another world-famous
Faetian whom no one respected but all feared.
Yar Jupi became Dictator during the black days when the Power of
Justice was suppressed.
Before his daughter was born, he was merely an inconspicuous tradesman
who did business with the roundheads. To please his clients, he took Mother
Lua into service for Mada, who had lost her mother. The nurse replaced the
child's real mother at the memorable time when the fury of the oppressed
burst into the open. The uprising shook Powermania, depriving the
proprietors of power and possessions.
Lying low in their burning hatred, they refused to reconcile themselves
to defeat. They had the brutal experience of struggle amongst themselves.
They had always fought to the death with the toilers and with one another.
However, they were now ready to forget their own quarrels.
There were proprietors on both sides of the ocean. But since the
discovery and settlement of the new continent of Danjab, the Faetians had
lived there without the ancient prejudices; there wasn't even any favourable
soil on which they could flourish. The result was that, under the new
circumstances, both roundheads and longheads began enjoying equal rights and
opportunities to make others work for them. Be that as it may, it led to the
rapid growth of, if not a culture, at least a technology. The products of
the Gutturals, as its inhabitants began to style themselves, invariably
proved better and cheaper than those of Powermania's barbarians. And the
proprietors of Danjab inundated the old continent with their products. In
Powermania, crude and primitive means of manufacture still prevailed. The
proprietors of that continent found themselves under threat of ruin. No
matter how much they oppressed their toilers, the profits were slipping out
of their hands. They came to seethe with hatred for everything from Danjab.
Only a defeat in the struggle with the Justice Movement temporarily
relegated a reckoning with the overseas proprietors to the background.
When Yar Jupi proclaimed his Doctrine of Hatred, he had only heard
about the Council of Blood, not suspecting who the members might be. Once,
when summoned to a secret meeting of the council in a cellar, he was shaken
to recognise, under the cowls of those present, two important workshop
proprietors and one big land proprietor.
"Our choice has fallen on you, Yar Jupi," declared the land proprietor.
"Your Doctrine of Hatred could unite, for nothing unites better than common
hatred. With its help, the Movement of Blood should suppress the Movement of
Justice. But do not forget that purity of blood," he added significantly,
"though regarded as the supreme ideal, is still only a weapon for
suppressing the power of the riff-raff."
"The Movement of Blood will justify its name," affirmed Yar Jupi, who
already considered himself as one of its leaders.
The proprietors exchanged glances.
"We shall deal with the roundheads both here and overseas," said the
future Dictator with inspiration.
"You traded with the roundheads, your wife nursed their children,"
began a workshop proprietor insinuatingly, and he threw back his cowl. "That
is advantageous to us, because, however loudly you may shout about hatred,
the overseas proprietors can still trust you most of all for having been
able to get on with the roundheads. You will go overseas and convince them
that what has happened here will happen to them too. Let them help us to
deal with the power of the 'seekers after justice', having thereby preserved
their own possessions. Let them send good weapons to the contingents of your
cutthroats. You will know how to use it. Both now ... and later. You
understand?" And the workshop proprietor pulled the hood with its eyeslits
down over his face.
Yar Jupi understood everything perfectly. Shrewd and cunning, he made
his Doctrine of Hatred the main weapon against the Power of Justice. He even
did not hesitate to publicise his maniacal plan for the seizure of the whole
planet by the longfaces. The overseas proprietors turned a blind eye to
this. It was most important of all for them to help the leader to deal with
the hated power of the toilers, and if he also spouted empty phrases about
conquests, then let him amuse himself, but he would at least be doing his
job.
The ex-tradesman not only fooled the overseas proprietors, he
surrounded himself with bands of cutthroats lusting for booty. He distracted
the unstable elements from the defence of their own interests by encouraging
them to persecute the roundheads. In a word, he did everything that was
required.
The Power of Justice was smashed. Its leaders from among the toilers
and also many roundfaced Faetians were exterminated. The continent swam in
blood. Yar Jupi was carried to the top on a crest of bloody foam.
The Council of Blood made the subtle and obliging shopkeeper Dictator
of Power-mania, counting on his subservience. No one, apart from him, knew
who was a member of the Council of Blood and whose interests it defended.
After dealing with the toilers' revolt, the new Dictator proclaimed all
roundheads (mostly toilers) to be inferior citizens. In the name of struggle
with overpopulation on the planet, he forbade them to have children. Newborn
infants and their parents were threatened with the death penalty. But the
roundheads had to labour twice as hard as the rest. The use of overseas
products was declared incompatible with the principles of blood. The
proprietors of Powermania sighed with relief: their profits were safe.
The overseas proprietors came to their senses too late. Yar Jupi not
only deprived them of profits on the old continent, but threatened them with
a war of disintegration, of total annihilation. They had no option but to
prepare for such a war in defence, above all, of their own power and
profits.
The military leaders of both sides, fearing a disintegration war,
intended to deliver the strike first. To ensure that it would also be the
last, they demanded the build-up of disintegration weapons. The proprietors
of both continents, equally demented and camouflaging their intentions
behind phrases about a love of peace, compelled their workshops to produce
even more frenziedly.
The naive hopes of Um Sat, the great Elder of learning, for a peaceful
"balance of fear" came down with a crash and he now began voicing a demand
for the total elimination of all reserves of disintegration weapons and a
ban on their use. Many sober minds supported him.
In the tense pre-war atmosphere, Yar Jupi found himself hearing more
and more often the name of Um Sat, who had discovered the secret of the
disintegration of matter and was now appealing to the conscience of the
Faetians so that it could be "covered up again".
The Dictator received reports of dangerous conversations: "If the
roundheads could give the planet a Faetian like Um Sat, then how can they be
declared inferior? Why do the roundheads have to work twice as hard as
others, but throughout the life of one generation they must yield their
place on Faena to the longfaces?"
Yar Jupi sensed a threat in these "brazen" questions!
Fearing another Uprising of Justice, the Dictator lost his peace of
mind. He fell prey to persecution mania. He no longer left the Lair, where
he led an ostentatiously ascetic life. He was equally mistrustful of the
roundheads and the longfaces, and even of the proprietors of the Council of
Blood, whom he served and to whom he could become useless.