Prisoners of Power

1.

Maxim opened the hatch, leaned out, and cautiously scanned the sky. Low-lying and solid-looking, it lacked that airy transparency suggestive of infinite space and a multitude of inhabited worlds; it was a real biblical firmament, smooth and dense. Undoubtedly this firmament rested on the powerful shoulders of a local Atlas. It glowed with a steady phosphorescence. Maxim looked for the hole that his ship had pierced, but it was gone; only two large dark blots floated at the zenith like dead bodies in water. Flinging the hatch wide open, he jumped into the tall dry grass.

The dense hot air smelled of dust, rusted iron, trampled vegetation, life. And of death, long past and incomprehensible. The grass was waist-high. Nearby, dense bushes loomed darkly, and dreary gnarled trees occasionally broke the landscape. It was almost as bright as a clear moonlit night on Earth, but without Earth’s moon shadows and hazy nocturnal blueness. Everything was gray, dusty, and flat. The ship rested on the bottom of an enormous hollow with sloping sides. The surrounding terrain rose sharply toward a washed-out horizon; the landscape seemed strange because nearby a broad, serene river flowed westward and apparently upward along one slope.

Maxim walked in a circle around the ship, running his palm along its cold damp side. Traces of the impact were where he had expected to find them. There was a deep ugly dent under the sensory ring, sustained when the ship was jolted suddenly and pitched to one side; the cyberpilot had felt insulted and sulked, and Maxim had had to grab the controls quickly. The jagged hole next to the right porthole was made ten seconds later when the ship pitched forward. Maxim looked at the zenith again. The dark blots were scarcely visible now. A meteorite attack in the stratosphere? Probability—zero point zero zero. But in space anything theoretically possible would happen sooner or later.

Maxim returned to the cabin and switched on the automatic repair controls and activated the field laboratory. Then he headed toward the river. An adventure of sorts, but still routine. Monotonously routine. The unexpected to be expected in the Independent Reconnaissance Unit. Landing accidents, meteorite and radiation attacks—adventures of the body, merely physical stuff.

The tall brittle grass rustled and crackled beneath his feet and prickly seeds stuck to his shorts. A swarm of midges buzzed in front of his face, but then, as if on signal, retreated.

The IRU didn’t attract solid establishment types. They were wrapped up in their own serious affairs and knew that the exploration of alien worlds was just a monotonous and exhausting game. Yes, monotonously exhausting and exhaustingly monotonous.

Of course, if you are twenty years old, can’t do anything well, haven’t the vaguest notion of what you really want to do, haven’t yet learned the value of time, that most precious of all things, haven’t any special talents and don’t foresee acquiring any—if at age twenty you still haven’t outgrown the lad stage where your hands and feet are more important than your head; if you are still naive enough to imagine yourself making fabulous discoveries in unexplored space... if, if, if... You pick up the catalog, open it to any page, take a random stab to choose your unexplored world, and take off into the wild blue yonder. Discover a planet, name it after yourself, determine its physical characteristics, do battle with any monsters you might encounter, and establish contact with intelligent beings, if there are any. If not, become a Robinson Crusoe.

What for? Well, you’d be thanked and told you’ve made an enormous contribution, and some prominent expert would summon you for lengthy discussions. The school kids, especially the little ones, would gaze at you in awe. But your old teacher would ask only: “Are you still with the IRU?” Then he’d change the subject and look distressed and guilty because he felt responsible for your inability to outgrow the IRU. And your father would say: “H’mm” and hesitatingly offer you a position as a lab assistant. And your mother would say: “Maxie, when you were little you drew rather well.” And Pete would say: “How long can this go on? Haven’t you disgraced yourself long enough?” And everybody would be right except you. So what do you do? You return to IRU headquarters, pick up the catalog, open it at random and stab blindly.

Before descending the high, steep bank to the river, Maxim looked around. Gnarled trees were silhouetted against the sky, and a small circle of light came from the open hatch. Everything appeared normal. “Well, OK,” he mumbled to himself. “Take it as it comes. It would be great if I could find a civilizations powerful, ancient, wise culture. And human.” He went down to the river.

The river was very broad and sluggish; it appeared to flow downhill from the east and uphill to the west. The refraction here was incredible. The opposite bank was sloped and choked with bulrushes; a half-mile upstream some sort of columns and twisted beams—buckled trusswork overgrown with vines—protruded from the water. “Civilization,” thought Maxim, not particularly enthusiastic. He sensed the presence of a great deal of iron. And something else, too, something unpleasant and stifling. Scooping up a handful of water, he realized quickly that it was dangerously radioactive. The river was carrying radioactive substances from the east. This certainly wasn’t the kind of civilization he had in mind. Rather than establishing contact, it would be wiser to take samples and perform the usual analyses, orbit the planet’s equator several times, and head for home. Once on Earth he would turn the material over to the experts on the Galactic Security Council and quickly put the entire episode out of his mind.

He shook his fingers squeamishly, dried them in the sand, and squatted on his haunches. He tried to picture the inhabitants of this planet, hardly a happy place. Somewhere beyond the forest lay a city of dirty factories; decrepit reactors emptying radioactive wastes into the river; ugly houses beneath metal roofs, with endless walls and few windows; and buildings separated by litter-strewn alleys. And the people? Probably dressed heavily, encased in thick, coarse material, with high white uncomfortable collars cutting into their necks.

Suddenly he noticed footprints in the sand. They had been made by bare feet. Someone had scrambled down the bank to the river, someone, he imagined, with large feet, heavy, pigeon-toed, and clumsy. Undoubtedly humanoid, but with six toes on each foot. He had scrambled down the bank, hobbled along the sand, plunged into the radioactive waters, and swum to the opposite shore, into the bulrushes.

Like a bolt of lightning, a brilliant blue flash lit up everything around him. Above the riverbank there was a thunderous crash followed by sizzling and crackling. Maxim jumped up. Dry earth rained down and something sped through the sky with a menacing whine and dropped into the river, raising a spray mixed with white steam. He realized what had happened, but not why, and he was not surprised to see a swirling column of scorching smoke rising like a giant corkscrew into the phosphorescent firmament from the spot where his ship had been standing. The ship had exploded: its ceramic shell glowed violet, flames danced through the grass around it, bushes flared up, and the gnarled trees were enveloped in smoky fire. Intense heat struck him, and Maxim shielded his face with his palm as he backed away.

“Oh, God, no! No! Why?” He tried to reconstruct what had happened. “Some big ape came along, got inside, lifted up the deck, found the batteries, picked up one of the strange-looking boulders, and bam! What a boulder—three tons! And with one swing. A powerful animal, all right. It wounded my ship with its pebbles twice in the stratosphere and finished it off down here. Incredible! Bet it never happened before. Now what? I’ll be missed soon, of course, but nobody will think that the ship could vanish and its pilot survive. Damn it!”

He turned from the fire and walked away rapidly along the river. The entire area glowed red. His shadow on the grass, shortening and lengthening, rushed ahead of him. Sparse and musty woods began on his right, and the grass became soft and moist. It occurred to him that the fire could overtake him and he would be forced to make his escape by swimming—a most unpleasant prospect. But as the red glow grew dim and died out, he realized that the ship’s fire-fighting system, unlike himself, had understood the problem and done its job well. He vividly pictured its sooty tanks protruding absurdly from the hot fragments, emitting dense pyrophage clouds. They must be very pleased with their performance.

“Easy now,” he thought. “Don’t panic. Take your time. You’ve plenty of it. They can look for me forever. There’s no ship, and it will be impossible to find me. Until they are absolutely convinced of my death, mother won’t be told anything. And I’ll figure something out.”

He passed a small cool bog, forced his way through some bushes, and emerged on a cracked concrete road leading into the woods. Stepping along the concrete slabs, he walked to the edge of the river. There he saw rusty girders overgrown with vegetation, the remains of some huge latticed construction lying half-submerged in the water. On the other side the road continued, barely visible beneath the luminous sky. Apparently, long ago a bridge had spanned the river, but it probably had interfered with someone’s plans and had been knocked over into the water, creating an ugly mess. Maxim sat down and contemplated his predicament.

“OK, you have a road. That’s the main thing. It’s a lousy road, very old, but it’s still a road. And, on all inhabited planets, roads lead to their builders. What do I need now? Not food. I wouldn’t mind a snack, but I had better keep my appetite in check. I can manage without water for another day. There’s enough air, although I’d be happier with a little less carbon dioxide and radioactivity. So far. I’m in fair shape. What I do need is a small primitive coil transmitter with a spiral pitch.” In his mind’s eye he saw clearly the circuit for a positron sender. If only he had the parts, he could put one together at once, blindfolded. He assembled it mentally several times.

“Robinson Crusoe. That’s me, all right.” He was somewhat taken by the idea. “Maxim Crusoe. I don’t have a damned thing except a pair of shorts without pockets and my sneakers. On the other hand, my island is inhabited. And if it’s inhabited, there’s always hope of locating a primitive coil transmitter.” He tried hard to visualize a coil transmitter but had no luck this time. Instead he kept seeing his mother and the expression on her face when she was told her son had disappeared without a trace. His father would nib his cheeks and look around absentmindedly. “Cut it out,” he said to himself. “Stop thinking about them. Anything, but not about them. Otherwise you’re sunk. Cut it out and get hold of yourself.” He rose and started along the road.

The forest, timid and sparse at first, gradually became bolder and edged up closer to the road. Several impudent young trees had burst through the concrete and were growing right through the highway. Obviously the road was at least twenty or thirty years old. Along its sides the woods were taller, denser, and wilder; here and there branches interlaced overhead. It grew dark and loud guttural cries came from the depths of the forest.

Something moved, rustled, thudded. Then, about twenty paces in front of him, a dark squat shape darted across the road. Mosquitoes whined. It suddenly dawned on Maxim that this region was too desolate and wild for human habitation and that it would take several days to reach an inhabited area. Again his hunger surfaced, but Maxim sensed that flesh on the hoof was plentiful here. He wouldn’t starve to death. Although the meat wouldn’t be particularly appetizing, the hunt itself would be interesting. Deer? Maybe, maybe not. But the local game was undoubtedly edible. Stop moving, and the midges would begin to feed on you savagely. And as everyone knows, what’s edible on an alien planet doesn’t die of hunger. It wouldn’t be so awful to get lost here and spend a year or so roaming the forest. He would find himself a buddy—some kind of wolf or bear. They’d go hunting together. He supposed he’d eventually tire of it. Besides, the prospect of tramping through this forest wasn’t particularly appealing, with all that iron junk around and the polluted air. Anyway, the main thing was to put together a coil transmitter.

He stopped and listened carefully. From somewhere in the depths of the forest came a monotonous, muffled rumbling. Maxim realized that he had been hearing it for some time before it broke through to his consciousness. It was not an animal or waterfall, but a mechanical device, some sort of barbarous machine. It wheezed, made grinding noises, and gave off a rusty odor. And it was drawing closer.

Hunching over and edging closer to the shoulder, Maxim ran noiselessly toward the machine and then stopped just before reaching an intersection. The road here was muddy, with deep ugly ruts and slabs of concrete jutting up. It smelled foul and was very radioactive. Maxim squatted and looked to his left, toward the approaching rumbling and grinding.

A minute later it appeared. A hot stinking mammoth of riveted metal, rumbling along the road with enormous mud-clogged caterpillar treads. It plodded along, humpbacked and shabby, clanging through the iron litter in the forest. It was stuffed with a mixture of raw plutonium and lanthanides. Driverless and helpless, yet menacing, it swung over the intersection and plodded on, dangling a tail of scorching heat. It disappeared into the forest, growling, tossing and turning, roaring, its fury gradually subsiding.

Maxim caught his breath and brushed away the midges. He was stunned: in his whole life he had never seen anything so absurd and pitiful. “Well,” he thought, “I won’t find any positron senders around here.” He watched the monster until it disappeared and he suddenly noticed that the crossroad was just a narrow corridor through the forest. Maybe he ought to overtake it. Stop it and turn off its reactor. He listened carefully. Crackling and crashing filled the forest. The monster was moving deeper into the forest like a hippo into a bog. Then the rumble of the engine drew closer again. Clanging and roaring, it plodded once more over the intersection and returned to the area it had just left. “Boy, oh boy,” thought Maxim. “I’d better keep clear. Vicious beasts and uncivilized robots are not for me.” He paused, broke from the bushes, and, with one bound, leaped over the polluted intersection.

After walking very rapidly for some time, inhaling deeply to clear his lungs of the iron mammoth’s exhaust fumes, he slowed down. He thought about what he had encountered in his first two hours on his inhabited island and tried to construct a logical picture from his bizarre experiences. It was too difficult; the pieces were incredible, unreal. The forest itself was straight out of a fairy tale: almost human voices of fantastic creatures echoed through it. As in a fairy tale, an old deserted road led to an enchanted castle, and invisible, evil sorcerers placed obstacles in the way of those who chanced to pass by. From afar, they had showered his ship with meteorites and, failing to turn him back, had then burned his ship, caught him in a trap, and dispatched an iron dragon after him. The dragon was old and stupid, but they had surely realized their mistake and were preparing something more up-to-date.

“Listen here,” said Maxim to them, “I’ve no intention of breaking the spell over your castles and waking your sleeping beauties. All I want is to meet one of you, one of your more intelligent people, who can help me with a positron sender.”

But the wicked sorcerers persisted. First they dropped a gigantic rotted tree across the road, destroyed its concrete surface, dug a large hole in the ground, and filled it with putrid radioactive liquid. When that failed to stop him, when the midges tired of biting and retreated in disappointment, toward morning they released a cold, malevolent fog. Maxim jogged to warm himself. The fog was sticky and oily, and smelted of decay. Soon the smell of smoke was added, and Maxim tried to locate the fire.

Dawn was breaking when Maxim spotted it at the side of the road, near a low moss-covered stone structure with a caved-in roof and dark empty windows. Although there was no one in sight, he sensed that people had been there recently and might return soon. He turned off the road, leaped over a drainage ditch, and sinking ankle-deep in rotting leaves, approached the fire. The fire welcomed him with its primitive warmth. Everything was very simple here. Without the formality of greetings, one could squat, warm one’s hands by the fire, and wait in silence until the host, just as silently, served hot food and drink. True, the host wasn’t around, but a blackened kettle with a strong-smelling broth hung above the fire.

Maxim sat down by the fire and warmed himself, then rose reluctantly and entered the house. House? Only a stone shell remained of the original structure. The morning sky shone through the broken beams overhead, the rotten floorboards were treacherous, and clusters of crimson mushrooms grew in the corners—poisonous when raw, but edible if roasted sufficiently.

But Maxim suddenly lost his appetite. In the semidarkness by the wall, mingled with faded rags, there was a skeleton! Revolted, he turned, descended the broken steps, and cupping his palms around his mouth, shouted at the top of his lungs: “Hey, six-toes!”

His shout was smothered almost instantly by the fog-bound trees. There was no answer except for the angry chattering of birds overhead.

Maxim returned to the fire, tossed on some branches, and peered into the kettle. The broth was boiling. He found a spoon of sorts, sniffed it, dried it with grass and sniffed it again. Then he carefully skimmed off a grayish scum and flicked it over the rim. He stirred the broth, scooped some from the edge, blew on it, and pursing his lips, tasted it. Not bad. Something like broth made from a takhorg liver. Only stronger. Setting the spoon aside, he took down the kettle carefully with both hands and placed it on the grass. Then he looked around again and called out: “Breakfast! Come and get it!”

He still sensed that the owner of the dwelling was somewhere nearby, but all he saw were motionless bushes, wet from the fog, and dark gnarled tree trunks. There were no sounds except the crackling of the fire and the restless cross-chatter of the birds.

“Well, OK,” he said aloud. “Do as you please, but I’m breaking the ice!”

He developed a taste for the broth very quickly. Before he knew it, a third of the soup had vanished from the kettle. Regretfully, he moved away, rested for a while, and dried the spoon. But he couldn’t control himself: he scooped up from the very bottom more of those delicious brown chunks of meat that melted in his mouth. Then he moved away, dried the spoon again, and placed it across the top of the kettle. Now the time had come to express his appreciation to his invisible host.

He jumped up, selected several thin branches, and entered the house. Treading cautiously on the rotten floorboards and trying to avoid looking at the remains in the shadows, he picked some mushrooms, selecting the firmest, and threaded their crimson caps onto a branch. “You could use some salt and a little pepper, but never mind. You’ll do for an introduction. We’ll hang you over the fire, steam out every bit of your poison, and you’ll be delicious. You’ll be my first contribution to the culture of this inhabited island.”

The house darkened almost imperceptibly and he felt someone’s eyes on him. Suppressing the desire to turn sharply, he counted to ten, rose slowly, and with an anticipatory smile turned his head.

A long dark face with large doleful eyes and lips drooping at the corners looked at him blankly through the window. They stared at each other for several seconds, and it seemed to Maxim that the gloom emanating from the face was flooding the house, sweeping over the forest, and engulfing the entire world. Everything around him turned gray, gloomy, and mournful. Then the house became still darker. Maxim turned toward the door.

A stocky man, topped by a shaggy mop of red hair and wearing an ugly jump suit, straddled the threshold with his short sturdy legs and blocked the entrance with his broad shoulders. Maxim was pierced by a pair of blue eyes, very steady and hostile, yet almost cheerful—perhaps in contrast to the all-pervasive gloom spreading from the window. Obviously this was not the first time this rough-looking native had encountered a visitor from another world. But it was also obvious that he was used to dealing with annoying visitors promptly and harshly, dispensing with such amenities as communication and other unnecessary complications. An ominous-looking thick metal pipe suspended from a leather belt around his neck was aimed directly at Maxim’s abdomen. It was clear that he hadn’t the slightest notion of the value of human life, of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, of humanism’s lofty ideals, even of humanism itself.

Having no choice in the matter, Maxim extended the branch of skewered mushrooms, smiled more broadly, and spoke in carefully articulated words. “Peace! Everything is OK. Everything is fine!” The gloomy face behind the window responded to this greeting with a lengthy but unintelligible sentence that succeeded in clearing the air. Judging from the sounds outside, dry twigs were being tossed into the fire. Behind the unkempt red beard, the blue-eyed figure produced clanging sounds that reminded Maxim of the iron dragon at the crossing.

“Yes!” Maxim nodded vigorously. “Earth! Space!” He pointed the branch toward the zenith and Redbeard obediently looked up at the broken ceiling. “Maxim!” continued Maxim, poking himself in the chest. “Maxim! My name is Maxim! Maxim!” “Mac Sim!” bellowed Redbeard. He had a strange intonation. His eyes glued on Maxim, he shot a series of rumbling sounds over his shoulder. “Mac Sim” was repeated several times. The doleful character replied with some eerie, melancholy syllables. Redbeard’s blue eyes and yellow-toothed jaws opened wide and he began to guffaw. Evidently there was something funny here that Maxim failed to grasp. Finished with his fun, Redbeard dried his eyes with his free hand, lowered his death-dealing weapon, and signaled Maxim to come out.

Maxim was delighted to obey. On the porch, he again held out skewered mushrooms to Redbeard. Redbeard seized the branch, inspected it carefully, sniffed it, and tossed it aside. “No!” Maxim protested. “This stuff is good.” Maxim bent down and retrieved the branch. Redbeard did not object but slapped Maxim on the back several times and shoved him toward the fire, forcing him to sit down. He attempted to communicate something, but Maxim was busy studying the gloomy one sitting on the other side of the fire and drying out a dirty rag. One foot was bare, and he kept wiggling his toes. Five, not six.

2.

Guy sat on the edge of the bench by the window and polished the insignia on his beret with his cuff while Corporal Varibobu prepared his travel orders. The corporal’s head was tilled to one side, eyes opened wide. With his left hand he held a red-bordered form while he slowly traced out a fine calligraphic script. “What handwriting,” thought Guy somewhat enviously. “Ink-stained old fogey: twenty years in the Legion and still a measly clerk. Just look at those eyes goggle—the pride of the brigade. Watch that tongue come out. Yup, there it is. Full of ink, too. So long, Varibobu, you old paper pusher. I won’t be seeing you again. I feel sorry to leave—good men they’ve got here, and the officers, too. And the job we do is useful and important.” Guy sniffed and looked out the window.

Outside the wind was blowing white dust along the broad sidewalkless street paved with hexagonal slabs. The long walls of identical buildings housing administrative and engineering personnel gleamed white. Mrs. Idoya, a stout imposing woman, walked past the window, shielding herself from the dust and holding down her skirt. She was a courageous woman, not afraid to gather up her brood and follow her brigadier husband to these dangerous parts. The sentry in front of the CO’s headquarters, a recent recruit wearing an unwrinkled trench coat and a beret pulled down over his ears, presented arms. Then two truckloads of trainees passed—probably going for their shots. “That’s right, sergeant, give it to ’em. Don’t stick your head out. There’s nothing to see here,” Guy thought. “Where do you think you are—on some main drag?”

“How do you spell it?” asked Varibobu. “G-a-l?”

“No. My last name is Gaal—G-a-a-l.”

“Too bad,” said Varibobu, sucking his pen. “Gal would fit on one line.”

“Come on, write,” thought Guy. “It won’t do you any good to save lines. This jerk is a corporal? Can’t even polish his buttons. Some corporal. Two stripes, but you can’t shoot worth a damn, and everybody knows it.”

The door flew open and Captain Tolot, wearing the gold arm-band of duty officer, strode into the room. Guy jumped to his feet and clicked his heels. The corporal rose slightly but continued writing.

“Aha.” The captain tore off his dust mask in disgust. “Private Gaal. Yes, I know, you’re leaving us. Too bad. But I’m glad for you. I hope you’ll serve as conscientiously in the capital.”

“Yes, sir, captain!” said Guy. He was very fond of Captain Tolot, an educated officer and former high school teacher. The captain had singled him out.

“You may sit down, private.” The captain went behind the counter to his desk. Still standing, he scanned some papers and picked up the phone. Guy turned toward the window tactfully. Nothing had changed outside. His buddies were marching information to dinner. Guy watched them sadly. Any minute they’d be entering the mess hall, and Corporal Serembesh would order them to remove their berets for “grace.” Thirty throats would bellow while the steam was rising from the pots, the bowls were glistening on the counter, and old man Doga was getting ready tore lease one of his prize jokes about a soldier and a cook. Too bad he had to leave. True, it was dangerous here and the climate was unhealthy and the rations were monotonous—canned stuff—but. Here, at least, you knew you were needed, that they couldn’t manage without you; here you took the ominous pressure of the forest on your own shoulders, and you felt it. Lord, how many of his buddies were buried here. Beyond the settlement stood a whole grove of poles topped with rusted helmets.

On the other hand—the capital. Not just anyone was sent there. And once you got there, you were constantly on the move. They said all the capital’s parade grounds were visible from the Creators’ headquarters, so that every formation was observed by one of the Creators. Not every formation, really. But they did spot-check. Suddenly imagining himself being summoned from a formation, Guy was thrown into a panic. He takes two steps and slips and falls on his face at the commander’s feet as his submachine gun clatters on the pavement. Damn, what a clumsy ox. And his beret flies off to God knows where. Phew! Guy took a deep breath and looked around furtively. God forbid. Yes, that was the capital for you. Everything was under watchful eyes. Oh well, never mind—others were serving there. Besides, his sister Rada lived there. And silly old Unc with his prehistoric bones and antediluvian tortoises. Damn it, how he missed both of them!

When he glanced out the window again, his mouth dropped open. Two men were walking along the street toward the CO’s office. One he knew—red-bearded Zef, sergeant major of the 114^th Sappers’ Detachment, a condemned man who earned the right to remain alive by clearing roads through the forest. But the other was weird-looking. At first Guy took him for a degen, but then reasoned that Zef would hardly bother dragging in a degen to headquarters. He was a healthy young man, almost naked, deeply tanned, strong as a bull, and wore only a pair of odd-looking pants made of shiny cloth and cut well above the knee. Zef had his gun with him but he didn’t appear to be escorting this fellow under guard. They were walking side by side, and the queer-looking stranger kept waving his arms absurdly. He was attempting to communicate something to Zef, who was panting from their rapid pace and looking totally lost. “Some kind of savage,” thought Guy. “But where did he come from? The road through the forest? Maybe he was raised by animals. It’s happened before. Damn, what muscles!”

He watched the pair approach the sentry. Zef wiped his face as he attempted to explain something, but the sentry, the recent re-emit, didn’t know Zef and thrust a gun into his ribs, ordering him to withdraw to the distance specified by regulations. The naked fellow entered the conversation with his arms still flying. The strange expression on his face was as elusive as quicksilver, and his eyes were expressive and dark. “Oh, now the sentry’s lost his cool. Going to raise a ruckus.” Guy turned around.

“Captain, permission to speak? The sergeant major of the 114th has brought someone in. Would you mind taking a look?”

The captain went to the window. His eyebrows went up. Opening the window, he stuck out his head.

“Sentry, let them pass!”

Guy was closing the window when he heard tramping in the corridor. Zef and Ms savage companion entered the office. Close on their heels and crowding them, the chief sentry officer and two other men on sentry duty burst in. Standing at attention, Zef coughed and fixed his impudent blue eyes on the captain.

“Sergeant Major Zef, One hundred and fourteenth Sappers’ Detachment, reporting, sir. This fellow was arrested on the road. Captain, from all outward signs, he’s insane. He eats poisonous mushrooms, doesn’t understand a word, speaks unintelligibly, and, as you see, walks around nearly naked.”

While Zef was delivering his report, the prisoner scanned his surroundings and presented a strange smile to everyone present. His teeth were even and as white as sugar. Folding his hands be-hind his back, the captain went up closer and inspected him from head to foot.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The prisoner smiled even more strangely, slapped his palm against his chest, and pronounced something that sounded like “Mac Sim.” The chief sentry guffawed, the sentries sniggered, and the captain smiled. At first Guy saw nothing humorous in his response; then he realized that “mac sim” in thieves’ slang meant “I ate the knife.”

“He’s probably one of yours,” said the captain to Zef.

Zef shook his head, throwing out a cloud of dust from hjs beard.

“Definitely not. Mac Sim is what he calls himself, but he doesn’t understand Moves’ language. So he’s not one of us.”

“Probably a degen,” suggested the chief sentry officer. (They gave him an icy look.) “Naked,” explained the sentry officer as he retreated toward the door. “May I go now, captain?”

“You may. Send for our staff physician. Dr. Zogu. Where did you catch him?” he asked Zef.

Zef explained that his detachment had been clearing quadrant 23/07 during the night, had destroyed four self-propelled ballistic missiles and one device of unknown function, and had lost two men in an explosion; everything was in order. Around seven in the morning this stranger came off the road from the forest to their campfire. They spotted him from a distance, followed him unnoticed by taking cover in the bushes, and captured him at an opportune moment. At first Zef had assumed he was a fugitive, then decided he was a degen and was about to shoot him, but changed his mind because this fellow... Zef, embarrassed, ran his fingers through his beard and concluded: “Because I realized he wasn’t a degen.”

“How did you reach that conclusion?” asked the captain. The prisoner stood quietly, arms folded across his powerful chest, glancing alternately at him and Zef.

Zef said it would be rather difficult to explain.

“In the first place this guy wasn’t afraid of anything. Further-more, he took the broth from the fire and ate exactly one-third, as if he was entitled to it, as a good friend. But before eating, he shouted into the woods, probably because he felt we were near-by. Next point: he wanted to treat us to mushrooms. The mush-rooms were poisonous, and we wouldn’t eat them or let him, either. But he tried to treat us—1 suppose to show his gratitude. And last: as everyone knows, no degen is better endowed physically than a normal weakling. On the way here he kept up a wild pace, walked over fallen trees as if he were on level ground, and skipped across ditches and waited for me on the other side. And for some reason or other—maybe to show off—he actually picked me up and ran two hundred steps.”

The captain listened to Zef attentively. But scarcely had Zef finished his story when the captain turned sharply to the prisoner, stared at him hard, and barked in Khonti: “Your name? Rank? Assignment?”

Guy admired the captain’s clever approach, but it was obvious that the prisoner did not understand Khonti. Again he revealed his beautiful teeth and thumped himself on the chest, saying “Mac Sim.” He jabbed his finger into his captor’s ribs, saying “Zef,” and then began to speak slowly, with long pauses, pointing alternately at the ceiling and the floor, and waving his arms, Guy thought he caught some familiar words in this speech, but the words had no bearing on the matter at hand. When the prisoner stopped talking. Corporal Varibobu spoke up.

“In my opinion this man is a clever spy and we should report this to the brigadier.”

The captain ignored him.

“You may go now, Zef,” he said. “You’ve done a good job and it will be taken into account.”

“I’m very grateful to you, captain!” Zef was about to leave when the prisoner uttered a low cry, leaned over the counter, and grabbed a pile of blank forms lying on the desk.

Frightened out of his wits, Varibobu recoiled and flung his pen at the savage. The savage snatched it out of the air and, perching himself on the counter, began to sketch on the paper. Guy and Zef grabbed him by the shoulder, but he shrugged them off.

“Leave him alone!” ordered the captain, and Guy obeyed with a sense of relief. Restraining this brown beast would be as difficult as stopping a tank by grabbing its treads.

The captain and Zef flanked the prisoner and studied his scribbling.

“I think it’s a map of the world,” said Zef uncertainly.

“H’m,” responded the captain.

“Well, of course! Here in the center he has the World Light. Around it is the World. And here is where he thinks we are.”

Guy finally managed to squeeze between the prisoner’s firm shoulder and Zefs coarse, sweaty jacket. The sketch amused him. That was how a six-year-old would portray the World: a small circle representing the World Light, and around it a large circle representing the World Sphere. And on the circle a duck dot, to which need only be added little hands and feet—and then you have it: “This is the World and this is me.” The poor lunatic couldn’t even draw the circle properly, making some sort of oval shape. It was obvious that he was abnormal. On top of that, he drew a dotted line going beneath the World to another point, as if he were trying to explain how he got where he now was.

Meanwhile the prisoner took a second form and rapidly sketched two small World Spheres in opposite comers, joined them with a dotted line, and added some flourishes. Zef let out a whistle: it was a hopeless case. There was no point in staying any longer.

“May I leave, sir?”

The captain shook his head.

“Uh, Zef, you were working in the Zone?”

“Yes, sir.”

The captain paced up and down.

“Perhaps you could—how shall I put it—give me your opinion of this man? From, let’s say, a professional point of view.”

“Impossible, sir,” replied Zef. “You know I’ve lost the right to speak in a professional capacity.”

“I understand. That’s all very true. And I must compliment you for your honesty. But...”

Zef stood at attention. The captain was clearly embarrassed, and Guy understood his predicament well. This was a serious case. (Suppose the savage is a spy?) Dr. Zogu was certainly a great officer, a brilliant legionnaire, but still he was only an army doctor. Zef, on the other hand, had really known his stuff before he was arrested.

“Well now,” said the captain, “there’s nothing we can do about that. But between you and me... “He halted in front of Zef. “You understand what I mean? Simply between you and me, do you really think this fellow is insane?”

Zef paused before replying.

“Just between you and me?” he repeated. “Well, of course, as a layman, and laymen do make mistakes. I’m inclined to believe that this is a clear-cut case of a split personality, where the real ego is ejected and replaced by an imagined ego. Purely as a layman, mind you, I would recommend electric shock therapy and tranquilizers.”

Mac Sim began to speak again, addressing the captain and Zef alternately. The poor fellow was trying to say something—some-thing was bothering him. But just then the door opened and the doctor, obviously out of sorts because his dinner had been interrupted, entered the room.

“Hello, Tolot,” he said cantankerously. “What’s the matter? I’m quite relieved to find you alive and well. Who the hell is this?”

“The rehabs caught him in the forest. I suspect he’s insane.”

“He’s not insane. He’s a malingerer,” growled the doctor, pouring water for himself from a pitcher. “Send him back to the forest. Let him work.”

“He’s not ours,” protested the captain. “And we don’t know where he came from. I think he may have been captured by degens, gone off his head, and escaped to us.”

“Right,” grumbled the doctor. “You’d have to go off your rocker to come running to us.” He went over to the prisoner and reached out to examine his face. The prisoner grinned and gently pushed him away. “No, no!” said the doctor. “Stand still!”

The prisoner submitted. The doctor examined his eyes, thumped him, felt his neck and throat, flexed his hand, tapped his knees, and then returned to the pitcher and poured himself another glass of water.

“Heartburn,” he explained.

Guy looked at Zef, who was standing off to one side and staring at the wall with studied indifference. The doctor quenched his thirst and returned to the examination. He palpated the prisoner, looked at his teeth, punched him in the abdomen twice; then he took a flat box from his pocket, plugged it into a socket, and applied the box to various parts of the savage’s body.

“Nothing special,” he said. “Is he a mute, too?”

“No,” replied the captain. “He can talk, but he speaks in some savage language. He doesn’t understand us. Here are his drawings.”

The doctor studied them.

“Well, well, very amusing.” He grabbed the corporal’s pen and rapidly sketched a cat as a child might, using stick lines and small circles. “What do you say to that, friend?” he asked, handing the drawing to the lunatic.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Mac Sim took the pen and began to draw. Beside the doctor’s cat he sketched a strange animal covered with a great deal of hair and wearing a hostile expression. Although this animal was unfamiliar to Guy, he realized it was not a child’s drawing. It was a fine drawing—in fact, remarkably good. Even a little frightening to look at. The doctor reached for the pen, but the lunatic drew back his hand and sketched still another animal—with enormous ears, wrinkled skin, and, in place of a nose, something resembling a very long tail.

“Beautiful!” shouted the doctor, slapping his sides.

The lunatic didn’t stop there. Now, instead of animals, he sketched some sort of apparatus that resembled a large transparent land mine. Then he very skillfully drew a little man sitting inside. He tapped the tiny figure with his finger and then tapped himself on the chest, saying: “Mac Sim.”

“He could have seen this thing by the river,” said Zef softly as he moved closer. “We burned a similar object last night. A real monster.” He shook his head.

The doctor appeared to notice Zef for the first time.

“Ah, my dear professor!” he shouted with exaggerated pleasure. “Something stinks in this room. My dear colleague, be so kind as to deliver your profound judgments from the other side of the room. I shall be greatly indebted to you.”

Varibobu snickered and the captain said sternly: “Zef, stand by the door, and don’t forget yourself.”

“Well, that’s better,” said the doctor. “Tolot, what do you think we should do with him?”

“That depends on your diagnosis. If he’s a malingerer, I’ll hand him over to the state prosecutor’s office. They’ll look into it. If he’s insane...”

“Tolot, he’s not a malingerer!” The doctor was adamant. “The office of the state prosecutor is not the place for him. But I do know a place that will be very interested in him. Where’s the brigadier?”

“He’s on patrol in the forest.”

“Well, no matter. You’re the duty officer today, aren’t you? Send this young stranger to this address.” The doctor wrote something on the back of the last sketch.

“What’s that?” asked the captain.

“Oh, it’s a place that will be very grateful to us for this lunatic. I can promise you that.”

The captain twisted the paper in his fingers hesitantly, then went to the far corner of the room and beckoned to the doctor. They whispered for some time and only an occasional remark of Zogu’s was audible. “The Propaganda Department... Send him with an escort. It’s not that much of a secret! I guarantee you... Order him to forget the whole thing. Damn it—the kid won’t understand a thing anyway!”

“Good,” the captain finally agreed. “Corporal Varibobu! Write up escort papers!”

The corporal rose slightly.

“Are Private Gaal’s travel orders ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Insert Mac Sim’s name in the orders as being under escort. Private Gaal!”

Guy clicked his heels and snapped to attention.

“Yes, sir.”

“I want you to deliver the prisoner to the address on this paper before you proceed to your new post. After you have carried out these orders, you must present this paper to the duty officer at your new station. Forget the address. This is your last assignment, Gaal, and I know you will execute it as befits a good legionnaire.”

“It will be done, sir,” shouted Guy, flattered by the captain’s confidence.

Suddenly a hot wave of indescribable ecstasy swept over him and bore him aloft. “Oh, the sweet moments of joy, those unforgettable moments when one is on wings, those moments of sweet contempt for everything crude, material, and physical. Moments when you long to hear the command that will join you to fire, fling you into its flames against thousands of enemies, into the very thick of wild hordes, to face a hail of bullets. Fire! Flame! Fury! And now he is rising, this strapping, handsome fellow, the pride of the brigade, our own Corporal Varibobu. Like a fiery torch, like a statue of glory and fidelity. And he leads the singing, and we all join in as one!

“And everyone is singing with me, including the brilliant Captain Tolot, model legionnaire, cream of the Legion, for whom I would gladly give my life, my soul, my everything, this very instant. And Dr. Zogu is singing, too—a model brother of mercy, rough and tough as a real soldier, but tender as a mother, too. And our Corporal Varibobu, ours to the core, an old warrior, a veteran grown gray in skirmishes with the enemy. Oh, how his buttons sparkle and his stripes shine on his worn, well-earned uniform. For him there is nothing but to serve, to serve!

“But what’s this? He’s not singing. He’s leaning on the counter and rolling his idiotic brown head. His eyes keeping roving and he doesn’t stop grinning. Who are you grinning at, you scum? Oh, how I’d like to smash my iron first into that toothy grin. But no, I must not: such behavior is ill befitting a legionnaire. After all, he’s a lunatic, a pitiful cripple. He can never know real happiness. He’s blind, worthless, half-human. And that red-haired bandit is squirming in the corner in unbearable pain. You lousy criminal, here’s a kick in the ass for you. Up on your feet, scum! Stand at attention when a legionnaire sings his marching song. Here’s something for your empty head and your filthy face, and your insolent eyes. Take that, and that!”

Guy flung Zef back against the wall and, clicking his heels, turned to the captain. As usual after such fits of ecstasy, his ears rang and the world floated and swayed pleasantly before his eyes.

Corporal Varibobu, blue-gray from the strain, coughed, holding his chest. The doctor, sweaty and flushed, drank water greedily straight from the pitcher and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. The captain frowned vacantly as if trying to remember something. Red-haired Zef, looking like a pile of dirty rags, writhed in pain. His face had been battered to a bloody pulp and he was moaning weakly. And Mac Sim had stopped smiling. His face had stiffened: his lips were parted as he stared at Guy, wide-eyed.

“Private Gaal,” said the captain. “Something I wanted to tell you—hold it, Zogu, leave me at least one swallow of water.”

3.

Maxim woke up with a heavy head. It was stuffy in the room; the window had been closed all night again. With the city so near him, it was senseless to open the window. A grayish-brown cap of noxious fumes was visible over the city. The wind carried them here, and neither distance, nor his fifth-floor room high above the street, nor the park below offered relief. “God, how I’d love to take an ion shower now and leap stark naked into our garden—not into this foul, rotting garden with its stinking fumes, but into ours, near Gladbach, on the shore of the Nirs. I’d race ten miles around the lake at top speed, swim across it, then walk along its bottom for about twenty minutes to exercise my lungs. Then climb up the slippery boulders. ” He jumped up, opened the window, stuck out his head into the drizzle, inhaled the damp air, and coughed—the air was full of industrial wastes, and the raindrops left a metallic taste on his tongue. Cars whizzed by along the nearby superhighway. Below, beneath the window, wet foliage gleamed yellow, and something glistened on the high stone wall. At the city’s edge, as usual, thick columns of poisonous smoke curled lazily from two high stacks and drooped toward the ground.

A suffocating world. A miserable, sick world. So bleak and sad. Like that government office where people, suddenly, without rhyme or reason, howled and sang themselves hoarse. And Guy, such a fine, handsome young man, completely unexpectedly had beaten Redbeard Zef to a pulp. And the victim hadn’t even resist- ed. An unhappy world. A radioactive river, a ridiculous iron drag- on, polluted air. And that clumsy two-tiered metal box moving along on wheels, spewing pollution. And its slovenly passengers. And that barbaric incident in the metal box on wheels, when rude people reduced an elderly woman to tears with their boisterous laughter and gestures and no one interceded. The box was jammed, but everyone turned away. Only Guy jumped up, white with anger (maybe it had been fear) and shouted at them, and they cleared out. But even Guy, who seemed to be a decent sort would suddenly be seized by unexplainable rages, would quarrel violently with the passengers in his compartment, stare at them and then Just as suddenly become totally prostrated.

Yet the others behaved no better. They would sit peacefully for hours, resting, chatting softly, even laughing; and suddenly someone would begin to growl at his neighbor. The neighbor would respond with a nervous snarl. And the other passengers did nothing to break it up. Instead of calming down the quarreling pair, they Joined in. And the row would grow until everyone was yelling, threatening, shoving. Even the children would howl at the top of their lungs until their ears were boxed. Then everything would gradually subside; people would get sulky and avoid conversation. And sometimes the row would turn into a really disgusting affair. Eyes would practically pop out of their sockets faces would flush with red blotches, voices would rise to blood-curdling shrieks, and someone would laugh hysterically. Some would pray, others sing. A madhouse.

Maxim left the window and paused briefly in the center of his cramped room, feeling weak, apathetic, and exhausted. Forcing himself to take positive action to overcome his deteriorating physical and mental state, he began to exercise, using a bulky wooden chair as barbells. “You can sure go to pot this way ” he thought. “I suppose I can take it for another day or so. Then I’ll have to get out of here. Maybe roam the forest awhile. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to run off to the mountains. Nice there And wild. Pretty far—you couldn’t make it in one night. What did Guy call them? Zartak. I wonder if that’s the name of those mountains or their word for mountains? Well, whatever they are I’d better forget about them for now. I’ve been here ten days and haven’t made any progress yet.”

He squeezed into the stall shower and for several minutes rubbed himself down in the dense artificial rain, as disgusting as their real ram. True, it was slightly colder, but hard and caustic. He dried himself with a sterile towel.

Annoyed with everything—the bleary morning, this suffocating world, his idiotic situation, the lousy, greasy breakfast he would eat shortly—he returned to his room to make his bed. Breakfast was waiting for him, fuming and stinking on the table. Fishfacewas closing the window.

“Неllо,” said Maxim in the local language. “Window. Mustnot.”

“Hello,” she replied as she turned the window’s many bolts. “Must. Rain. Bad.”

“Fishface,” said Maxim in Lingcos. Her real name was Nolu, but Maxim had instantly renamed her. Fishface she would always be, for her expression and her imperturbability.

She turned and looked at him with unblinking eyes. For the nth time, she touched her finger to the tip of her nose and said “woman,” then pointed at Maxim and said “man,” then pointed to the baggy jump suit hanging on the back of a chair. “Clothes. Must.” Shorts weren’t enough. For her, a man had to be covered from the neck down.

While he dressed, she made his bed, although Maxim always insisted he could do it himself. She pushed the chair to the middle of the room (Maxim had moved it against the wall) and resolutely opened the radiator valve that Maxim always turned off. His persistent use of “must not” shattered her no less than his persistent “must.”

After buttoning his jump suit at the neck, Maxim went to the table and picked at his breakfast with a two-pronged fork. The usual exchange followed.

“Don’t want. Must not.”

“Must. Food. Breakfast.”

“Don’t want breakfast. Tastes bad.”

“Must eat breakfast. Good.”

“Fishface,” Maxim exploded in Lingcos, “you are a very cruel woman. If you were to come to Earth, I would run myself ragged trying to find food you liked.”

“I don’t understand,” she said blankly. “What is ‘fishface’?”

While disgustedly chewing a greasy chunk of food, Maxim took a piece of paper and sketched a sunfish full face. She studied it carefully and put it in the pocket of her smock. She appropriated all of Maxim’s drawings and took them somewhere. Maxim drew a great deal and enjoyed it. During free moments and at night when he could not sleep, there was absolutely nothing else to do. So he drew animals and people, charts and diagrams, and anatomical cross sections. He drew Professor Megu like a hippopotamus, and hippopotamuses like Professor Megu. He constructed an encyclopedic chart of the Lingcos language, schematics of machines, and diagrams of historical chronology. The reams of paper he consumed all disappeared into Fishface’s pocket without any visible evidence that he had succeeded in communicating with his hosts. Hippo—Professor Megu—had his own approach to the problem and had no intention of changing it.

The encyclopedic chart of Lingcos, whose study would enable them to initiate communication with Maxim, held absolutely no interest for Hippo. Fishface was the only person teaching the stranger the local language, and then only the most basic terms for communication—“Close the window,” “Put on your jumpsuit,” and the like. Not a single communications specialist was assigned to his case. Hippo, and only Hippo, was occupied with Maxim.

True, he had a rather powerful research tool at his command—mentoscopic equipment—and Maxim spent from fourteen to sixteen hours a day in the testing chair. Moreover, Hippo’s mentoscope was very sensitive. It permitted rather deep memory penetration and possessed an extremely high resolution capability. With such equipment it was possible to manage without language.

But Hippo used the mentoscope in a rather peculiar manner. He categorically refused to show his own mentograms to anyone and was even somewhat angered by suggestions that he do so. And his attitude toward Maxim’s mentograms was strange. Maxim had organized his recollections so that the natives would receive a rather comprehensive picture of Earth’s social, economic, and cultural life. But these mentograms failed to arouse an enthusiastic response from Hippo. He would make a wry face, mumble, walk away, make phone calls, or harass his assistant, frequently repeating a succulent-sounding word, “massaraksh.” When the screen showed Maxim blowing up an icy crag that was bearing down on his ship, or tearing an armored wolf to pieces, or rescuing a field laboratory from a gigantic, stupid pseudo-octopus, nothing could drag him away from the mentoscope. He would squeal softly, clap his head in delight, and yell at his exhausted assistant, who was making recordings of the images. The sight of a chromospheric protuberance would send the professor into raptures, as if he had never seen anything like it before. And he was very fond of love scenes, extracted by Maxim from movies for the specific purpose of giving the natives some idea of Earthlings’ emotional life.

The professor’s absurd reaction to this material depressed Maxim. He wondered if Hippo was really a professor and not simply a mentoscope engineer preparing material for the real commission set up for communication with visitors from outer space. Hippo seemed a rather primitive individual, like a kid interested only in the battle scenes in War and Peace. It was humiliating, Maxim felt, to have such a serious matter as his presentations of Earth taken so lightly. He was entitled to expect a more serious partner in his attempt to communicate.

Of course, it was possible that this world was located at an intersection of interstellar routes, so that visitors from outer space were commonplace—in fact, so commonplace that special commissions were not established for each new arrival. Officials simply limited themselves to eliciting the most essential information from them. In his case, for example, the people with shiny but-tons, obviously not experts, had examined his situation and, without further ado, sent him, a new arrival, to the designated place. But, he thought, perhaps some nonhumanoids had made such a bad impression that the natives reacted to all recent arrivals from other planets with a decided but justifiable suspicion. Therefore, all Professor Hippo’s fussing with the mentoscope was merely a delaying action, only a semblance of communication, until some higher authority decided his fate.

“One way or another,” concluded Maxim, gagging on the last piece of food, “I’m in a mess. If I’m going to get anywhere, I had better hurry up and learn their language.”

“Good,” said Fishface, removing his plate. “Let’s go.”

Maxim sighed and rose. They entered the corridor. It was long, dirty blue, and lined with doors, like the one to Maxim’s room. Maxim never encountered anyone here, but occasionally he heard excited voices coming from behind closed doors. Possibly other strangers were being kept here to await decisions on their fate.

Fishface walked in front of him with a long masculine stride, straight as a stick, and Maxim felt very sorry for her. Apparently this country was still uninitiated in the cosmetic arts, and poor Fishface had been left to her own devices. The professor’s assistant treated her with contempt, and Hippo took no notice of her at all. Reminding himself of his own inattentive attitude, his con-science began to bother him. He caught up with her, patted her bony shoulder, and said: “Nolu, fine girl. Good girl.”

She lifted a cold face to him, pushed away his hand, frowned, and declared sternly: “Maxim bad. Man. Woman. Must not.”

Embarrassed, Maxim dropped back again.

When they reached the end of the corridor, Fishface pushed open a door and they entered a large light room that Maxim thought of as a reception room. Its windows were decorated tastelessly with rectangular gratings of thick iron rods. A high door upholstered in leather led to Hippo’s laboratory. For some reason two huge natives were always stationed by the door. Never responding to greetings, they sat almost motionless and appeared to be in a constant trance.

As always, Fishface went straight into the laboratory, leaving Maxim in the reception room. Maxim, as usual, greeted the natives posted by the door and, as usual, received no response. The door to the laboratory was slightly ajar and he could hear Hippo’s loud, irritated voice and the clicking of the mentoscope. Maxim went to the window, gazed briefly at the wet landscape, the wooded plain, and the superhighway, at the tall metal tower scarcely visible in the fog, and quickly became bored. He decided to enter the laboratory without waiting to be called.

It was filled, as usual, with the pleasant smell of ozone. Double screens flickered. The bald, overworked assistant with an impossible name, whom Maxim had nicknamed Floorlamp, pretended he was tuning the equipment as he listened to the argument going on in the laboratory.

In Hippo’s chair, behind Hippo’s desk, sat a stranger with a square, peeling face and swollen, bloodshot eyes. Hippo stood in front of him, shrieking, legs thrust apart, hands against his sides, and leaning over slightly. His neck veins bulged, his bald spot had turned a fiery sunset-purple, and spray flew in all directions from his mouth.

Trying not to attract attention, Maxim passed to his work station quietly and greeted the assistant in a low voice. Floorlamp, his nerves worn to a frazzle, recoiled in terror and slipped on at hick cable. Maxim barely managed to grab him by the shoulders. Floorlamp went limp. What a strange man. He was deathly afraid of Maxim. Fishface appeared out of nowhere with a small uncorked bottle that she stuck under Floorlamp’s nose. Floorlamp hiccupped and revived. Before he could slip into unconsciousness again, Maxim leaned him against a steel cabinet and with-drew quickly.

After he sat down in the testing chair he noticed that the stranger had stopped listening to Hippo and was observing him intently. Maxim smiled warmly. The stranger tipped his head slightly. At that instant. Hippo banged his fist on the table and grabbed the telephone. Taking advantage of the pause, the stranger uttered a few words, but Maxim could distinguish only “must” and “must not.” Then the stranger picked up a sheet of thick bluish paper with a bright green border and waved it in front of Hippo’s face. Annoyed, Hippo brushed it aside and immediately began to bark into the phone. The words “must,” “must not,” and the puzzling “massaraksh” came from his lips repeatedly, and Maxim even caught the word “window.” It ended with Hippo slamming down the receiver angrily, bellowing at the stranger, and after raining curses on him, marching out and slamming the door.

Then the stranger rose from his seat, opened a long flat box ly-ing on the window ledge, and took out a dark garment.

“Come here,” he said to Maxim. “Put this on.”

Maxim looked at Fishface.

“Go on!” said Fishface. “Put it on. Must.”

Maxim realized that someone, somewhere, had made the decision he had been awaiting and that he was in for a change. He flung off the ugly jump suit and, with the stranger’s help, put on the new garment. Maxim thought it was neither handsome nor comfortable, but it was identical to the suit worn by the stranger. Perhaps the stranger had given him a spare suit of his own, for the jacket sleeves were too short and the trousers were baggy. But everyone else was pleased with Maxim’s appearance. The stranger mumbled his approval. Fishface’s features softened as she smoothed the shoulders and straightened the jacket. Even Floor-lamp smiled wanly from behind the control panel.

“Let’s go,” said the stranger as he moved toward the door.

“Good-bye,” said Maxim to Fishface. “And thank you,” he added in Lingcos.

“Good-bye,” replied Fishface. “Maxim good. Strong. Must go.”

She seemed upset. Or, perhaps, concerned that the suit didn’t fit too well. Maxim waved to the pale Floorlamp and hurried after the stranger.

They passed through several rooms cluttered with bulky archaic apparatus. They descended to the first floor in a rattling elevator and entered the low-ceilinged vestibule where Guy had de-posited Maxim days ago. Now, as then, he had to wait until some documents were prepared, until a funny little man in absurd head-gear scratched something on pink cards, and the stranger scratched something on green ones, and a girl wearing optical amplifiers punched notches in them. Then everyone exchanged their cards and everything got all mixed up, and finally the little man in the absurd headgear appropriated two green cards and a pink one. And the stranger received two pink ones, a thick blue one, and a round metal tag with an inscription on it. And a minute later he handed all this to a burly man with shiny buttons who was standing by the exit. When they were already outside, the burly fellow suddenly began shouting hoarsely, and the stranger re-turned again; it seems he had forgotten to take the blue card with him.

Maxim was seated to the right of the stranger in a ridiculously long automobile. The stranger was furious about something. Puffing and panting, he kept repeating Hippo’s favorite expletive: Massaraksh.”

The car growled, moved away gently from the curb, maneuvered through a stationary herd of cars, rolled along the broad asphalt square in front of the building, passed a large bed of wilted flowers, then a yellow wall, rolled on to the highway’s entrance ramp, and braked sharply.

“Massaraksh!” hissed the stranger as he turned off the engine.

An endless column of identical trucks stretched along the high-way. A row of stationary circular objects of wet shiny metal protruded above the side panels. The trucks moved slowly, maintaining appropriate intervals, their engines gurgling rhythmically. They spread a terrible stench of exhaust fumes everywhere.

Maxim studied the little door next to him, figured out how the window worked, and raised it. Without turning toward him, the stranger uttered a lengthy and completely incomprehensible sentence.

“I don’t understand,” said Maxim.

The stranger turned to him with a surprised expression and, judging from his intonation, asked a question. Maxim shook his j head.

The stranger seemed even more surprised. He dug into his pocket, pulled out a small flat box with little white sticks, stuck one in his mouth, and offered the rest to Maxim. Out of courtesy, Maxim accepted the little box and began to examine it. It was made of cardboard and smelled strongly of some kind of dried leaves. Maxim took out one of the little sticks, bit off a piece, and chewed it. He rolled down the window quickly, put his head out, and spat. It was not food.

“Must not,” he said, returning the box. “Taste bad.”

The stranger stared at him and his mouth dropped open. The white stick hung from his lip. Maxim, conforming with what appeared to be the local custom, touched a stick to the end of his nose and introduced himself: “Maxim.”

The stranger mumbled something. A spark suddenly appeared in his hand; he touched the tip of the white stick to it and instantly the car was filled with nauseating smoke.

“Massaraksh!” shouted Maxim angrily and he flung open the door. “Must not!”

Now he realized what these sticks were: when he was traveling with Guy, almost all the men had poisoned the air with the very same kind of smoke, but instead of white sticks they inserted in their mouths short and long wooden objects which looked like the little wooden whistles children used in ancient times. Apparently they inhaled some kind of narcotic—undoubtedly a very harmful custom. Maxim recalled how relieved he was to learn that Guy was also opposed to this custom.

The stranger quickly tossed the narcotic stick out the window and waved his palm in front of his face. To be on the safe side, Maxim waved his hand, too, and then introduced himself again. He learned that the stranger’s name was Fank, and with that the conversation ended. They sat and waited for about five minutes, exchanged friendly glances, and pointing out to each other the endless column of trucks, kept repeating: “Massaraksh!” Finally the endless column ended and Fank turned onto the highway.

He seemed to be in a great hurry. At any rate, he accelerated the engine into a velvety roar; then he switched on some evil-sounding device and, ignoring all safety rules, started to pass the column of trucks, narrowly missing the cars speeding toward him.

They passed the column of trucks. Nearly flying onto the shoulder, they swerved around a red vehicle with a lone driver; leaped past a wooden cart with enormous wobbly wheels drawn by an ancient tailless beast; forced a group of pedestrians wearing canvas capes into a ditch; sailed beneath a canopy of wet trees planted in even rows along both sides of the road—and Fank kept accelerating. Realizing that the car had not been designed for such speeds—it was much too unstable—Maxim felt uneasy.

Soon the road was lined with buildings. The car had burst into the city, and Fank had to reduce his speed sharply.

The streets were disproportionately narrow and jammed with vehicles. Hemmed in on all sides by vehicles of every conceivable description, Fank’s car hardly moved. A van ahead of them, its rear covered with flashy signs and gaudy images of people and animals, almost blocked out the sky. On their left crawled two identical cars, crowded with gesticulating men and women. Beautiful women, colorful, unlike Fishface. Further to the left rolled some sort of gyromat packed with passengers. On the right was a stationary strip of asphalt closed to transport. People dressed in strange violet and black clothing bumped, passed, and dodge done another as they shouldered their way through the crowds.

There were many pale, drawn faces, very similar to Fishface’s. Almost everyone was ugly, painfully thin, too pale, awkward, and angular. Yet they appeared to be content: they laughed often and seemed relaxed, their eyes sparkled, and animated voices filled the air. “Perhaps,” thought Maxim, “this is a well-organized society after all.” The houses seemed cheerful— lights were shining in almost all the windows, which meant there was no shortage of electric power. Many-colored lights above rooftops blinked gaily. Streets were washed clean. Almost everyone was neatly dressed. But although this world appeared prosperous on the surface, something was wrong: there were too many haggard faces.

Suddenly there was an abrupt change of mood. Excited cries rang through the air. A man climbed onto a glass kiosk and began to shout, waving a free hand as he hung on with the other. Singing broke out on the sidewalk. Pedestrians halted in their tracks, tossed their hats in the air, and sang and shouted themselves hoarse, lifting their drawn faces to enormous colored signs flashing across the street.

“Massaraksh!” hissed Fank, and the car swerved sharply. Maxim looked at him. Fank’s face was deathly white and contorted. He pulled his hands back from the wheel with difficulty and stared at his watch.

“Massaraksh!” he groaned. He uttered several other words, but Maxim caught only “I don’t understand.”

Fank glanced over his shoulder, and his face grew even more contorted. Mac looked back, too, but saw nothing unusual. Only a bright yellow box-shaped automobile.

By now the shouting and shrieking on the street had reached fever pitch, but Maxim had no time to think about it. Fank had lost consciousness and the car was still moving. The van in front of them slammed on its brakes, and a massive gaudy wall came at Maxim head-on. Then, a dull thud, a sickening crunch, and the hood of their car sprang up.

“Fank!” shouted Maxim. “Fank! Must not!”

Fank lay there moaning, his body slumped over the wheel, Brakes squealed, traffic stopped, and sirens howled. Maxim shook Fank by the shoulder and then opened the window, shouting, “Hurry! Hurt!”

The singing, yelling mob converged on the car. Maxim was to-tally bewildered. Either these people were outraged by the accident, or they were insanely overjoyed about something, or they were threatening someone. It would be pointless to shout for help; he couldn’t even hear himself. So he returned to Fank. Now Fank’s head was thrown back against the seat; and with all his strength he was kneading his temples and cheeks. Saliva oozed from the corners of his mouth. Realizing that Fank was in terrible pain, Maxim grasped him firmly by the elbows and braced himself quickly, preparing to transfer the pain to his own body. He wasn’t sure it would work with a non-Earthling, and he searched in vain for a point where he could establish nerve contact. To make matters worse, Fank pulled his hands from his temples and with all his remaining strength tried to push Maxim away, mumbling desperately and tearfully. Maxim understood only “Go, go!” He was sure that Fank was out of his mind.

The door next to Fank opened wide. Two faces beneath black berets forced their way into the car. Rows of metal buttons glittered, Maxim’s door was opened, and strong hands gripped his shoulders, side, and neck. They pulled him away from Fank and dragged him from the car. He did not resist. As he was pushed into the noisy mob, he saw two men in berets dragging the writhing Fank to the yellow car, while three others in berets cleared a path through the arm-waving crowd. Then, with a roar, the crowd closed in on the wrecked car; the car lurched clumsily, rose in the air, and turned onto its side. The crowd descended on it, still shouting and singing. Everyone had been seized by a frantic ecstasy.

Maxim was driven back to the wall of a building and pressed against a wet shop window. Craning his neck, he spotted the yellow car. It set off with a brassy wailing noise. Forcing its way through the mob, it disappeared from sight.

4.

By late evening Maxim had had it with the city. He was ravenous. He had been on his feet all day, seen a great deal but under-stood almost nothing. He did pick up several new words by eavesdropping on conversations and could now identify some of the letters on signs and posters, but that was it. The accident with Fank had disturbed him, yet he was relieved to be on his own again. Independence was very important to him; it was something he had lacked during his confinement in Hippo’s fifth-floor termite’s nest with its miserable ventilation. Reviewing the entire situation, he decided not to return to Hippo for the time being but to lose himself for a while. Sure, courtesy to your hosts was important, but the chance to gather information was something to be considered as well. Yes, it was damned important to establish communication with these people, but a better opportunity to gather information on his own would probably never turn up again. So communication would have to wait.

The city amazed him. It bugged the earth. All movement took place either along the ground or beneath it. The vast areas between buildings and the sky above them were filled only with smoke, rain, and fog. The city was gray, smoky, and drab. There was a sameness everywhere. Not in its buildings—some were rather beautiful—nor in the monotonous swarming of crowds on its streets; not in its eternal dampness, nor in the striking lifelessness of its solid mass of stone and asphalt—its sameness resided in something all-embracing, something very basic. It resembled the gigantic mechanism of a clock in which every part is different, yet everything moves, rotates, meshes, and unmeshes in a single, endless rhythm; where a change in rhythm means only one thing—faulty mechanism, breakdown, stoppage. A strange world, so unlike anything he had ever seen! It was probably a very complex society governed by many laws. But there was one that Maxim had already discovered for himself: conform, do as everyone else does in the same way as everyone else. And this was precisely what he was doing. Melting into the crowd, he entered gigantic stores under dirty glass roofs; together with the crowds he left them, descended into the earth, squeezed into jammed electric trains, and sped off somewhere amid incredible thundering; then, swept along by the crowd, he ascended to the surface again to streets identical to the ones he had just left.

Evening had fallen, and the feeble streetlights suspended high above the ground had gone on. The main streets were now congested. Retreating from the crowds, Maxim found himself in a half-deserted, poorly lit lane. He decided that he’d had enough of the city for the day and halted.

He noticed three luminous gold spheres, a blinking blue sign made of fluorescent glass tubes, and a door leading to a cellar cafe. He had already learned that the three spheres meant a place where food was available. Descending some chipped steps, he saw a small low-ceilinged room with a dozen tables, a floor thickly coated with clean sawdust, and glass shelves crammed with bottles of iridescent liquids. The cafe was almost empty. Behind a counter in front of the shelves a flabby elderly woman moved sluggishly; a short distance away, a short but strong-looking fellow with a thick black mustache sat casually at a small table.

Maxim entered, chose a table in a recess away from the counter, and sat down. The old woman glanced in his direction and said something in a hoarse but loud voice. The man looked at him vacantly, turned away, picked up a tall glass of transparent liquid, and took a sip. A door opened, and an attractive young girl wearing a white lace apron entered the room. Noticing Maxim, she went to his table, but instead of meeting his eyes, she stared over his head. She had clear delicate skin, light down on her up-per lip, and beautiful gray eyes. Maxim brought his finger to the tip of his nose gallantly and introduced himself: “Maxim.”

The girl looked down at him in amazement as if seeing him now for the first time. She was so lovely that Maxim couldn’t restrain a broad smile. Then she smiled and pointed to her nose: “Rada.”

“Good,” said Maxim. “Supper.”

She nodded and asked a question. To be on the safe side, Maxim nodded and smiled. He watched her as she walked away. Her slim graceful figure reminded him that this world, too, had its beautiful people.

The old woman uttered a lengthy comment and vanished be-hind the counter. Maxim noticed that the man was staring at him. Rather hostilely, too. Oh, well, forget it. He probably didn’t appear particularly friendly himself.

Rada reappeared and served Maxim a bowl of steaming porridge with meat and vegetables and a thick glass mug filled with a foaming liquid.

“Good,” said Maxim. He motioned to her to join him.

If only she would sit with him and talk to him while he ate. What a pleasure it would be to hear her voice. He was anxious for her to know that he liked her and would enjoy her company.

But Rada merely smiled and shook her head. She said some-thing—Maxim caught the words “to sit,” and she returned to the counter. Too bad, thought Maxim. He picked up the two-pronged fork and began to eat, trying to compose a sentence from the thirty words he knew, a sentence that would express friendship and his need to communicate.

As she leaned against the counter with her arms folded across her chest, Rada glanced at him from time to time. Each time their eyes met, they smiled at each other, and Maxim was somewhat surprised when Rada’s smiles grew progressively weaker and more hesitant. He had very mixed feelings. He enjoyed looking at Rada, although his pleasure was marred by a growing uneasiness. And he was pleased that the meal had turned out to be surprisingly tasty and nourishing, but at the same time he felt the man’s oppressive sidelong glances and the disapproval in the eyes of the old woman. He took a sip from the mug. Yes, it was beer—cold and fresh, but, he thought, too strong.

The man said something, and Rada went over to his table. Justas a smothered conversation began, a fly attacked Maxim and he had to struggle with it. Powerful, blue, and impudent, it seemed to jump in all directions at once; it buzzed and whined, as if declaring its love for Maxim. It insisted on staying with him and his plate. It walked on it, licked it. It was stubborn and verbose. The escapade ended with the fly falling into his beer when Maxim swung at the wrong moment. He set the mug down squeamishly on another table and continued eating. Rada returned, this time unsmiling; she looked away and asked him something.

“Yes,” replied Maxim, playing it safe again. “Rada good.”

She gazed at him in undisguised fright, moved off to the counter, and returned carrying a small glass of brown liquid on a saucer.

“Tasty,” said Maxim, looking at the girl with warmth and concern. “What is bad? Rada, sit here. Talk. Must talk. Must not go.”

To Maxim’s surprise, his carefully prepared speech made a poor impression on Rada. He thought she was about to cry. She whispered something and ran from the room. The old woman be-hind the counter uttered several angry words. “I’m doing some-thing wrong,” thought Maxim, upset. “But what?” Obviously the man and the woman did not care to have Rada sit and talk with him. But since they clearly were neither government officials nor guardians of the law, and since he apparently had not violated any laws, the best thing would be to ignore their hostile stares.

The man drained his glass, took a thick black polished cane from under the table, and walked slowly toward Maxim. He sat down opposite him, placed the cane across the table, and without looking at Maxim but obviously addressing him, spoke slowly and laboriously, repeating frequently “Massaraksh.” The hostility and enmity in Ms speech were strangely diluted by the indifference in his intonation and facial expression and by the emptiness of his colorless glassy eyes.

“I don’t understand,” said Maxim angrily.

The man slowly turned a blank face to him and seemed to look right through him. Slowly and distinctly he asked Maxim a question, then suddenly whipped a long shiny knife out of his cane. Maxim was bewildered. Not knowing what to say or how to react, he picked up a fork and twirled it in his fingers. The effect was startling. The man jumped back, knocking over his chair. Holding his knife in front of him, he crouched down absurdly. The old woman let out a piercing shriek. Taken by surprise, Maxim jumped up. Suddenly the man was beside him. At that instant Rada appeared, planted herself between them, and shouted, first at the man, then at Maxim. At this point Maxim was totally con-fused. The man picked up his cane, returned the knife to its hiding place, and walked toward the exit quietly. He turned around in the doorway, muttered something, and vanished.

Rada, pale and trembling, picked up the overturned chair, wiped up the brown puddle on the table, and cleared away the dirty dishes. She returned and said something to Maxim, to which he replied, as usual, “Yes.” It was hopeless. Rada repeated the same words, but this time she sounded angry, although Maxim felt that she was more frightened than angry. “No,” he replied, and instantly the woman behind the counter began to yell so hard her cheeks shook. Finally Maxim admitted, “I don’t under-stand.”

The woman sprang out from behind the counter, flew over to Maxim, and planted herself in front of him. She grabbed him by his shirt and rummaged through his pockets. Maxim was so stunned that he didn’t resist, but only repeated “Must not” and looked plaintively at Rada. The old woman, behaving as though she had suddenly come to a fateful decision, rushed back behind the counter and grabbed the telephone.

“Fank!” said Maxim with emotion. “Fank hurt! Go. Bad.”

The tension broke suddenly. Rada said something to the old woman that convinced her to put down the phone. She sputtered a bit more, then calmed down. Rada sat Maxim down again, served him a fresh mug of beer, and to his delight and relief joined him. For a while everything went smoothly. Rada asked questions, and Maxim, beaming with pleasure, answered them with “I don’t understand.” Maxim laboriously constructed another sentence and declared: “Rain, massaraksh, bad, fog.” Rada broke out laughing. Then another girl arrived and greeted them. Rada and she left the room, and after a while Rada re-turned, but without her apron. She was wearing a bright red cape and carrying a large handbag.

“Let’s go,” she said, and Maxim jumped up.

They were unable to leave immediately. The old woman began to shout again. She was angry about something, demanding some-thing. She waved a pen and sheet of paper in the air. Rada argued with her for a while, but the other girl came over and took the woman’s side. Rada finally relented. Then the three of them con-fronted Maxim. At first they repeated the same question, singly and then in chorus, which Maxim, of course, didn’t understand. At last Rada ordered everyone to keep quiet; she clapped Maxim lightly on the chest.

“Mac Sim?”

“Maxim,” he corrected her.

“Max? Im?”

“Maxim. Max—must not. Im—must not. Maxim.”

Rada brought her finger to the tip of her nose and said, “Rada Gaal. Maxim.”

“Gaal?” he said. “Guy Gaal?”

Dead silence. They were stunned.

“Guy Gaal,” repeated Maxim, overjoyed. “Guy good man.”

Suddenly there was a commotion as the women all began to talk at once. Rada tugged at Maxim and asked something. Obviously she was terribly interested in learning how he knew Guy. “Guy, Guy, Guy” bobbed up in a stream of incomprehensible words.

“Massaraksh!” said the old woman as she burst into laughter. And the girls joined in. Rada took Maxim by the arm, and they went out into the rain.

They walked to the end of a poorly lit side street and turned into an even dimmer lane where rickety wooden houses lined a muddy road paved with uneven cobblestones. Then they made two more turns. The narrow crooked streets were deserted. Not a single pedestrian was out.

At first Rada chattered animatedly, repeating Guy’s name frequently. Maxim interjected occasionally that Guy was a fine per-son, but added in Lingcos that one should not beat people in the face, that this was a strange custom, and that he, Maxim, could not understand it. As the streets they passed through grew narrower, darker, and muddier, Rada’s chatter broke off more frequently. Sometimes she stopped and peered into the darkness. At first Maxim thought she was trying to find a drier path, but it was something else she was searching for, because she walked straight through the puddles. Maxim had to guide her away from them gently and lead her onto drier ground. Where there wasn’t any, he lifted her under the arms and carried her, which appeared to please her. But each time her delight would quickly be smothered by fear.

The farther they walked from the cafe, the more fearful she be-came. At first Maxim tried to establish nerve contact with her, but, as with Fank, he was unsuccessful. They left the slums and came out on a muddy unpaved road. An endless fence, topped with rusty barbed wire, extended along the right side, and on the left was a pitch-dark, putrid wasteland. Here Rada became completely unnerved and almost burst into tears. To boost her spirits, Maxim sang the most cheerful songs he knew, at the top of his lungs. For a short time it helped—until they reached the end of the fence. Here were more houses, long, low, with dark windows. The few street lights burned dimly, and in the distance, beneath a solitary archway, stood a group of rain-drenched, bunched-over, shivering figures. Rada halted.

Grasping his arm, she began to speak in a faltering whisper. She pulled him back and he obeyed, thinking it would make her feel better. Then, realizing that she had acted impulsively, out of desperation, he refused to budge.

“Let’s go,” he said to her gently. “Let’s go, Rada. Not bad. Good.”

Like a child, she obeyed. Although he didn’t know the way, he led her and suddenly realized that she was afraid of the wet figures. He was very surprised because they didn’t appear dangerous; they were ordinary natives, hunched over in the rain and shivering from the dampness. At first there were two of them; then a third and a fourth appeared with those glowing narcotic sticks hanging from their lips.

Maxim walked along the deserted street between the rows of yellow houses, directly toward them, and Rada kept pressing closer to him. He placed his arm around her shoulder. It suddenly occurred to him that he was mistaken, that Rada must be shaking from the cold and not from fear. There was certainly nothing dangerous about those rain-soaked figures. He walked past them. Hands thrust deep inside their pockets and stamping to warm themselves, those pitiful souls, poisoned by narcotics, didn’t appear to notice Rada or him, didn’t even raise their eyes, although he passed close enough to hear their sick, irregular breathing. Now, he thought, Rada could relax. But as they passed the arch-way another group of four, as wet and pitiful as the first, sprang out in front of them and blocked their path. Their leader held along thick cane. Maxim recognized both him and the cane. The stranger in the cafe.

From the top of the peeling archway a bare bulb dangled in the draft. The walls were covered with mold, and below his feet lay cracked concrete marked by the muddy tracks of many feet. Sounds of shuffling feet came from the rear. Maxim turned around. The first four were catching up, gasping for breath and tossing away those repulsive narcotic sticks. Rada let out a muffled cry and let go of his hand. Suddenly he was hemmed in, pressed against the wall. He could see two of them holding Rada by the arms. The one with the cane went up to her, shifted the cane to his left hand, and raising his right with a deliberate motion, struck her on the cheek.

Maxim lost all sense of reality. Something clicked in his brain and the people vanished. Only he and Rada were there. No one else. Near them dangerous animals stamped clumsily through the mud. City, archway, naked bulb—all were gone. For him there were only the impassable mountains in the Land of Oz-on-Pandora. And a cave, a trap set by naked apes. And a pale, yellow, apathetic moon looking into the cave. He had to fight for his life. And now he began to fight as he had fought then on Pandora.

Time slowed down obediently. Seconds became hours, and during the span of a single second he could perform many maneuvers, deliver many blows, and see all his adversaries simultaneously. The animals were not very agile. They were used to tangling with another kind of beast. They didn’t have time to realize that they had chosen the wrong victim and that it would have been wiser to run away. They tried to fight. Maxim seized one of the animals by the jaw, yanked up its pliant head, and chopped its pale pulsating neck with the edge of his hand. Instantly he turned to the next one and grabbed, jerked, and chopped, in a cloud of stinking, predatory breathing, in the cave’s echoing silence, in the yellow, dripping semidarkness. Dirty crooked claws tore at his neck and slid off; yellow fangs sank deep into his shoulder and slid off.

Now he was alone. Their leader was rushing toward the cave’s exit with his club because he, like all leaders, possessed the sharpest reflexes and was the first to realize what was happening. For an instant, Maxim felt sorry for him: how slowly he seemed to react—the seconds stretched out, and their fleet leader had scarcely moved his legs when Maxim, slipping between the seconds, caught up with him. Maxim hacked him on the run and halted.

Time resumed its normal flow again: the cave was now an archway; the moon, a bare bulb; and the Land of Oz-on-Pandora, an enigmatic city on an enigmatic planet. Even more enigmatic than Pandora.

Maxim stood there, resting. The leader crawled about painfully on the ground. Blood trickled from Maxim’s wounded shoulder. Sobbing, Rada took his hand and ran his palm across her wet face. He looked around; bodies lay like sacks on the dirty concrete. Mechanically, he counted them. Six, including the leader; two, he thought, had managed to escape. Rada’s touch felt indescribably pleasant, and he knew that he had taken the proper course; he had done what had to be done. No more, no less. He didn’t bother to pursue those who had escaped, although he could have overtaken them easily. Even now he could hear their heels clicking at the end of the street.

The ones who had failed to escape lay on the ground; some would die, and some were already dead. These, he realized, were people, too, not apes or armored wolves, although their breath was foul, their touch dirty, and their thoughts repulsive and predatory .He felt a certain regret, sensed that he had lost something, something fine and pure, a part of his soul, and he realized that the old Maxim had disappeared forever. In spite of this loss, he felt a kind of strange pride stirring within him.

“Let’s go, Maxim,” Rada said quietly.

He followed her submissively.

“In short, you let him slip through your fingers.”

“What could I do, Strannik? You know how it is.”

“Damn it, Fank’. You didn’t have to do a damned thing. All you had to do was take a driver with you.”

“All right, it was my fault. But who could have expected... ?”

“OK. Enough. What measures have you taken?”

“As soon as I was released, I phoned Megu. Megu didn’t know anything about it. If he returns, Megu will let me know immediately. Next, I put all insane asylums under surveillance. He can’t go far. He sticks out like a sore thumb.”

“And?”

“I alerted our people in the police department. I ordered them to follow up every case, even petty traffic violations. He doesn’t have documents. I’ll be informed if anyone arrested doesn’t have identification papers. He can’t hide, even if he wants to. It’s just a matter of two or three days. A simple matter.”

“Simple, you say? What could be simpler than getting into a car, driving to the telecenter, and transporting a man here? But you couldn’t even handle that.”

“OK, it’s my fault. But such a coincidence—”

“Enough about coincidences. Do you really think he’s crazy?”

“It’s hard to say. He’s more like a savage. Like a well-washed, well-groomed savage from the mountains. But I can easily imagine a situation in which he’d act like a lunatic. Then there’s that idiotic smile, the imbecilic speech. And he’s a complete fool.”

“Of course. You’ve taken the proper steps. But there’s something else, Fank. Contact the underground.”

“What?”

“If you don’t find him in the next few days, he’ll undoubtedly turn up in the underground.”

“I do not understand what a savage would be doing in the underground.”

“There’s lots of them in the underground. Don’t ask stupid questions—just do what I tell you. If you lose him again, you’re fired.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Good. What else do you have for me?”