Boris Strugatsky - Noon - 22nd Century

“The northern shore is fairly far off,” he said, “and there are no good roads going there, But you have a ptero… car. And then, I can’t suggest anything closer for you. I don’t understand experiments very well. But the greater part of the island is taken up by melon fields, seedbeds, and so forth. Schoolchil… dren are working everywhere now, and I can’t take unneces… sary risks.”

“There is no risk,” Sorochinsky said flippantly. “No risk whatsoever.”

Sidorov remembered how once he had sat on a fire escape for a whole hour, getting away from a plastic vampire that needed protoplasm in order to put the finishing touches on itself. But then it hadn’t been the Egg that time. “Thank you,” he said. “The northern shore will suit us very well.”

“Yes,” said the Ainu. “There are no melon fields or seedbeds there. Only birches. And somewhere there’s an archaeo… logical project.”

“Archaeological?” Sorochinsky said with surprise.

“Thank you,” said Sidorov. “I think we’ll set off right away.”

“First you will have breakfast,” the Ainu reminded them politely.

They breakfasted silently. As they were leaving the Ainu said, “If you need something, don’t—how do you say it?—hes… itate to call on me.”

“Thank you. We won’t—how do you say it?—hes… itate one bit,” Sorochinsky assured him.

Sidorov glared at him, and once in the pterocar said, “If you pull something like that again, punk, I’ll throw you off the island.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sorochinsky, turning beet red. The flush made his smooth, dark face still more handsome.

In truth on the northern shore there were neither melon fields nor seedbeds, only birches. Kuril birches grow “lying down,” creeping across the ground, and their wet gnarled trunks and branches form a flat, impenetrable tangle. From the air a Kuril birch thicket looks like an inoffensive green meadow, perfectly suitable for the landing of a fairly light craft. Neither Galtsev, who was driving the pterocar, nor Sidorov nor Sorochinsky had any conception of Kuril birches. Sidorov pointed out a round knoll and said, “There.” Sorochinsky looked at him timidly and said, “A good place.” Galtsev lowered the landing gear and steered the pterocar to a landing right in the middle of a broad green field at the foot of the round knoll.

The car’s wings stood still, and in a minute the pterocar had come crackling nose first into the sparse verdure of the Kuril birches. Sidorov heard the crackling, saw a million varicolored stars, and lost consciousness.

Then he opened his eyes and first of all saw a hand. It was large, tanned, and its freshly scratched fingers seemed to be playing over the keyboard on the control panel, rather uncertainly.

The hand disappeared, and a dark-red face with blue eyes and feminine eyelashes came into view.

Sidorov wheezed and tried to sit up. His right side hurt badly, and his forehead smarted. He touched his forehead, then brought his fingers over before his eyes. The fingers were bloody. He looked at Galtsev, who was wiping his smashed mouth with a handkerchief.

“A masterly landing,” said Sidorov. “You bring joy to my heart, nematologist.”

Galtsev was silent. He pressed the crumpled handkerchief to his lips, and his face was motionless. Sorochinsky’s high trembling voice said, “It’s not his fault, sir.”

Sidorov slowly turned his head and looked at Sorochinsky.

“Honest, it’s not his fault,” Sorochinsky repeated, and moved away. “You just look where we landed.”

Sidorov opened the door a bit, stuck his head outside, and stared for several seconds at the uprooted, broken trunks which were caught in the landing gear. He extended an arm, plucked a few hard glossy leaves, crumpled them in his fingers, and tasted them with his tongue. The leaves were tart and bitter. Sidorov spat and asked, without looking at Galtsev, “Is the car in one piece?”

“Yes,” Galtsev answered through his handkerchief.

“What happened? Tooth knocked out?”

“Right,” said Galtsev. “Knocked clean out.”

“You’ll live,” promised Sidorov. “You can put this down as my fault. Try to lift the car to the knoll.”

It wasn’t easy to pull free of the thicket, but at last Galtsev landed the pterocar on top of the round knoll. Sidorov, rubbing his right side, got out and looked around. From here the island looked uninhabited, and flat as a table. The knoll was bare and rusty from volcanic slag. To the east crept thickets of Kuril birches, and to the south stretched the rectangles of melon fields. It was about four and a half miles to the western shore. Beyond it, pale violet mountain peaks jutted up into a lilac-colored haze, and still farther off, to the right, a strange triangular cloud with sharp edges hung motionless in the blue sky. The northern shore was much closer. It descended steeply into the sea. An awkward gray tower-probably an ancient defensive emplacement-jutted up over a cliff. Near the tower a tent showed white, and small human figures moved about. Evidently these were the archaeologists of whom the administrator had spoken. Sidorov sniffed. He smelled salt water and warm rocks. And it was very quiet. He could not even hear the surf.

A good spot, he thought. We’ll leave the Egg here, put the movie cameras and so forth on the slopes, and pitch camp below, in the melon fields. The watermelons must still be green here. Then he thought about the archaeologists. They’re about three miles off, but still we should warn them, so they won’t be surprised when the embryomech starts developing.

Sidorov called over Galtsev and Sorochinsky and said, “We’ll do the test here. This seems to be a good place. The raw materials are just what we need—lava, tuff. So step to it!”

Galtsev and Sorochinsky went over to the pterocar and opened up the trunk. Sunglints burst forth. Sorochinsky crawled inside and grunted a bit, and in one sudden heave he rolled the Egg out onto the ground. Making crunching sounds on the slag, the Egg rolled a few paces and stopped. Galtsev barely had time to jump out of its way. “Careful,” he said quietly. “You’ll strain yourself.”

Sorochinsky hopped out and said in a gruff voice, “Never mind—we’re used to it.”

Sidorov walked around the Egg, and tried shoving it. The Egg didn’t even rock. “Wonderful,” he said. “Now the movie cameras.”

They fussed about for a long time setting up the movie cameras: an infrared one, a stereo camera, another that registered temperature, a fourth with a wide-angle lens.

It was already around twelve when Sidorov carefully blotted his sweaty forehead with a sleeve and got the plastic case with the activator out of his pocket. Galtsev and Sorochinsky started moving back, looking over his shoulders. Sidorov unhurriedly dropped the activator into his palm—it was a small shiny tube with a sucker on one end and a red ribbed button on the other. “Let’s get started,” he said aloud. He went up to the Egg and stuck the sucker to the polished metal. He waited a second, then pressed the red button with his thumb.

Without taking his eyes off the Egg he stepped back a pace. Now nothing less than a direct hit from a rocket rifle could halt the processes that had begun under the gleaming shell. The embryomech had begun to adjust itself to the field conditions. They did not know how long this would take. But when the adjustment was finished, the embryo would begin development.

Sidorov glanced at his watch. It was five after twelve. With an effort he unstuck the activator from the surface of the Egg, returned it to its case, and put it in his pocket. Then he looked at Galtsev and Sorochinsky. They were standing behind his back and watching the Egg silently. Sidorov touched the gleaming surface one last time and said, “Let’s go.”