Alexander Kazantsev - The Destruction of Faena

His hands shook when, in secret from the others so as not to share his discovery with anyone, he established the composition of the test, a method taught to Blood Guard officers while at school, where skilful use was made of foreign science.

He was so agitated that his hair became damp, although it was almost standing on end. He had established that the stain on the floor was blood!

He hesitated to report his discovery to the Dictator, especially since Mada had shown up and had seen her father. True, she had not been accompanied by her nanny as usual. If something had happened, she could have told the Dictator herself. But after his meeting with her, Yar Jupi had been aloofly solemn. He had proclaimed a historical decision that had left the whole palace and after that the whole continent dumbfounded, then delirious with joy. The whole leadership had choked with effusions in which they had pointed out to the ordinary people that the Wisest of the Wise was also the most Fearless of the Valiant, prepared even to risk his beloved daughter’s life for the welfare of the Faetians, thinking of their distant future and also of universal progress and of peace between the continents.

The obsequious joy in the Dictator’s palace impeded Grom Alt’s investigation. Everyone he met could talk about nothing except the exploit of Yar Jupi and his daughter.

In such an atmosphere, it was positively dangerous to draw anyone’s attention to a bloodstain that could cast a shadow on Mada, who had been pronounced heroine of the day. Grom Alt found it particularly suspicious that Mada had not left the Blood Door to her chambers open and that her nanny had still failed to show up.

He decided to consult his brother, even if it meant sharing the honour of the possible discovery with him. But Yar Alt had disappeared.

It could be that Yar Jupi had sent his trusted Supreme Officer on some mission, as often before.

Grom Alt decided to act at his own risk. While Mada, amid sobs and compliments, was being seen to the cosmodrome, Grom Alt, who had remained behind on duty, went to the girl’s chambers. The Blood Door was locked, but not by automatic machines this time. All he needed was the skeleton key which he had been taught to use in the Blood Guard school. Grom Alt went cautiously into the pale-blue room.

He not only found the body of Mada’s nanny lying on the couch, but that of his own brother.

A poisoned bullet!

Yar Alt’s pistol was lying nearby. Such a weapon could only have been carried by the Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard.

Grom Alt examined the weapon. There were no bullets left in it. His brother was not the kind of Faetian to have had only one round left in the magazine and to have used it on himself. On whom had the others been used?

With mixed feelings of regret and disgust, Grom Alt looked at his brother’s cold body. They had never been good friends in his lifetime. Yar Alt had forever oppressed his younger brother. And now there he was, lying dead at Grom Alt’s feet, thereby giving him a foothold on the next rung of the career ladder.

Grom Alt was so pleased with his comparison of the corpse to a rung on the ladder that he could not withhold himself and set his foot on the body, but promptly jerked it away again and hurried out of the nauseating room into the garden, then straight to the Dictator.

It was not easy getting through to Yar Jupi, in spite of the shocking news that Grom Alt was bringing him.

The impartial secretary box would understand nothing. Feelings did not exist for it, and the security robots and the door automatic machines of the Dictator’s study were controlled solely by that brainless box.

To tell the truth to the box would mean a refusal for sure, because the stupid machine would promptly record in its memory all the circumstances of the affair and send it for investigation to the officers of Criminal Investigation, who hated the officers of the Blood Guard. They would risk reporting the incident to the Dictator only after the findings of the Criminal Investigation officers who, of course, would squeeze Grom Alt out of the picture.

That was why Grom Alt decided to lie to the secretary box, inventing a version according to which he had a most important message for the Dictator; it had been given to him by Mada Jupi in person on the way to Cape Farewell. After all, she was his cousin!

“You may give me the gist of the beautiful Mada’s words,” jabbered the box, which was packed full with electronic circuits. “The Greatest of the Great will study it when he checks my daily entries.”

“I have nothing to tell you, meritorious guardian of memory. I must deliver a certain object to the Greatest of the Great, the most Illustrious of the Illustrious. If you, as a guardian of memory, could take this object to the Greatest of the Great, I would be at peace.”

The confounded box resisted for a long time, but gave way in the end.

The secretary box impartially reported to the Dictator that Grom Alt, officer of the Blood Guard, begged to be received without use of the screen.

The Dictator was very busy. He had held a conference of the higher military ranks who, of course, were not admitted to his presence but simply attended on the monitor screens in his office. On the eve of the disintegration war, no one had access to Yar Jupi. He feared his masters from the Blood Council perhaps more than his subordinates.

The conference ended at last.

“Officer of the Blood Guard Grom Alt,” creaked the secretary box, “you may pass through the door to genuflect before the most Illustrious of the Illustrious.”

The agitated Grom Alt went into the Dictator’s unprepossessing office, afraid to raise his head and look at the face of the man who had invented the Doctrine of Hatred. Like his brother, he aped the Dictator’s external appearance in every way.

According to the ritual, Grom Alt genuflected and, staring at the floor, told in a trembling voice about the trail of blood leading into the beautiful Mada’s chambers and about the bodies he had found in there.

“Despicable robot of the guard! What are you drivelling about?”

“May your wrath descend on the foul murderers who plotted evil against you and your incomparable daughter, and whose traces I was able to uncover. I grieve over my brother’s fate and am happy that your daughter did not become a victim of the villainous conspiracy.”

“Conspiracy?” roared the Dictator, and he quivered from head to foot.

He stood with clenched fists and glared with crazed eyes at the terrified officer, who did not know what was going to happen next.

Yar Jupi only reflected for a moment. The discovery of this over-zealous officer of the Blood Guard could upset all his calculations and force him to cancel the orders he had only just given to his military men.

Yar Jupi roared with laughter.

“So that’s how it is, is it?” shouted the Dictator through his laughter. “You bring me news of the infinite grief of the Faetians who could not bear to part with my incomparable Mada?”

“I meant something altogether different”

“Brainless insect! Answer my questions!”

“I am in fear and trembling.”

“Why did my Supreme Officer Yar Alt die?”

“He was poisoned by a bullet.”

“Who had such bullets, apart from him?”

“No one.”

“Then is it not clear to you, insect, that, enamoured of the beautiful Mada, the Supreme Officer committed suicide in her room as a mark of his hopeless yearning for her?”

“But the nanny’s body…”

“Was she not attached to her mistress? Did not the low creature understand that with the departure of her mistress to another planet, she would become an ordinary roundhead, insignificant and despised, as is only right?”