Alexander Kazantsev - The Destruction of Faena

The chief of the station was chewing it over in his mind: after lift-off from Faena, the Dictator’s daughter had married Ave Mar, son of the Ruler of the Culturals. What was this? Politics?

“May they be prolonged, the successful cycles in the life of the Wisest of the Wise who had the good fortune to have such a daughter,” was the flowery welcome with which he greeted Mada, and he announced that she and Ave had been given two magnificent cabins in opposite compartments of the station.

Mada flared up.

“Was not Station Deimo in electromagnetic communication with Quest?” she asked angrily.

Mrak Luton shrugged his shoulders apologetically.

“If the customs of the Superiors are effective on the station,” continued Mada, as if giving an order, “then you must give my husband and myself a double cabin and send the roundheaded Lua couple there at once.”

The station chief bowed respectfully as low as his paunch would allow.

“They exist to serve. May the cycles in the lives of the Dictator and the Ruler be prolonged,” he concluded, glancing at Ave for the first time.

Mrak Luton personally conducted the young couple to the best cabin on the station, and on the way he showed the glowering Smel Ven his quarters. Then he found Brat Lua and Tycho Veg who had just emerged from the central compartment. He ordered Brat Lua to find his wife and report with her to Mada and Ave. Only then did he notice that Smel Ven was still standing outside his cabin door. Mrak Luton went up to him and heard the following words, uttered in a half-whisper:

“The Dictator will hardly approve of such hasty hospitality.” Smel Ven vanished, slamming the door behind him.

Mrak Luton stared dully at the plastic-covered door.

Brat Lua not only brought his wife to Ave and Mada, he also brought drawings. He was a calm Faetian of medium height, with a tight, glossy skin and intent eyes.

Since his mother had become Mada’s nanny he had grown up away from her, but had always felt her influence. She had even managed to bring her son and her charge together and make them friends. However, their meetings had soon become impossible. The Dictator shut himself off from the world behind walls. The boy learned humiliation and injustice. Impressionable and proud, he became more and more withdrawn.

He had a rare determination. Mother Lua taught him that only knowledge would compel even those who were oppressing the roundheads to take him seriously. And so he fought stubbornly for every crumb of knowledge.

The result was that even in early youth, his face acquired an expression of firmness and concentration.

He fell in love with Lada Nep before his departure for Danjab, the continent of the Gutturals, to finish his education there. Finally persuaded by the nanny and Mada herself, Yar Jupi agreed, although he kept his real opinion to himself.

For several cycles, Lada devotedly waited for her betrothed, intending after his return to leave immediately on the Dictator’s orders for Space Station Deimo, created by him to consolidate his authority and ostensibly to fulfil his plan of resettling the roundheads on Mar.

Brat Lua was now hurrying to share with Mada and Ave the fruits of his reflections and of sleepless nights spent at his drawings.

“I’ve been planning how to make life better for the roundheads,” he said hurriedly but firmly. “I’ve planned the construction of deep underground cities with an artificial atmosphere. On the surface of Mar, in the midst of the deserts which you see in the porthole, I have been planning oases of fertility. It will be enough to water them with melted water from the polar ice and deliver it to them along underground rivers. These will have to be excavated.” He looked trustingly at his listeners. “I have been waiting so long for real men of learning!”

Mada went up to Brat Lua.

“We have known one another since childhood, and we both loved Mother Lua.”

“ ‘Loved’ her?” The Faetian went suddenly on his guard, staring hard at Mada.

Inwardly alarmed, Lada Lua went over to her husband.

“I… I must tell you everything…” continued Mada.

“What is it? Is the war beginning?”

“Mother Lua tried to stop it,” said Mada in a flash of intuition. “And she was killed. Brat…”

“Killed?” The Faetian went white in the face.

“She was murdered by that scoundrel Yar Alt But your mother, and mine, has been avenged.”

Brat Lua let his head fall onto the table with the drawings spread on it and began sobbing. Mada held Ave by the hand, herself almost in tears. Lada Lua rushed to the door.

“Mrak Luton is coming to invite us to a banquet,” she whispered.

“He must not know anything,” warned Mada.

The little world of the tiny inhabited islet in the Universe was like the big world of the planet, rent by hostile forces.

Mada’s strongest sensation was one of light. It was falling in a brilliant mosaic onto the ground through the leaves of the trees, whose trunks resembled compactly grown roots. Above, they spread out like transparent canopies filled with light. Each fruit up there was like a tiny star.

A stream of foam, tumbling down from a stone ledge, was lit up by a quivering rainbow. The smooth lake that fed the current lay tranquilly there, crossed by a sparkling mother-of-pearl footpath.

Round the banks grew fantastic trees bearing golden apples. And the water lured Mada from the depths with the same vivid fruits, very slightly tinged with haze, that you could touch so easily by just reaching out your hand.

She thought how ugly the two unwieldy, clumsy creatures seemed in such a setting. They moved about on their hind legs, holding their bodies erect but rolling from side to side at each step. Their sturdy bodies, with belts high on the hips, were decorated with a spiral ornament Their upper and lower extremities were covered with inflated bubbles and their heads were enclosed in hard spheres with slits for the eyes.

Two enormous birds were swimming across the lake with proudly upcurved necks; they turned their heads with their red beaks and made trustingly for the shore.

Several light quadrupeds came out of the forest. They had the same wondrous trees with root-branches growing on their heads, but without fruits or foliage. The creatures began drinking the water.

A mighty beast with greenish, glittering eyes softly sprang onto the bright patches in the shade of the canopied trees. His hide merged with the bright mosaic. Lithe and powerful, he made his way soundlessly towards the water, paying no attention to the horned denizens of the forest nor to the strange newcomers.

“I’m not even frightened,” said Mada through her helmet intercom.

“A virgin, unfrightened world,” responded Ave.

“And there’s so much light!”

“The experts on Faena thought it could kill.”

“It can kill only darkness, ignorance and hatred. We have found a world where evil and hatred do not and cannot exist.”

Mada went up quite close to the watering place. A young reindeer looked round curiously, leapt out of the water and dug its wet muzzle into Mada’s glove.

“Could you think of such a thing on Faena?” she cried.

“Alas, there’s no room left for them there!”

“These are children of light. Open your visor and look. Don’t be afraid, the eye is a most self-accommodating organ. They won’t believe our stories on Faena.”

“Millions of Faetians are waiting for them.”

“Aren’t we cheating this way? Why this envelope shutting us off from the new world. I’ve opened my visor all the way!”

“Mada, my dear!” warned Ave. “That’s dangerous.”