Аркадий Стругацкий - The Inhabited Island

Maxim grated his teeth and squinted at the lab assistant. The assistant was assiduously calculating something on an arithmometer.

“Zef,” said Maxim. “Come down to the lobby immediately. Do you understand me? Immediately!” He cut off the call and dialed Wild Boar’s number. He was lucky: Boar was home. “This is Mak. Go outside and wait for me—some urgent business has come up.”

“All right,” said Boar. “I’m on my way.”

Maxim dropped the receiver, reached into his desk, pulled out the first folder he came across, and started leafing through the pages while feverishly trying to weigh up whether everything was ready. The car was in the garage, the bomb was in the trunk, the tank was full of fuel… he didn’t have a gun, but to hell with it, he didn’t need a gun… the documents were in his pocket, Boar was waiting… It was smart of me to think of Boar… Of course, he could refuse… No, he’s not likely to refuse, I wouldn’t refuse… That’s all. I think that’s all…

He told the lab assistant, “I’ve been called to a meeting, say I’m at the Department of Construction. I’ll be back in an hour or two. See you later.”

He tucked the folder under his arm, walked out of the laboratory, and ran down the stairs. Zef was already striding around the lobby. When he saw Maxim, he stopped, clasped his hands behind his back, and scowled.

“What the hell, massaraksh—” he began before Maxim had even reached him.

Without dawdling, Maxim grabbed him by the arm and dragged him toward the exit. “What the hell’s going on?” Zef muttered, digging his heels in. “Where to? What for?” Maxim shoved him out through the door, then dragged him along the asphalt path and around the corner to the garages. There was no one around, only a lawnmower chattering away on the lawn in the distance.

“Will you tell me just where you’re dragging me off to?” Zef yelled.

“Be quiet,” said Maxim. “Listen. Get all our guys together immediately. Everybody you can get hold of… To hell with any questions. Listen! Everybody you can get hold of. With weapons. There’s a pavilion just beside the gates, know it? Hole up in there. Wait. In about thirty minutes—Are you listening to me, Zef?”

“Well come on, then,” Zef impatiently said.

“In about thirty minutes, Wanderer will drive up to the gates—”

“So he’s come back, then?”

“Don’t interrupt. In about thirty minutes—maybe—Wanderer will drive up to the gates. If he doesn’t, that’s good. Just sit there and wait for me. But if he does drive up, shoot him.”

“Have you gone wacko, or what?” asked Zef, stopping dead. Maxim kept on walking and Zef ran after him, cursing and swearing. “They’ll kill all of us, massaraksh! The guards! And cops all over the place!”

“Do the best you can,” said Maxim. “Wanderer has to be shot.”

They reached the garage. Maxim heaved on the bolt and rolled the door aside.

“This idea’s totally insane,” said Zef. “What for? Why Wanderer? He’s a perfectly decent kind of guy, everyone here likes him.”

“Suit yourself,” Maxim said in a cold voice. He opened the trunk, felt for the primer and the timing mechanism through the oil-impregnated paper, and slammed the lid shut again. “I can’t tell you anything right now. But we have a chance. Our one and only chance…” He got into the driver’s seat and put the key in the ignition. “And don’t forget this: if you don’t whack this perfectly decent kind of guy, he’ll whack me. You don’t have very much time. Go to it, Zef.”

He switched on the motor and backed out of the garage. Zef was left standing in the opening of the door. It was the first time in Maxim’s life that he had ever seen Zef looking that way—frightened, stunned, at a loss. “Good-bye, Zef,” he said to himself, just in case.

The car rolled up to the gates. The guardsman unhurriedly noted down the number, opened the trunk, glanced in, closed the trunk, went back to Maxim, and asked him, “What are you taking out?”

“A refractometer,” said Maxim, holding out his pass and the permit to remove the equipment.

“Who signed the permit?”

“I don’t know… Brainiac, probably.”

“You don’t know… If he’d signed it a bit more clearly, everything would be in order.”

The guardsman finally opened the gates. Maxim drove out onto the highway and squeezed everything he could out of his set of wheels. If it doesn’t come off, he thought, and I’m still alive, I’ll have to run for it… That damned Wanderer, he sensed something, the son of a bitch, and came back.

But what am I going to do if it does come off? Nothing’s ready, I don’t have any plans of the palace—Egghead didn’t get a chance to do anything, and he didn’t get me any photos of the Fathers either… The guys aren’t prepared, there isn’t any plan of action… That damned Wanderer—if not for him, I’d have another three days to work out a plan… Probably I should do things in this order: the palace, the Fathers, the central telegraph office and telephone exchange, an urgent dispatch to the labor camps telling General to gather all our guys together and get the hell out of there… Massaraksh, I don’t have a clue about how to seize power… And then there are still the Guards… and there’s the army… and our HQ, damn it! They’re the ones who’ll immediately spring into action! I have to start with them. Well, that’s Boar’s job. He’ll be glad to deal with it; he knows all about that side of things… And the white submarines are still hovering somewhere on the horizon… Massaraksh, that means another war!

He switched on the radio. Through the strains of a brisk march, a hoarse-voiced announcer was shouting: “…time and time again the infinite wisdom of the Unknown Fathers has been clearly demonstrated to the whole world—and on this occasion it is their military wisdom. It is as if the strategic genius of Gabellu and the Iron Warrior had come back to life! As if the glorious spirits of our invincible warrior ancestors had risen once again, racing into the action to take their place at the head of our tank columns! The Hontian provocateurs and fomenters of conflict have suffered such a crushing defeat that henceforth they will never again dare to poke their noses across our borders, never again will they covet our sacred land! The woefully inept Hontian military launched a massive armada of many thousands of bombers, rockets, and guided missiles at our cities, but here too the victory went not to the strategy of brute force and predatory aggression but to the wise strategy of infinitely subtle calculation and constant preparedness to repel the enemy. Yes, it was to good purpose that we endured deprivations, contributing the final coppers in our pockets to the consolidation of our defenses, to the creation of an impenetrable antiballistic shield! ‘Our ADT system has no equals in the world,’ retired field marshal and recipient of two Golden Banners Iza Petrotsu declared only six months ago. And you were right, old warrior! Not a single bomb, not a single rocket, and not a single missile fell on the sacred ground of the Land of the Fathers! ‘The insuperable network of steel towers is not only our indestructible shield, it is a symbol of the genius and preternatural astuteness of those to whom we owe everything—our Unknown Fathers,’ writes today’s edition of—”

Maxim switched off the radio. Yes, the war seemed to be over. But then, who could tell what else they were concocting now… Maxim turned off the main street onto a narrow side street between gigantic skyscrapers of pink stone, drove over the cobblestones past a long line for a bread shop, and pulled up at a dilapidated, blackened little house. Boar was already waiting, smoking a cigarette and leaning back against a streetlamp. When the car stopped, he flung his cigarette butt away, squeezed in through the little door, and sat down beside Maxim.