Arkady Strugatsky: Prisoners of Power

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 bambam! 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.