Arkady Strugatsky: Prisoners of Power

"OK, you have a road. That's the main thing. It's a lousy road, very old, but it's still a road. And, on all inhabited planets, roads lead to their builders. What do I need now? Not food. I wouldn't mind a snack, but I had better keep my appetite in check. I can manage without water for another day. There's enough air, although I'd be happier with a little less carbon dioxide and radioactivity. So far. I'm in fair shape. What I do need is a small primitive coil transmitter with a spiral pitch." In his mind's eye he saw clearly the circuit for a positron sender. If only he had the parts, he could put one together at once, blindfolded. He assembled it mentally several times.

"Robinson Crusoe. That's me, all right." He was somewhat taken by the idea. "Maxim Crusoe. I don't have a damned thing except a pair of shorts without pockets and my sneakers. On the other hand, my island is inhabited. And if it's inhabited, there's always hope of locating a primitive coil transmitter." He tried hard to visualize a coil transmitter but had no luck this time. Instead he kept seeing his mother and the expression on her face when she was told her son had disappeared without a trace. His father would nib his cheeks and look around absentmindedly. "Cut it out," he said to himself. "Stop thinking about them. Anything, but not about them. Otherwise you're sunk. Cut it out and get hold of yourself." He rose and started along the road.

The forest, timid and sparse at first, gradually became bolder and edged up closer to the road. Several impudent young trees had burst through the concrete and were growing right through the highway. Obviously the road was at least twenty or thirty years old. Along its sides the woods were taller, denser, and wilder; here and there branches interlaced overhead. It grew dark and loud guttural cries came from the depths of the forest.

Something moved, rustled, thudded. Then, about twenty paces in front of him, a dark squat shape darted across the road. Mosquitoes whined. It suddenly dawned on Maxim that this region was too desolate and wild for human habitation and that it would take several days to reach an inhabited area. Again his hunger surfaced, but Maxim sensed that flesh on the hoof was plentiful here. He wouldn't starve to death. Although the meat wouldn't be particularly appetizing, the hunt itself would be interesting. Deer? Maybe, maybe not. But the local game was undoubtedly edible. Stop moving, and the midges would begin to feed on you savagely. And as everyone knows, what's edible on an alien planet doesn't die of hunger. It wouldn't be so awful to get lost here and spend a year or so roaming the forest. He would find himself a buddy – some kind of wolf or bear. They'd go hunting together. He supposed he'd eventually tire of it. Besides, the prospect of tramping through this forest wasn't particularly appealing, with all that iron junk around and the polluted air. Anyway, the main thing was to put together a coil transmitter.

He stopped and listened carefully. From somewhere in the depths of the forest came a monotonous, muffled rumbling. Maxim realized that he had been hearing it for some time before it broke through to his consciousness. It was not an animal or waterfall, but a mechanical device, some sort of barbarous machine. It wheezed, made grinding noises, and gave off a rusty odor. And it was drawing closer.

Hunching over and edging closer to the shoulder, Maxim ran noiselessly toward the machine and then stopped just before reaching an intersection. The road here was muddy, with deep ugly ruts and slabs of concrete jutting up. It smelled foul and was very radioactive. Maxim squatted and looked to his left, toward the approaching rumbling and grinding.

A minute later it appeared. A hot stinking mammoth of riveted metal, rumbling along the road with enormous mud-clogged caterpillar treads. It plodded along, humpbacked and shabby, clanging through the iron litter in the forest. It was stuffed with a mixture of raw plutonium and lanthanides. Driverless and helpless, yet menacing, it swung over the intersection and plodded on, dangling a tail of scorching heat. It disappeared into the forest, growling, tossing and turning, roaring, its fury gradually subsiding.

Maxim caught his breath and brushed away the midges. He was stunned: in his whole life he had never seen anything so absurd and pitiful. "Well," he thought, "I won't find any positron senders around here." He watched the monster until it disappeared and he suddenly noticed that the crossroad was just a narrow corridor through the forest. Maybe he ought to overtake it. Stop it and turn off its reactor. He listened carefully. Crackling and crashing filled the forest. The monster was moving deeper into the forest like a hippo into a bog. Then the rumble of the engine drew closer again. Clanging and roaring, it plodded once more over the intersection and returned to the area it had just left. "Boy, oh boy," thought Maxim. "I'd better keep clear. Vicious beasts and uncivilized robots are not for me." He paused, broke from the bushes, and, with one bound, leaped over the polluted intersection.

After walking very rapidly for some time, inhaling deeply to clear his lungs of the iron mammoth's exhaust fumes, he slowed down. He thought about what he had encountered in his first two hours on his inhabited island and tried to construct a logical picture from his bizarre experiences. It was too difficult; the pieces were incredible, unreal. The forest itself was straight out of a fairy tale: almost human voices of fantastic creatures echoed through it. As in a fairy tale, an old deserted road led to an enchanted castle, and invisible, evil sorcerers placed obstacles in the way of those who chanced to pass by. From afar, they had showered his ship with meteorites and, failing to turn him back, had then burned his ship, caught him in a trap, and dispatched an iron dragon after him. The dragon was old and stupid, but they had surely realized their mistake and were preparing something more up-to-date.

"Listen here," said Maxim to them, "I've no intention of breaking the spell over your castles and waking your sleeping beauties. All I want is to meet one of you, one of your more intelligent people, who can help me with a positron sender."

But the wicked sorcerers persisted. First they dropped a gigantic rotted tree across the road, destroyed its concrete surface, dug a large hole in the ground, and filled it with putrid radioactive liquid. When that failed to stop him, when the midges tired of biting and retreated in disappointment, toward morning they released a cold, malevolent fog. Maxim jogged to warm himself. The fog was sticky and oily, and smelted of decay. Soon the smell of smoke was added, and Maxim tried to locate the fire.

Dawn was breaking when Maxim spotted it at the side of the road, near a low moss-covered stone structure with a caved-in roof and dark empty windows. Although there was no one in sight, he sensed that people had been there recently and might return soon. He turned off the road, leaped over a drainage ditch, and sinking ankle-deep in rotting leaves, approached the fire. The fire welcomed him with its primitive warmth. Everything was very simple here. Without the formality of greetings, one could squat, warm one's hands by the fire, and wait in silence until the host, just as silently, served hot food and drink. True, the host wasn't around, but a blackened kettle with a strong-smelling broth hung above the fire.

Maxim sat down by the fire and warmed himself, then rose reluctantly and entered the house. House? Only a stone shell remained of the original structure. The morning sky shone through the broken beams overhead, the rotten floorboards were treacherous, and clusters of crimson mushrooms grew in the corners – poisonous when raw, but edible if roasted sufficiently.

But Maxim suddenly lost his appetite. In the semidarkness by the wall, mingled with faded rags, there was a skeleton! Revolted, he turned, descended the broken steps, and cupping his palms around his mouth, shouted at the top of his lungs: "Hey, six-toes!"