Arkady Strugatsky - Tale of the Troika

When the commandant had finished reading the brief section on the unexplained, Khlebovvodov made a new remark—that pleurisy was a dangerous disease and he was shocked that it was allowed to be on the loose around here. Farfurkis and I spent quite a while trying to explain that pleurisy and plesiosaurs were two entirely different things. Khlebovvodov, however, maintained his position, referring us to Ogonek magazine, which had many precise descriptions of fossilized plesiosaurs. “You can’t confuse me,” he said. “I’m a well-read man, even if I’ve had no higher education.” Farfurkis gave up, but I continued arguing until Khlebovvodov suggesting calling over the plesiosaur and asking it. “It can’t talk,” the commandant said, squatting down next to us. “It doesn’t matter,” Khlebovvodov said. “We’ll figure it out. After all, we have to see it anyway. At least this way, there’ll be some use out of it.”

“Harrumph,” said Lavr Fedotovich. “Are there any questions for the speaker? No? Call in the case, Comrade Zubo.”

The commandant jumped up and started running along the shore. First he shouted hoarsely: “Liza, Liza!” But since the plesiosaur seemed to be deaf, the commandant tore off his jacket and started waving it, like a shipwreck victim hailing a sail on the horizon. Liza gave no sign of life. “She’s asleep,” the commandant said in dismay. “I’ll bet she’s had her fill and she’s asleep.” He ran around and waved some more and then asked me to honk. I beeped the horn. Lavr Fedotovich, leaning over the hood, examined the plesiosaur with his opera glasses. I honked for two minutes or so and then said that any more honking would wear down the battery. The whole thing seemed hopeless.

“Comrade Zubo,” Lavr Fedotovich spoke without putting down his glasses. “Why is the case not responding?”

The commandant blanched and could not come up with a reply.

“Discipline is lacking here, too,” Khlebovvodov piped up. “You’ve let your subordinates get out of hand.”

“This is a case of undermined authority,” Farfurkis noted. “You should sleep at night and work during the daytime.”

The commandant began undressing in despair. There was no alternative. I asked him if he could swim. It turned out that he did not know how, but that it did not matter to him. “Never mind,” Khlebovvodov said bloodthirstily. “He’ll be supported by authority.” I carefully voiced my doubts about the wisdom of the planned course. The commandant would undoubtedly drown, I said, and was it really necessary, I asked, for the Troika to take on duties that had nothing to do with its function, that is, becoming a lifeguard station. Besides, I reminded them, if the commandant did drown, the goal would still remain unreached and someone else, that is either Farfurkis or Khlebovvodov, would have to swim out after the case. Farfurkis rejoined with the information that calling the cases was the function and prerogative of the representative of the local authorities, or, in his absence, of the scientific consultant. So that my words could be seen as an attack and an attempt to shift responsibility. I announced that in the present situation I was less the scientific consultant and more the driver of an official car, which I could not leave for more than a distance of twenty feet. “You should know the appendix to the Statutes of Driving on Streets and Roads,” I said accusingly, risking nothing. “Paragraph 21.” There was a tense silence. The black umbrella handle still stood lighthouse-straight on the horizon. We watched anxiously as Lavr Fedotovich’s head turned slowly, like the turret of a battleship. We were all in the line of fire, and none of us wanted to be hit.

“As God is my witness.” The commandant cracked first, kneeling in his underwear. “Jesus Christ our Savior, I’m not afraid of swimming or of drowning. But what does she care, that Liza. She’s got a gullet like a subway! She can swallow a cow! And she’ll be drowsy.”

“Actually,” Farfurkis said nervously. “Why call her? Actually, we can see from here that she presents nothing of any interest, anyway. I suggest that we rationalize her and expunge her as unnecessary.”

“Expunge her right away!” Khlebovvodov added. “So she can swallow a cow, big deal! I can swallow one, too. But try getting fifteen piglets from one. Now that’s real work!”

Lavr Fedotovich finally rolled out the artillery. However, instead of a horde of scrabbling individuals, instead of a nest of teeming, contradictory passions, instead of undisciplined spiders undermining the Troika’s authority, his sights showed him a workers’ collective, full of solidarity, enthusiasm, and zeal, burning with a single desire: to write off that scourge Liza and move on to the next problem. There was no salvo. The turret made a 180-degree turn, and the terrifying muzzles pointed at the unsuspecting umbrella handle on the horizon.

“The people,” we could hear from the conning tower. “The people look into the distance. The people see a plesiosaur. The people do not need …”

“The plesiosaur!” Khlebovvodov shot from a pistol and missed.

It turned out that the people desperately need plesiosaurs, that certain members of the Troika have lost their sense of perspective, that certain commandants have forgotten whose bread they are eating, that certain representatives of our glorious scientific intelligentsia have revealed a tendency to view the world through a glass darkly, and that, finally, Case 8 must be postponed until some winter month when it can be reached along the ice. There were no other motions, and certainly no questions for the speaker. And that was the final decision.

“Let’s move on to the next question,” announced Lavr Fedotovich, and the members of the Troika pushed their way into the back seat. The commandant was hurriedly dressing, muttering: “You’ll pay for this. I gave you the best pieces—like my own daughter, you floating pig.”

Then we took the road along the lake shore. The road was horrible, and I thanked heaven that the summer was dry, or it would have been the end of us. However, I had thanked the heavens too soon, because the closer we got to the swamp the more the road displayed a tendency to disappear and turn into two damp ruts with grass growing in them. I downshifted and tried to estimate my passengers’ physical strength. It was perfectly clear that fat, flabby Farfurkis would be of little help. Khlebovvodov looked sturdy enough, but I did not know if he had recovered sufficiently from his stomach attack. Lavr Fedoto-vich would probably not even get out of the car. That left the commandant and me if anything went wrong, because Eddie would not reveal himself just to push a two-thousand-pound car out of the mud.

My pessimistic thoughts were interrupted by a gigantic black puddle on the road. This was no bucolic, patriarchal puddle, no smalltown puddle that everyone had driven through and that was used to everything. Nor was it a muddy urban puddle, lazily spreading amid the litter of a construction site. This was a calm, cold-blooded puddle, vicious in its morbid appearance, casually stretching between the two ruts in the road, as mysterious as the eye of a sphinx, as perfidious as a wicked witch—evoking nightmarish thoughts of drowned trucks. I braked sharply.

“That’s it. We’re here.”

“Harrumph,” said Lavr Fedotovich. “Comrade Zubo, read the file.”

I could see the commandant vacillating in the silence. It was still rather far to the swamp, but the commandant could also see the puddle blocking our only approach. He sighed and rustled his papers.

“Case 38,” he read. “Surname: Blank. Name: Blank. Patronymic: Blank. Nickname: Cow’s Muck Swamp.”

“Just a minute!” Farfurkis interrupted anxiously. “Listen!”