Arkady Strugatsky - Tale of the Troika

He raised his finger. We listened, and we heard.

Somewhere in the distance silver horns sang out victoriously. The sound pulsed, grew, and seemed to come closer. The blood froze in my veins. That was the trumpeting of mosquitoes, and not even all of them were calling to battle—only the company commanders or maybe even only the battalion commanders and higher. With the mysterious inner vision of a trapped animal, we saw around us acres and acres of marshy mud, overgrown with thin sedge, covered with layers of decaying leaves, with rotten stumps sticking out here and there, all under the canopy of emaciated aspens. And all these acres, every square inch of them, had detachments of the reddish cannibals, ruthless, starved, and frustrated.

“Lavr Fedotovich!” babbled Khlebovvodov. “Mosquitoes!”

“There is a motion!” Farfurkis shouted. “To postpone the examination of this case until October … November!”

“Harrumph,” said Lavr Fedotovich in surprise. “The public doesn’t understand.”

Suddenly the air around us was filled with movement. Khlebovvodov squealed and slapped his face as hard as he could. Farfurkis replied with the same. Lavr Fedotovich started to turn slowly and in surprise, and then the impossible happened: a huge redheaded pirate landed smoothly on Lavr Fedotovich’s forehead and drove his sword right between the poor man’s eyes. Lavr Fedotovich reeled. He was shocked, he did not understand, he could not believe it. And then it really began.

Shaking my head like a horse, waving the mosquitoes away with my elbows, I tried to turn the car around in the narrow space between the aspen groves. Lavr Fedotovich was roaring and squirming on my right, and from the back seat came such a volley of smacks that it sounded as though a whole company of uhlans and hussars had embarked on an evening of mutual insults. By the time I had the car turned around, I was completely swollen. My ears were hot doughnuts and my cheeks were pound cakes, and there were millions of horns on my forehead.

“Forward!” they shouted from all sides. “Back! Give it gas! Get moving! I’ll have you tried, Comrade Privalov.” The motor was roaring, clumps of mud flew in all directions, and the car bounced like a kangaroo, but our speed was low, disgustingly low, and meanwhile new squadrons and armadas were taking off from innumerable airfields. The enemy was indisputably superior in the air. Everybody except me was busy indulging in furious self-criticism, even self-torture. I could not tear my hands away from the wheel, and I could not even use my legs to fight them off. I had one foot free, and with it I scratched everything it could reach. Finally we got to the lake. The road was better and it was uphill. I felt a breeze on my face. I stopped the car. I caught my breath and started scratching. I lost myself in scratching. When I did manage to stop I realized that the Troika was finishing off the commandant.

The commandant was accused of planning and executing a terrorist act. They were holding him accountable for every drop of blood lost by the Troika, and he paid dearly for each and every drop. What was left of the commandant when I could see, hear, and think again could not accurately be called the commandant anymore: a few bones, an empty stare, and a weak mumble: “As God is … In the name of Jesus Christ …”

“Comrade Zubo,” said Lavr Fedotovich finally. “Why did you stop reading the report? Please continue.”

The commandant began gathering the scattered papers from his files.

“Go right to the brief description of the unexplained,” demanded Lavr Fedotovich.

The commandant, giving one last sob, read in a quavering voice:

“A large swamp, from which come occasional sighs and moans.”

“So?” asked Khlebovvodov. “What’s next?”

“Nothing. That’s it.”

“What do you mean that’s it?” Khlebovvodov whined. “You killed me! Destroyed me! And for what? For some lousy sighs? Why did you drag us here, you terrorist? Why did we shed our blood? Just look at me—how can I show up at the hotel like this? You’ve undermined my authority for life! When I get through with you, you won’t even be able to sigh or moan!”

“Harrumph,” said Lavr Fedotovich. Khlebovvodov shut up.

“There is a motion,” continued Lavr Fedotovich. “In view of the extreme danger that Case 38 poses for the people, the above-named case should be rationalized in the highest degree—that is, it should be classified as irrational and transcendent, and therefore, not really existing, and as such, it should be expunged from the memory of the people, that is, from geographic and topographic maps.”

Khlebovvodov and Farfurkis applauded wildly. Lavr Fedotovich extracted his briefcase from under his seat and placed it squarely in his lap.

“The decree!” he called.

The decree of the highest degree fell on the briefcase.

“Signatures!!”

The signatures fell on the decree.

“Seal!!!”

The safe door clanged open, a wave of office staleness engulfed us, and the Great Round Seal hovered before Lavr Fedotovich. Lavr Fedotovich took it in both hands, raised it over the decree, and lowered it forcefully. A dark shadow passed over the sky, the car settled on its shocks, and Lavr Fedotovich put his briefcase back under the seat and continued.

“To Colony Commandant Comrade Zubo for irresponsibility, harboring the irrational, transcendent, and therefore nonexistent Cow’s Muck Swamp, for not ensuring the safety of the Troika’s work, and also for displaying heroism at the swamp, we announce our gratitude and enter it in the record. Are there any other motions? Next. What else do we have on the agenda, Comrade Zubo?”

“The enchanted place,” said the relieved commandant. “Not far from here, two miles or so.”

“Are there mosquitoes?” inquired Lavr Fedotovich.

“As Christ is my witness,” swore the commandant. “None. Some ants, maybe.”

“Well …” Lavr Fedotovich hesitated. “Wasps? Bees?” he said, revealing great perspicacity and vigilant concern for the welfare of the people.

“By no means.”

Lavr Fedotovich was silent for a long time.

“Wild bulls?” he finally asked.

The commandant assured him that bulls were entirely unknown in the area.

“How about wolves?” asked Khlebovvodov suspiciously.

But the area had neither wolves nor bears, which Farfurkis had remembered. While they did their zoology exercises, I studied the map, trying to figure out the shortest route to the enchanted place. The decree of the highest degree had taken effect: the map indicated Tmuskorpion, the Skorpionka River, Zverinoe Lake, and Lopukhi, but Cow’s Muck Swamp, which used to lie between the lake and Lopukhi, was gone. There was just an anonymous white spot, like the ones for Antarctica on old maps. I was ordered to go on, and we drove off. We went around the oats, through the herds of cows, around Kruglaia Grove, across Studenyi Brook, and a half hour later we found ourselves in the enchanted place.

It was a hill, covered by a forest on one side. Probably there used to be dense forests all over, all the way to Kitezhgrad, but they had been felled, and now the only trees left were on the hill. There was a blackened shack at the very top; two cows with a calf grazed along the slope in front of us, guarded by a big German shepherd. Chickens scratched in the dirt in front of the porch, and there was a goat on the roof.

“Why did you stop?” Farfurkis asked. “You should drive right up. You don’t expect us to walk.”

“And it looks as if they have milk,” Khlebovvodov added. “I could go for a glass of milk. You understand, when you’ve had mushroom poisoning, it’s very good to drink milk. Come on, come on, let’s go!”