Hard to Be a God

by Arkady Strugatsky

  It’s hard to be a god, thought Rumata. He said patiently, “You wouldn’t understand. I tried to explain to you twenty times that I’m not a god—you never believe me. And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you why I can’t help you with weapons.”

  “You have lightning?”

  “I can’t give you lightning.”

  “I’ve already heard that twenty times,” said Arata. “Now I want to know: why?”

  “I repeat, you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me”.

  “What do you plan to do with the lightning?”

  “I will incinerate every single one of the gilded bastards like bugs, destroying their whole damn race until the twelfth generation. I’ll wipe their fortresses off the face of the earth. I’ll incinerate their armies and all who defend and support them. You don’t need to worry—your lightning will only be used for good, and when only the freed slaves are left on the earth and peace reigns, I will give you back your lightning and never ask you for it again.”

  Arata stopped, breathing heavily. His face had turned dark from the rush of blood. He probably already saw the duchies and kingdoms engulfed in flames, and the piles of charred bodies amongst the ruins, and the huge armies of victors, ecstatically roaring, “Freedom! Freedom!”

  “No,” said Rumata, “I will not give you lightning. It would be a mistake. Try to believe me. I can see further than you.” Arata was listening, his head sunk on his chest. Rumata clenched his hand. “I will only give you one reason. It pales in comparison with the primary reason, but you will actually understand it. You are very good at surviving, worthy Arata, but you too are mortal; and if you die, if the lightning passes into other hands that are not as pure as yours, then I shudder to even think of the consequences.”

  They were silent for a long time. Then Rumata got a pitcher of Estorian wine and some food from the cellar and put it in front of his guest. Arata, without lifting his eyes, started to break the bread and drink the wine. Rumata felt a strange sense of painful ambivalence. He knew that he was right, yet in some strange way, this rightness lowered him before Arata. Arata was clearly somehow superior to him— and not only to him but to all those who had come to this planet uninvited and who, full of helpless pity, watched the tumultuous bustling of its life from the rarefied heights of dry hypotheses and alien morality. And for the first time Rumata thought, There is no gain without a loss. We’re infinitely stronger than Arata in our kingdom of good and infinitely weaker than Arata in his kingdom of evil.

  “You shouldn’t have come down from the sky,” Arata said suddenly. “Go back to where you came from. You’re only doing us harm.”

  “That’s not so,” Rumata said gently. “At any rate, we do not harm anyone.”

  “No, you do. You inspire groundless hopes.”

  “In whom?”

  “In me. You have weakened my will, Don Rumata. I used to only rely on myself, and now you’ve made me feel your power behind me. I used to lead every battle as if it were my last. And now I’ve noticed that I save myself for other battles, which will be decisive because you will stand beside me. Leave this place, Don Rumata. Go back to the sky and never come back. Either give us your lightning, or at least your iron bird, or even simply draw your swords and lead us.”

  Arata stopped talking and reached for the bread again. Rumata kept looking at his fingers, which no longer had any nails. The nails had been torn out with a special device two years ago by Don Reba himself. You still don’t know everything, thought Rumata. You still believe that you are the only one doomed to be defeated. You still don’t know how hopeless your cause itself is. You still don’t know that the enemy isn’t so much outside your soldiers as within them. You might still overthrow the Order—the wave of peasant rebellion will throw you onto the throne of Arkanar, you will level the castles of the noblemen, you’ll drown the barons in the Strait, and the insurgents will honor you as the great liberator. And you will be kind and wise—the only kind and wise person in your kingdom. And along the way, you will begin to give away land to your associates, and what will your associates do with land without serfs? And the wheel will start spinning the other direction. And you’ll be lucky if you manage to pass away before the new counts and barons emerge out of yesterday’s loyal fighters. That has already happened, my worthy Arata, both on Earth and on this planet.

  “No response?” asked Arata. He pushed his plate away and swept the crumbs off the table with the sleeve of his cassock. “Once I had a friend,” he said. “You’ve probably heard of him—Waga the Wheel. We had begun together. Then he became a bandit, the king of the night. I didn’t forgive him for his treason, and he knew it. He had helped me a lot—out of fear and self-interest—but he never did want to come back. He had his own goals. Two years ago his people gave me up to Don Reba.” He looked at his fingers and curled them into a fist. “And today I found him in the Port of Arkanar. In our business, there’s no such thing as half a friend. Half a friend— that’s always half an enemy.” He got up and pulled the hood over his eyes. “Is the gold in its usual place, Don Rumata?”

  “Yes,” Rumata said slowly, “it’s in its usual place.”

  “Then I will go. Thank you, Don Rumata.”

  He silently walked through the study and disappeared through the door. The bolt clanged softly in the entrance hall below.

  Here’s one more thing to worry about, thought Rumata. How in the world did he get into the house?

  Chapter 10

  The Drunken Lair was relatively clean. The floor was carefully swept, the table was scrubbed to whiteness, and there were bundles of forest grass and twigs in the corner for fragrance. Father Cabani was primly sitting on a bench in the corner, sober and quiet, his clean hands folded in his lap. As they waited for Budach to fall asleep, they talked about nothing in particular. Budach, sitting at the table next to Rumata, listened to the mindless chatter of the noble dons with a benevolent smile and from time to time would give a start, dozing off. His hollow cheeks were burning from a vast dose of tetraluminal that had been discreetly mixed into his drink. The old man was very excited and was having trouble falling asleep. The impatient Don Gug was bending and unbending a camel shoe underneath the table, managing, however, to keep an expression of cheerful ease on his face. Rumata was crumbling bread and watching with tired interest as Don Condor slowly filled with bile: the Keeper of the Great Seals was nervous, because he was late for the emergency night session of the Conference of the Twelve Merchants dedicated to the revolution in Arkanar, at which he was supposed to preside.

  “My noble friends!” Doctor Budach finally said in a ringing voice, stood up, and fell on Rumata.

  Rumata gently put an arm around his shoulders.

  “Is he done?” asked Don Condor.

  “He won’t wake up until the morning,” Rumata said. He lifted Budach in his arms and carried him to Father Cabani’s bed.

  Father Cabani said enviously, “So the doctor can indulge, huh, and Father Cabani can’t? It’s bad for him, huh? That’s not fair!”

  “I have a quarter of an hour,” Don Condor said in Russian.

  “I’ll only need five minutes,” answered Rumata, barely managing to control his irritation. “I’ve told you so much about it before that I might only need a minute. In full accordance with the basis theory of feudalism,” he furiously looked Don Condor in the eye, “this commonplace rebellion of the citizens against the barony,” he shifted his gaze to Don Gug, “turned into a provocative intrigue by the Holy Order and resulted in the transformation of Arkanar into a base of feudal-fascist aggression. We’ve been racking our brains, vainly trying to squeeze the complicated, contradictory, enigmatic figure of our eagle Don Reba into the ranks of Richelieu, Necker, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Monck, and he turned out to be a petty hoodlum and an idiot! He betrayed and sold out everyone he could, got tangled up in his own schemes, got scared to death, and ran to the Holy Order to be saved. In half a year he’ll be slaughtered, and the Ord
er will remain. The consequences of this for the Land Beyond the Strait, and then for the empire as a whole, I shudder to think about. In any case, the entire twenty years of work within the empire has gone down the drain. There will be no room to maneuver under the Holy Order. Budach is probably the last man I’ll save. There will be no one left. I’m done.”

  Don Gug finally broke the camel shoe and threw the halves into a corner. “Yes, we dropped the ball,” he said. “Maybe it’s not that bad, Anton?”

  Rumata just looked at him.

  “You should have removed Don Reba,” Don Condor said suddenly.

  “What do you mean, ‘removed’?”

  Don Condor’s face broke out in red spots. “Physically!” he said sharply.

  Rumata sat down. “You mean killed?”

  “Yes. Yes! Yes! Killed! Kidnapped! Replaced! Imprisoned! You should have acted. Not sought the advice of two idiots who didn’t understand a damn thing about what was going on.”

  “I didn’t understand a damn thing either.”

  “At least you felt something.”

  Everyone was silent.

  “Was it like the Barkan massacre?” Don Condor asked in a low voice, looking to the side.

  “Yes, approximately. But more organized.”

  Don Condor bit his lip. “It’s now too late to remove him?” he asked.

  “It’s pointless,” said Rumata. “First of all, he’ll be removed without us, and second of all, it’s not even necessary. He, at least, is under my control.”

  “How so?”

  “He’s afraid of me. He guesses that there’s power behind me. He’s already even offered to cooperate.”

  “Yes?” Don Condor grumbled. “Then there’s no need.”

  Don Gug asked, stammering a little, “Come on, comrades, are you serious?”

  “About what?” asked Don Condor.

  “Well, all of this. Killing, physically removing … Come on, have you gone insane?”

  “The noble don has been struck in the heel,” Rumata said very quietly.

  Don Condor said slowly and emphatically, “Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures.”

  Don Gug, moving his lips, looked back and forth between them. “D-Do you … Do you know what this could come to?” he asked. “D-Do you understand what this could come to, huh?”

  “Calm down, please,” Don Condor said. “Nothing is going to happen. Enough about that for now. What are we going to do about the Order? I propose a blockade of the Arkanarian region. Your opinion, comrades? And be quick, I’m in a hurry.”

  “I have no opinion yet,” Rumata insisted. “And there’s no way Pashka has one. We need to get advice from the Base. We need to look around. Let’s meet in a week and decide.”

  “Agreed,” Don Condor said and got up. “Let’s go.”

  Rumata slung Budach over his shoulder and went out of the hut. Don Condor was shining a flashlight for him. They approached the helicopter, and Rumata laid Budach on the backseat. Don Condor, rattling his sword and getting tangled in his cloak, climbed into the pilot’s seat.

  “Will you drop me off at home?” Rumata asked. “I want to finally get some sleep.”

  “I’ll drop you off,” grumbled Don Condor. “Just be quick, please.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Rumata said. He ran back into the hut.

  Don Gug was still sitting at the table, staring fixedly in front of himself and rubbing his chin. Father Cabani was standing next to him, saying, “That’s how it always is, my friend. You try to make things better and they just get worse.”

  Rumata scooped up the swords and slings into his arms. “Bye, Pashka,” he said. “Don’t get upset, we’re all just tired and irritated.”

  Don Gug shook his head. “Be careful, Anton,” he said. “Oh, be careful! I’m not talking about Uncle Sasha out there; he’s been here a long time, it’s not our place to teach him. But you …”

  “I just want to sleep,” said Rumata. “Father Cabani, could you be so good as to take my horses to Baron Pampa? I’ll be there in a day or two.”

  Propeller blades whirred softly outside. Rumata waved and ran out of the hut. The bright glare of the helicopter’s headlights made the thickets of giant ferns and white tree trunks look strange and eerie. Rumata clambered into the cabin and slammed the door.

  The cabin smelled of ozone, organic paneling, and cologne. Don Condor lifted the machine and guided it confidently over the Arkanarian road. I couldn’t do that now, thought Rumata with a touch of envy. Old Budach was peacefully smacking his lips in his sleep behind them.

  “Anton,” Don Condor said, “I wouldn’t … uh … want to be tactless, and don’t think that I … uh … am interfering in your private affairs.”

  “I’m listening,” Rumata said. He immediately guessed what he was going to say.

  “We’re all operatives,” said Don Condor. “And all that is precious to us must be either far away on Earth or inside us. So that no one can take it away and use it as a hostage.”

  “You’re talking about Kira?” Rumata asked.

  “Yes, my boy. If all I know about Don Reba is true, keeping him under control is a difficult and dangerous task. You see what I’m trying to say.”

  “Yes, I see,” Rumata said. “I’ll try to think of something.”

  They were lying in the dark, holding hands. The city was quiet, except for the horses that would occasionally thrash and whinny angrily somewhere nearby. From time to time, Rumata would doze off and then immediately wake up again, because Kira would hold her breath—in his sleep, he would squeeze her hand very hard.

  “You probably really want to sleep,” Kira said in a whisper. “You should sleep.”

  “No, no, tell me, I’m listening.”

  “You keep falling asleep.”

  “I’m still listening. I feel very tired, it’s true, but I miss you even more. I’m sorry to sleep. You tell me, I’m very interested.”

  She gratefully rubbed her nose against his shoulder and kissed his cheek and started telling him again about the neighbor’s boy who came that night from her father. Her father was laid up. He had been kicked out of his office and beaten severely with sticks as a farewell. Lately he hadn’t been eating anything at all, only drinking—he’d become all blue and shaky. The boy also said that her brother had turned up—wounded, but cheerful and drunk, in a new uniform. He gave money to his father, drank with him, and was once again threatening that his boys would roll over everyone. He was now a lieutenant in some special squad; he’d taken the oath of allegiance to the Order and was about to be ordained. Father asked that she not come home under any circumstances. Her brother was threatening to settle scores with her for getting mixed up with a noble, the red-haired bitch.

  Yes, thought Rumata, she definitely shouldn’t go home. And it’s absolutely certain that she can’t stay here, either. If anything happens to her … He imagined something bad happening to her and felt himself turn to stone.

  “Are you asleep?” Kira asked.

  He woke up and opened his hand. “No, no … And what else did you do?”

  “And I also tidied up your rooms. It was really a mess in here. I found one book, Father Gur’s work. The one that’s about a noble prince who fell in love with a beautiful but wild girl from the other side of the mountains. She was completely wild and thought that he was God, but she still really loved him. Then they were separated, and she died of grief.”

  “It’s a wonderful book,” said Rumata.

  “I even cried. I kept feeling that it was about you and me.”

  “Yes, it’s about you and me. And just about any people who love each other. Only we won’t be separated.”

  You’d be safest on Earth, he thought. But how would you manage without me? And how will I manage here alone? I could ask Anka to be a friend to you there. But how will I manage here without you? No, we will fly to Earth together. I’ll pilot the ship myself, and you will sit next to me, and I’ll explai
n everything to you. So you won’t be afraid of anything. So you’ll never regret your terrible home. Because this is not your home. Because your home has rejected you. Because you were born a thousand years ahead of your time. Kind, loyal, unselfish, self-sacrificing. Those like you have been born in every age throughout the bloody histories of our planets. Bright, pure souls who don’t know hatred, who reject cruelty. Victims. Pointless victims. Much more pointless than Gur the Storyteller or Galileo. Because those like you aren’t even fighters. To be a fighter, you must know how to hate, and that is precisely what you don’t know how to do. Just like us nowadays …

  Rumata dozed off again and immediately saw Kira standing on the flat roof of the Council with a degravitator on her belt, and a cheerful sardonic Anka impatiently pushing her into the mile-deep abyss.

  “Rumata,” Kira said, “I’m afraid.”

  “Of what, little one?”

  “You just keep being silent. I’m scared.”

  Rumata pulled her close. “All right,” he said. “Now I will talk, and you will listen carefully to me. Far, far away, on the other side of the saiva, there is a formidable, impregnable castle. In this castle lives the merry, kind, and funny Baron Pampa, the kindest baron in Arkanar. He has a wife, a beautiful, loving woman, who really loves Pampa sober and can’t stand Pampa drunk …”

  He paused, listening. He heard the clatter of numerous hooves along the street and the noisy breathing of many men and horses. “This the place?” asked a coarse voice at the window. “Seems to be.” “Stop!” Heels clattered on the front steps and several fists immediately started rapping on the door. Kira flinched and clung to Rumata.

  “Wait, little one,” he said, throwing back the blanket.

  “They’ve come for me,” Kira said in a whisper. “I knew it!”

  Rumata freed himself from Kira’s arms with difficulty and ran to the window. “In the name of the Lord!” roared below. “Open up! If we have to break in, you’ll be sorry!” Rumata pulled back the curtain, and the room was flooded with the familiar dancing torchlight. There were numerous riders outside—sullen men in black with pointed hoods.