The Inhabited Island

by Arkady Strugatsky

  Gai was very agitated. He didn’t remember very clearly having taken his leave of the old duke-prince. The duke-prince had said something, and Maxim had said something, he thought they had laughed, and then the duke-prince had shed a few tears, and then the door had slammed . . . Gai suddenly discovered that he was secured to his seat by broad straps, and Maxim, sitting in the next seat, was rapidly and confidently clicking all sorts of little levers and switches.

  Dials lit up on instrument boards, there was a loud crack, a thunderclap of exhaust fumes, the cabin started trembling, everything around him was filled with a ponderous rumbling sound, and far away down below, among the bushes lying flat and the grass that looked as if it were flowing along, the little duke-prince grabbed hold of his hat with both hands and backed away. Gai looked around and saw that the blades of the gigantic propellers had disappeared, they had fused into immense, blurred circles, and suddenly the entire wide-open field jolted and started creeping toward them, faster and faster—there was no more duke-prince, there was no more hangar, there was only the open field, impetuously tearing toward them, and the relentless, appalling shuddering, and the thunderous roaring, and when Gai turned his head with a struggle, he was horrified to discover that the gigantic wings were smoothly swaying up and down, seeming about to fall off at any moment, but then the shuddering disappeared, the field under the wings abruptly dropped away, and Gai was pervaded by a strange, cottony sensation all the way from his head down to his feet. And there was no field under the bomber any longer, and the forest had disappeared, transforming first into a blackish-green brush and then into an immense patched and repatched blanket, and then Gai guessed that he was flying.

  He looked at Maxim in total ecstasy. His friend Mak was sitting in a casual pose, with his left arm resting on the armrest and his right hand gently jiggling the largest, and no doubt most important, lever. His eyes were narrowed and his lips were wrinkled up as if he were whistling. Yes, he was a great man. Great and incomprehensible. He can probably do anything at all, Gai thought. Here he is controlling this extremely complex machine that he’s just seen for the first time in his life. It isn’t some kind of tank, or a truck—it’s an airplane, a legendary machine, I didn’t even know any had survived—but he handles it like a toy, as if he’d spent all his life flying through the boundless aerial expanses. It’s simply beyond all comprehension; it seems as if he sees so many things for the first time, but even so, he instantly gets the hang of them and does what has to be done . . .

  And it’s not just machines, is it? Machines aren’t the only ones to acknowledge him as their master . . . If he wanted, even Cornet Chachu would stroll arm in arm with him . . . And the Sorcerer, who I’m afraid even to look at, regarded him as an equal . . . The duke-prince, a colonel and a senior surgeon-in-chief, an aristocrat, you might say, he instantly sensed something special and exalted in Maxim too . . . He gave him this machine, entrusted it to him . . . And I wanted to marry Rada to him. What’s Rada to him? He should have some countess, or a princess, say . . . But he’s friends with me, how about that? And if he told me right now to throw myself out—well, I might very possibly do it, because he’s Maxim! And I’ve learned and seen so many things because of him, more than you could learn and see in an entire lifetime . . . And I’ll learn and see so many more things because of him, and learn so many things from him . . .

  Maxim sensed Gai’s glance, and his rapture, and his devotion, and he turned his head and gave a broad smile, the way he used to, and Gai barely managed to stop himself from grabbing hold of Maxim’s powerful brown hand and pressing his lips against it in a kiss of gratitude. O my lord, my defense and my leader, command me! Here am I before you, I am ready—hurl me into the fire, unite me with the flames . . . Against a thousand enemies, against the gaping muzzles, against millions of bullets . . . Where are they, your enemies? Where are those repulsive little men in abhorrent black uniforms? Where is that spiteful little officer who dared to raise his hand against you? Oh, you black scoundrel, I’ll tear you apart with my nails, I’ll bite your throat out . . . but not at this moment, no . . .

  My lord is ordering me to do something—he wants something from me. Mak, Mak, I implore you, give me back your smile, why aren’t you smiling anymore? Yes, yes, I am stupid, I don’t understand you, I can’t hear you, the roaring here is so loud, it’s your obedient machine roaring . . . Ah, that’s what it is, massaraksh, what an idiot I am, why of course, the helmet . . . Yes, yes, just a moment . . . I understand. It has an earphone in it, just like in a tank . . . I am listening, great one! Command me!

  No, no, I don’t want to come to my senses! Nothing’s happening to me, it’s just that I am yours, I want to die for you, command me to do something . . . Yes, I’ll keep quiet, I’ll shut up . . . It will tear my lungs apart, but I’ll keep quiet, if you command me to . . .

  The tower? What tower? Ah yes, I can see a tower . . . Those black villains, those villainous Fathers, those infamous dogs, they’ve stuck their towers up everywhere, but we’ll sweep those towers away, we’ll march, uttering fearsome cries, sweeping aside those towers, with our blazing eyes . . . Guide, guide your obedient machine straight at that abhorrent tower . . . and give me a bomb and I’ll jump with the bomb, and I won’t miss, you’ll see! Give me a bomb, a bomb! Into the flames! Oh! . . . Ohhh! . . . Ohhhh!”

  Gai breathed in with a struggle and tore at the collar of his coverall. His ears were ringing; the world was swimming and swaying in front of his eyes. The world was wreathed in mist, but the mist was rapidly dissipating, his muscles were aching, and he had an unpleasant tickling feeling in his throat. Then he saw Maxim’s face, looking dark, gloomy, and even somehow cruel. The memory of something sweet welled up and immediately disappeared, but for some reason he felt a strong desire to stand to attention and click his heels. Only Gai realized that this was inappropriate and Maxim would be angry.

  “Did I mess up somehow?” he guiltily asked, anxiously looking around.

  “I was the one who messed up,” Maxim replied. “I completely forgot about that crap.”

  “About what crap?”

  Maxim went back to his chair, put his hand on the lever, and started looking straight ahead. “About the towers,” he eventually said.

  “What towers?”

  “I set course too far to the north,” said Maxim. “We took a hit from the radiation.”

  Gai suddenly felt ashamed. “Did I bellow out the hymn?” he asked.

  “Worse than that,” Maxim replied. “Never mind, from now on I’ll be more careful.”

  Gai turned away, feeling immensely awkward, agonizingly straining to recall exactly what he had done, and started examining the world down below. He didn’t see any tower, and of course he couldn’t see the hangar or the field they had taken off from any longer. Down below the same patchwork blanket was still creeping by, and he could also see a river—a slim, dull, metallic snake, disappearing into the smoky haze far ahead, where the sea ought to rise up into the sky like a wall . . . What was I jabbering? Gai wondered. It must have been some kind of deadly nonsense, because Maxim is very annoyed and upset. Massaraksh, maybe my old Guards habits have come back and I insulted Maxim somehow? Where is that damned tower? This is a good opportunity to drop a bomb on it . . .

  The bomber suddenly jolted. Gai bit his tongue, and Maxim grabbed hold of the lever with both hands. Something was wrong, something had happened . . . Gai apprehensively looked around and was relieved to discover that the wing was still there, and the propellers were still turning. Then he looked up. In the white sky above his head odd-looking, coal-black blotches were slowly expanding. Like drops of ink in water.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Maxim. “A strange business.” He pronounced two unfamiliar words, and then, after a pause, he said, “An attack of sky stones. Nonsense, that just doesn’t happen. The probability’s zero point zero zero . . . Do I attract them or something?” He pronounced t
hose unfamiliar words again and stopped talking.

  Gai was about to ask what sky stones were, but then out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a strange movement down below on the right. He looked more closely. A clump of something yellowish was slowly and ponderously expanding above the dirty-green blanket of the forest. He didn’t immediately realize that it was smoke. Then something glinted deep inside the clump, and a long, black form slid out of it, and at that very moment the horizon heeled over with hideous abruptness, becoming a wall, and Gai grabbed hold of the armrests. The automatic rifle slid off his knees and went tumbling across the floor. “Massaraksh . . .” Maxim hissed in the earphones. “So that’s what it is! Ah, I’m an idiot!”

  The horizon leveled up again, and Gai looked for the yellow clump of smoke, didn’t find it, and started looking straight ahead, and suddenly a fountain of multicolored spray rose up above the forest directly in their course, and yellowish smoke ponderously swelled up in a clump again, and once again a long, black form rose up into the sky and burst into a blinding white sphere—Gai put his hand over his eyes. The white sphere rapidly faded, flooding with black and expanding into a giant blot. The floor started falling away under Gai’s feet, he opened his mouth wide to gasp for air, and for a second he thought his stomach was going to leap out through his throat; the cabin turned dark, ragged black smoke slid toward them and flew off to the sides, then the horizon heeled over again, so that the forest was really close now on the left. Gai squeezed his eyes shut and cringed in anticipation of a blow, pain, or death—there wasn’t enough air, everything around him was shuddering and shaking.

  “Massaraksh . . .” Maxim’s voice hissed in the earphones. “Thirty-three massarakshes . . .” And then there was an abrupt, furious hammering on the wall beside Gai, like someone firing a machine gun at point-blank range, an intense stream of icy-cold air struck him in the face, his helmet was torn off, and Gai huddled down, hiding his head from the roaring and the crosswind. This is the end, he thought. They’re firing at us, he thought. Now they’ll shoot us down and we’ll burn up, he thought. But nothing happened. The bomber jolted a few more times, tumbled into several pits and rose back up out of them, and then the roaring of the engines suddenly stopped and an appalling silence set in, filled only with the whistling howl of the wind rushing in through the hole.

  Gai waited for a little while, then raised his head, trying not to expose his face to the icy blast of air. Maxim was there. He was sitting in a tense pose, holding the control lever with both hands, glancing at the instruments and looking straight ahead by turns. The muscles under his brown skin were distended. The bomber was flying rather strangely somehow—holding its nose up high. The engines weren’t working.

  Gai glanced at the wing and was paralyzed with fear. The wing was on fire. “Fire!” he yelled, and tried to jump to his feet. The straps restrained him.

  “Sit still,” Maxim said through his teeth, without turning around.

  “But the wing’s on fire!”

  “What can I do about it? I said it was an old crate, didn’t I? Sit still and stay calm.”

  Gai got a grip on himself and started looking ahead. The bomber was flying very low. The alternating black and green patches down below flickered past, dazzling his eyes. And there, already rising up ahead of them, was the glittering, steely surface of the sea. We’ll be smashed to hell, Gai thought with a sinking heart. That damned duke-prince and his damned bomber, massaraksh, a fine fragment of the old empire, we could quite simply have walked there and had an easy time of it, but now we’ll burn up, and if we don’t burn up, we’ll be smashed to pieces, and if we’re not smashed to pieces, we’ll drown . . . It’s fine for Maxim, he’ll come back to life, but it’s the end for me . . . I don’t want that to happen.

  “Don’t get jumpy,” said Maxim. “Hold on tight . . . Just a moment . . .”

  The forest below them suddenly came to an end, and Gai saw a wavy, steel-gray surface rushing straight at him and closed his eyes . . .

  A blow. A crunch. A terrifying hissing sound. Another blow. Everything was going to hell, all was lost, this was the end. Gai howled in terror. Some immense force grabbed him and tried to tear him out of the seat, together with the straps, together with all his innards, then flung him back in disappointment, everything all around him was cracking and smashing, there was a stink of burning, and lukewarm water was spraying about. Then everything went quiet. In the silence Gai could hear splashing and gurgling, something was hissing and crackling, and the floor began slowly swaying to and fro. Apparently he could open his eyes now and see what it was like in the next world . . .

  Gai opened his eyes and saw Maxim, who was hanging down over him, unfastening his straps. “Can you swim?”

  Aha, so we’re alive then. “Yes,” Gai answered.

  “Then let’s go.”

  Gai cautiously got up, expecting to feel sharp pain in his battered and broken body, but his body turned out to be all right. The bomber was gently swaying on low waves. Its left wing was missing, but the right one was still dangling on a latticework metal strut. The shoreline was right in front of its nose—the bomber had obviously been swung around when it landed.

  Maxim picked up the automatic rifle, slung it behind his back, and opened the door. Water immediately rushed into the cabin, there was a repulsive smell of gasoline, and the floor under their feet started slowly heeling over.

  “Forward,” Maxim commanded. Gai squeezed past him and obediently plunked down into the waves.

  He sank in over his head and surfaced, spitting out water, then swam for the shore. The shore was close, a firm shore that you could walk on, and even fall on without any danger to your life. Maxim swam beside him, silently slicing through the water. Massaraksh, he even swims like a fish, as if he was born in the water . . . Gai puffed and panted, working away as hard as he could with his arms and legs. It was tough swimming in his coverall and boots, and he was delighted when his foot touched the sandy bottom. The shoreline was still quite a long way off, but he got up and walked, raking his arms through the dirty, oil-slicked water in front of him. Maxim carried on swimming, overtook Gai, and emerged first onto the shallow slope of the sandy shore. When Gai staggered up to him, he was standing with his legs wide apart, looking up at the sky. Gai looked up at the sky too. Numerous black blots were spreading across it.

  “We were lucky,” said Maxim. “About ten of them were launched.”

  “Ten what?” asked Gai, slapping himself on the ear to shake out the water.

  “Missiles . . . I completely forgot about them . . . They’d been waiting twenty years for us to fly past, and then we did . . . Why the hell didn’t I suspect?”

  Gai thought in annoyance that he could have suspected too, but he didn’t. And two hours ago he could have said, How can we fly, Mak, when the forest is full of missile silos? Yes, thank you, of course, Duke-Prince, but it would have been better if you’d flown in your bomber yourself . . . He looked around at the sea. The Mountain Eagle was almost completely submerged, with the multiple airfoils of its broken tailplane pitifully protruding from the water.

  “Right then,” said Gai. “As I understand things, we’re not going to reach the Island Empire now. So what are we going to do?”

  “First of all,” Maxim replied, “we’ll take our medication. Get it out.”

  “What for?” asked Gai. He didn’t like the prince’s tablets.

  “The water’s very dirty,” said Maxim. “My skin’s stinging all over. Let’s take four tablets each, or even five.”

  Gai hastily took out one of the bottles and shook out ten little yellow spheres onto his palm, and they shared the pills between them.

  “And now let’s go,” said Maxim. “Take your rifle.”

  Gai took his rifle, spat out the acrid, bitter taste that had built up in his mouth, and set off along the shoreline after Maxim, with his feet sinking into the sand. It was hot and his coverall quickly dried out, but there was still water sq
uelching in his boots. Maxim walked quickly and confidently, as if he knew exactly where they needed to go, although all around them there was nothing to be seen, apart from the sea on the left, the broad beach ahead and on the right, and, even farther away on the right, the high dunes about half a mile away from the water, with the tattered crowns of forest trees appearing above them from time to time.

  They walked for about two miles, and all the time Gai kept wondering where they were going and where they were in general. He didn’t want to ask, he wanted to figure it out for himself, but after recalling all the circumstances, he could only figure out that the estuary of the Blue Serpent River must be somewhere ahead, and they were walking north—but he couldn’t understand where to and what for . . . He soon got fed up of trying to figure things out. Holding his rifle close, he caught up with Mak and asked what their plans were now.

  Maxim quite readily replied that he and Gai didn’t have any definite plans now, and they could only trust to chance. They could only hope that a white submarine would approach the shoreline and they would reach it before the Guards did. However, since waiting for that to happen while surrounded by dry sand was a dubious sort of pleasure, they had to try to walk to the Resort, which ought to be somewhere not far away. The city itself had been destroyed a long time ago, of course, but the springs must have survived, and in any case they would have a roof over their heads. They could spend the night in the city and then see what was what. Maybe they would have to spend twenty or thirty days on the seashore.

  Gai discreetly remarked that this plan seemed rather strange to him, and Mak immediately agreed with that, and asked in a hopeful voice if Gai happened to have some other, cleverer plan in reserve. Gai said that unfortunately he didn’t have any other plan, but they shouldn’t forget about the Guard’s tank patrols, which, as far as he knew, came a very long way to the south along the shoreline. Maxim frowned and said that was bad, and they would have to keep a sharp ear out and not let themselves be taken by surprise, after which he intensively interrogated Gai for a while about the tactics of the patrols. Having learned that the tank patrols focused on the sea rather than the shore, and that it was easy to hide from them by lying in the dunes, he calmed down and started whistling an unfamiliar march.