But if Chris were to decide to return to his home world right now, before Friday, this may drive this anonym ous man crazy. For some reason he believes that Chris ’s pre sence is crucial for his victory. If he loses after Chris is gone, his sick inflamed brain may become set on a different goal: revenge. And just like he had entered this car and that room, one night he could enter Chris ’s real home. He or someone sent by him. And the cozy, warm and comfy world will be demolished forever.
Chris looked around. The yellowing dimness around him whispered quietly about the danger lurking everywhere. This horrible man could ’ve been hiding somewhere very close, sitting in a nearby car, standing behind a nearby tree. He could ’ve stayed here to ensure that everything went according to the plan. Who knows what other surprises he has prepared? Perhaps at the first sound of the engine a large stone would fly through the front windshield. No, trying to leave now is potentially more dangerous than staying. Sensing an unusual weakness in his knees, Chris stepped out of the car, took the suitcase, which he had nearly grown to loathe by now , from the trunk, and headed back to the lodge, shoulders drooped and eyes downcast . He didn ’t even give the car with its mutilated panel a single glance.
Grum . . .grum . . .grrrrum . . . the suitcase kept grum bl ing behind his back as he walked, and every sound resembled cautious eerie steps. Glancing around endlessly , Chris finally reached the entrance. But inside the building the vile suitcase remained just as unsettling. Its loud grunting had turned into a muffled whisper, and again it was so easy to suspect that all this ceaseless mumbling had the single goal of covering up its accomplice , silently crouching behind them. Whe n Chris reached his room he was ready to throw the black leather bag off the balcony. Making his mood even sourer was the need to go back to Clark and feed him a new story, this time about a miraculous recovery .
Adding the last touch, the necessity to find new bed linen was looming ove r his head. He considered the option of sleeping on the floor, entertained for a moment the idea of looking for an empty room , and cursed the lodge administration who hadn’t bother ed to put another couch in the room. It was obvious that if he wanted to be in any reasonable shape tomorrow, he had to spend a night in this stinking bed. Even fear had receded in the face of the growing irritation. He once again glanced around the soulless hallway, stepped over the threshold and reached for the light switch.
And once again his hand didn ’t complete a simple action. Instead of the expected familiar firmness , the fingers met with a soft slippery mass. Chris pulled his hand back, sensing the muffled beating of his heart with his entire body. In an instant, the door behind his back closed softly, and the darkness that flooded the room pushed him from behind, threw him face down on the armchair and gently covered his head with its asphyxiating softness. Chris realized that he was being strangled and fell into the greedy welcoming void.
When he came to he couldn’t recall where he was. He gave it a couple of shots , but to no avail . Then memory came back to him slowly and it became clear that he was at home, that it was late and that tomorrow morning he was about to have an important meeting with Summers. Being even five minutes late would be a crime in the eyes of the old man, so it would be better to go to bed. But why is it so dark here?
At that point the delusion evaporated and the nightmare returned .
Something was pressing against his back and it took him another second to realize that he was sitting on the floor, leaning back, with an armchair behind him. The air around him was full of menacing darkness, mixed with anxiety and a sour bile -like smell.
Chris gulped, feeling a disgusting burning sensation in his mouth , and made an attempt to get to his feet.
“Don’t move, ” the darkness said curtly, its voice half-familiar.
Chris froze. He had no desires left—just for this nightmare to be over as soon as possible.
“And don’t ever try running away again , ” the darkness said in a didactic tone. “Is that clear?”
Chris nodded.
“Is that clear?” the darkness demanded again.
“Yes, yes, of course!” Chris realized how ridiculous nodding in the dark was and the fear of being strangled again engulfed him.
But the darkness was in a good-natured mood.
“Good,” it approved of Chris ’s behavior. “I take it that you ’ll be as quick to get the rest of it. Will you?”
“Yes . . . Sure.”
Chris still had a hard time accepting the reality around him. There was something utterly unreal about the chain of events of the last hour that had somehow morphed into this almost businesslike conversation with an invisible interlocutor.
“Then listen carefully. For the next two days , you ’re going to work like hell to win. As if nothing had changed. Understand? Nothing . Keep doing what you ’ve been doing. Show ‘em who is the boss, do your cheerleading act, keep driving things. Don ’t stop. Even if you get into a disagreement with me, don ’t back off. No changes whatsoever. Got it?”
“Yes,” Chris confirmed again, although now he was completely lost. The request didn ’t make any sense.
“If I see that you ’re not working as hard as you used to, I ’ll pay you another visit, ” the darkness promised meanwhile. “No single soul around here can even suspect that you don ’t care about winning anymore. By the way, do you still want to win?”
“Yes. I mean, no!” Chris stiffened anxiously.
“Smart boy,” the darkness stated with satisfaction. “So you ’re going to try and try hard. Now, tomorrow afternoon you ’re going to introduce another rule. Once voting is over , any person who ’s got votes can transfer them to anyone else. Got that?”
“Yes.”
Now everything indeed became clear.
“So after the voting you will transfer all your votes to me, ” concluded the darkness. “But only if I don ’t have enough. You know who to transfer them to, do you?”
“I do,” Chris nodded again automatically, listening to the low voice like a hypnotized rabbit to a snake ’s hissing.
“That’s it then. I trust you know where your own vote should go. Now, once again—don ’t even think about sneaking out of here. Or about talking too much. You do that, and I ’ll find you anywhere. Just be a good boy, do as I say , and in two days you ’re out and life ’s good again. You try being too smart with me and you ’ll be sorry about it for the rest of your life. For whatever will be left out of it.”
“Sure,” Chris confirmed, despite the lack of a question. “I . . . Can I ask a question? One question if it ’s all right with you .” He gulped. “This rule , ” he felt the back of his head stiffening uncontrollably , “h ow can I make them agree to it?”
“That’s your problem, ” the darkness said severely. “I ’m sure you ’ll come up with something if you don ’t want to have another chat. Now stop whining and go to bed. Tomorrow I need you fresh as a daisy. Here.”
Something big and soft struck Chris’s face and chest. He nearly screamed , although he knew immediately what it was. The door swung open then closed soundlessly.
Chris remained sitting on the floor by the armchair, his face buried in a fresh, just slightly crumpled bed sheet.
The society of the Bandar-Log. The poor doomed society of the Bandar-Log . . . It is soaked through with self-delusion. It smiles with the smug smile of a man, who sits on a powder keg, with a fuse already crackling cheerfully. It is soaked through with words that have lost their meaning, with the ghosts of ideas that have lost their believers. This is a society that constantly substitutes ancient concepts with surrogates. A society in which a child makes his parents proud when he proclaims that he wants to be a dentist, but draws nothing but laughter by saying that he wants to be a great king. Not the p resident, not a general, but a king, a ruler. Someone who rules.
They had so much fun that night . . . And the phrase made it later into the family lore. As if it had been uttered by a toddler and not said hotly by a nine-year -old bo
y. A great artist, a great entrepreneur, a great designer, a great marketer—they get that. They have nothing against the word ‘great .’ But a ruler? A great ruler? Your boy wants power, is that it? Funny. No, you know what, it isn ’t that funny actually. It ’s not funny at all. You should tell your boy that people don ’t talk about power like this. He shouldn ’t even be thinking about power like this. In this country a ruler is a servant of the people. Not the other way around. And then—explanations. Long, boring -to -death explanations . . . And you ’re already smart enough to show that you agree, while everything inside you screams , “No! No! I meant it!”
But you learn to hide your thoughts. They teach you that being too controversial is not a good idea. It makes people uncomfortable, they say. And you already understand that all it takes to be considered controversial these days is to speak your mind. It doesn’t matter what the subject is. Saying what you really think is just not fashionable.
What’s really fashionable is lighthearted ignorance.
We walk among majestic ruins of the past, neglecting them, taking them for crude crafts of ignorant savages. We are so above our barbaric ancestors. We are civilized. We are democratic. We are educated. Yes, there is a beast hiding in every one of us, but we ’ve tamed it, manicured its claws and put a sturdy collar around its neck. We elect our rulers and whenever we grow bored of them we banish them back to obscurity. We don ’t want someone to rule us—we want someone to please us.
Life may seethe terribly in some places far, far away , where dirty beggarly children are brought up hating our guts and crazy power-hungry local kings slaughter entire nations. But we ’re above all of that.
We conveniently ignore the fact that nothing has changed in these faraway places, in these seething boilers heated by the poverty and fanaticism. Over there the strong don ’t need anything beyond their strength and cruelty to rule the weak. And the weak there respect strength, cruelty and power and don ’t give a damn about world peace and politically correct statements. People there seek power openly, tearing their competitors apart to bloody pieces and not worrying about sugarcoating their actions. And poor and dirty as they are, their kids—those of them who survive—grow strong, ready for blood, ready for death, ready for anything.
You’d think this would remind us that people don ’t change, at least not as quickly as we ’d like to think. But we are not interested in reminders. We ’ve moved beyond that stage. We are Homo Democraticus.
And yet ancient concepts don’t disappear. They just soak deeper into society—any society—where they hide and wait for their day to come. And this day comes inevitably. Never mind that lust for power is considered nearly a profanity around here. Power doesn ’t care for the opinions of a couple of spoiled generations. It will live as long as two people walk the Earth. It is inextinguishable. And it knows how to wait.
As for those who think that a lust for absolute power can be pronounced dead , there is history. There is Rome circa 49 BC, France circa 1799 and Germany circa 1933. In these places , people also believed that democracy was the best way to avoid dictatorship. Moreover, many free thinkers in these times and places believed that democracy was the ultimate way to organize a society, and that there was no turning back.
They were unable to grasp that sooner or later democracy emasculates its rulers.
Instead of those who are born to rule , it pushes up to the top the skillful deceivers who simply know how to hide their greed better than others. Instead of looking at people as material for great accomplishments, they see a crowd who should be supplied with bread and circuses, providing in exchange its ever -changing favor. And sooner or later—in ten, a hundred, five hundred years—this emasculation leads to weak power. And following weak power inevitably comes dictatorship—the only form of governance natural to men. This is what Ms. History is screaming out to us at the top of her lungs.
There’s one problem though : we don ’t give a damn about Ms. History and her boring advice. She doesn ’t measure up against well -respected members of scientific Olympus—finance, marketing, calculus. If you think about it, has she been ever respected? Anywhere?
Smart people have always treated her like a whore, while the stupid ones have simply ignored her . Poor, poor Bandar-Log—they never learn their lesson . . .
Ch a p t er Six
“Where are they?” Chris glanced grimly at his watch. “This isn ’t funny anymore. They ’re going to screw this up for all of us.”
There hadn’t been a shortage of jokes this morning, once it was discovered that two people had decided to skip breakfast. At first they talked about less frivolous subjects but it didn ’t take long for Paul to crack the first joke and start the trend. By the time breakfast was over an outside observer could ’ve concluded that Robert and Stella were either newlyweds or the hottest couple in town.
“Sounds like we have an alternative competition going on here, ” Paul was smirking.
“And I’d say it requires more stamina than our intellectual games, ” Ross was echoing.
“Cut it out , boys, ” Joan was bringing th em to reason, but something in her voice suggested that she wasn ’t too serious.
The jokes, however , didn ’t last longer than the food on the table. By the time the large black clock on the wall was showing nine -fifteen, the air became thick with irritation.
“All you need is love, ” Alex muttered.
“I don’t care what they need, ” Chris said dourly. “The s how must go on, if you ’re in the mood for quoting songs. Let ’s get rolling. If they decide to show up, they ’ll go last.”
“I don’t like it, ” said Joan. “They ’re going to vote just like everyone else. I don ’t want them to miss speeches.”
“They come too late—they lose their right to vote!”
“Why don’t we just cut them short? You snooze —you l ose , you know?”
“Really, what kind of message does that convey ? We ’re too busy for you folks?”
“All right, let ’s get the ball rolling, ” summarized Chris. “Once they show up we ’ll decide what to do.”
“Wait,” Alex said firmly. “You ’re assuming that everything ’s all right. What if it isn ’t? What if something ’s happened?”
“Sure, something ’s happened, ” Paul snorted. “We even know what.”
“No,” Alex held up his palm in a warning gesture. “I ’m serious. What if something bad has happened? Who said they simply overslept or are too busy to show up?”
“What else could it be?” asked Brandon . “Bogeyman got them?”
The answer came from Michael, who had been silent for a while.
“For example, they may be not here at all.”
“What do you mean, not here?” Ross wondered. “If not here, then where?”
“That’s a different question, ” Alex replied. “First, it ’d be good to know if they ’re really missing. We should go and check.”
The proposal didn’t make Chris overly excited.
“There’s nothing to check, ” he said, knitting his thick eyebrows. “They ’re adults and are fully capable of deciding where their priorities lay. If they felt like taking a walk instead of being here, it ’s their choice. No one ’s going to twist their arms to stay here. Going up to their rooms and k nocking on the doors is a bit much. Now, really , let ’s get started. We ’ve wasted enough time already.”
Alex stood up abruptly.
“I don’t know about you, Chris, but for me some things are more important than this competition. We ’re in the middle of nowhere, after all. Bad things can happen in the woods. And if people are in danger , that tops our little game here, at least for me.”
“A little game?” Chris burst out with unexpected fierceness. “What exactly do you call a little game? Do you have any clue of what it means to be here?”
Alex gave him a heavy look.
“I do have a clue. Not sure about you though.”
“What’s your p
roblem? Again, two adults—”
“Two adults are missing , ” Alex said, every word dropping like a stone. “Has anyone seen them since yesterday? Anyone? That’s what I ’m talking about. You ’re free to do whatever you wish, but I ’m going to check on them first. If you ’re so hell-bent on starting now, go ahead without me.”
He crossed the room in wide strides and disappeared behind the door.
Michael got to his feet.
“He’s right. I ’ll go check the cars.”
“You know which cars are theirs?” Joan asked in surprise.
“No. But it isn ’t too hard to figure out. The lodge staff seems to be gone. And Clark . . . I assume none of you have car -pooled here?”
Clark, who sat in the corner with his usual poker face, shrugged.
“Maybe yes, maybe no. We ’re but furniture. Furniture doesn ’t talk.”
Michael nodded, as he’d just heard what he’d been expecting to hear.
“Splendid. The furniture obviously wouldn ’t mind seeing its cars scratched accidently once we're done with this search . The furniture, I would presume, doesn ’t care much about cars and people, does it?”
He turned back to the tables.
“Sounds like we all have to go.”
“Three cars, ” Clark said dryly.
Michael nodded over the shoulder and a second later was gone.
“Someone tell me again, how did I e nd up in a nuthouse?” Paul said in the silence that followed Michael ’s rapid departure.
Chris sat still, his gaze fixed on the door.
“They’re gone, ” Alex informed everyone two minutes later. “The beds are fixed. If they left, they must ’ve used Rob ’s car. Stella ’s keys are on her desk.”
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