“But where are they to be found? Obviously, on other planets; that is, either on Earth or on Venus. It seems evident to me personally that the first attempt should be made on Venus. It is reasonable to assume that there are rich deposits of active elements on Earth, but we already know for certain that such reserves exist on Venus. We do not know where the fields on Earth are located, because those that have already been discovered by Earthly scientists are worthless to us, whereas all our expeditions immediately discovered deposits on Venus. Most of the reserves on Earth presumably lie at the same great depths as here on Mars, whereas some of them on Venus are so close to the surface that they were easily found by means of a photographic detector. In order to prospect for radium on Earth we would have to undertake the same massive excavations as we have done on Mars. That could take decades, and even then we cannot be sure of success. On Venus we need only mine what has already been discovered, and we can begin doing that immediately.
“Whatever we may decide later on the question of mass colonization, therefore, I am thoroughly convinced that the very possibility of making the decision depends on an immediate, small-scale, and temporary colonization of Venus whose sole object will be to obtain radioactive ore.
“To be sure, there are enormous natural obstacles, but we need not fully overcome them. We will not have to establish control over more than a small area of the planet. What is essentially involved here is a large expedition that will have to remain on Venus not for months, as in the case of earlier voyages, but years, and its chief activity will be the mining of radium. At the same time, of course, we will have to wage a vigorous struggle against the elements in order to protect ourselves from the murderous climate, unknown diseases, and other dangers. It will demand great sacrifices; perhaps only a fraction of the expedition will ever return. But we must make an attempt.
“Our data indicate that the most suitable place to begin is on the Island of Hot Storms. I have made an exhaustive study of the natural environment there and have drawn up a detailed plan for the project. Comrades, if you feel you can consider it now, I shall immediately present it to you.”
(There were no objections, and Menni began describing his plan in great technical detail. Other speakers took the floor after him, but their comments referred exclusively to individual points of the plan. Certain of them expressed doubts as to the expedition’s chances of success, but all were agreed that an attempt was necessary. The meeting concluded by adopting the resolution proposed by Menni.)
10. Murder
I was so stunned by what I had heard that I could not even attempt to assemble my thoughts. I only felt a cold pain closing like an iron ring on my heart, and before me, as clearly as my earlier hallucinations, I could still see Sterni’s towering figure and implacably calm face. Everything else was jumbled together and lost in a dark, oppressive chaos. Like a robot, I left the library and got into the gondola. As I flew swiftly along, I was forced to bundle up tightly in my overcoat to shield myself from the cold wind. As I did so, I was struck by a thought which immediately froze into an absolute certainty in my mind: I had to be alone. When I arrived home, I set about implementing my decision, but my actions were so mechanical that it seemed as though someone else were doing it all for me.
I wrote the administrative board of the factory that I was leaving my job for a while. I told Enno that we would have to separate for the time being. She gave me a worried, questioning glance and turned a little pale, but said not a word. It was not until later, just as I was about to go, that she asked me whether I would not like to see Nella. I replied that I did not, and kissed her for the last time.
I fell into a state of utter paralysis that was empty save for a cold pain in my heart and a jumble of fragmentary thoughts. I could only faintly recall Netti’s and Menni’s speeches, as if what they had said was of little interest or consequence. Only once did I come to the sudden realization that this was why Netti had gone: “everything depends on the expedition.” Individual expressions and whole sentences from Sterni’s speech resounded sharply and clearly: “we must understand necessity . . . a few million human embryos . . . the utter annihilation of Earthly humanity . . . he is seriously deranged. . . .” But there were no connections or conclusions. Sometimes it would seem as though the destruction of mankind was already an accomplished fact, but I could only envisage it in a hazy and abstract form. The pain became more intense, and I was seized by the thought that I was to blame for the catastrophe. For a short while I realized that nothing had happened yet, and perhaps never would happen. The pain, however, did not cease, and my thoughts went grinding slowly on: “They will all die . . . Anna Nikolaevna . . . and Vanya the worker . . . and Netti . . . no, not Netti . . . she is a Martian . . . they will all die . . . but it is not cruel, because there will be no pain . . . yes, that is what Sterni said . . . but everyone will die because I was sick . . . in other words, it is my fault. . . .” These fragmentary, oppressive thoughts grew numb and rigid, planting themselves cold and immobile in my brain. Time seemed to freeze with them.
This was delirium—agonizing, unceasing, endless raving. I did not see any apparitions around me—there was only one black apparition now, but it was inside me and it was everything. And it would never go away, for time had stopped. The thought of committing suicide occurred to me and dragged sluggishly on in my consciousness for some time, but I never became obsessed with it. Suicide seemed meaningless, banal—could it really end this black pain that was everything? I could not believe in suicide, because I did not believe in my own existence. Sorrow, cold, this hateful everything—they existed, but my “I” was lost among them, where it seemed infinitely small, imperceptible, insignificant. There was no “me.” At times my condition became so intolerable that I was seized by a violent urge to throw myself at everything animate and inanimate around me, beat it, destroy it, annihilate it. But I realized that to do so would be meaningless and childish, so I gritted my teeth and resisted the temptation.
The thought of Sterni kept returning and finally lodged itself firmly in my mind. It seemed to be the center of all my pain and sorrow. Gradually, slowly but surely, an intention began to form around this nucleus and develop into a clear and resolute decision: I must see Sterni. Why I had to see him I could not say. All I knew was that I was going to do it. Yet at the same time it was painfully difficult to rouse myself from my inertia. Finally the day came when I found sufficient energy to overcome this inner resistance. I got into the gondola and flew to Sterni’s observatory. On the way I tried to think of what I was going to say to him, but the chill in my heart and the winter cold around me paralyzed my thoughts. Three hours later I had arrived.
As I entered the large hall of the observatory I told one of the comrades working there that I had to see Sterni. He left and returned a moment later, saying that Sterni was busy checking instruments but would be free in fifteen minutes and had asked me to wait in his office.
I was shown to the office, where I sat down at the desk and began to wait. The room was full of various apparatuses and machines, some of them familiar to me, some of them not. To the right of my chair there was a little instrument on a heavy metal tripod. A book about Earth and her inhabitants lay open on the table. I began reading it mechanically, but halted after the first few sentences and fell into a state much like my former paralysis, except that the usual sorrow was now accompanied by an indistinct emotional convulsion. I do not know how long I sat there like that.
I heard heavy footsteps in the corridor, and Sterni entered the room in his usual unhurried, matter-of-fact way. He seated himself in the chair on the other side of the table and looked at me questioningly. I was silent. He waited a minute or so and then addressed me directly:
“What can I do for you?”
I remained silent, staring at him fixedly as if he were an inanimate object. He gave a hardly noticeable shrug of his shoulders and settled down in the armchair to wait.
“Netti’s husband . . .”
I finally uttered with some effort. The remark was only half conscious, and I was not actually talking to him.
“I used to be Netti’s husband,” he corrected me calmly. “We separated long ago.”
“Annihilation . . . will not . . . be cruel,” I continued in the same slow and half-conscious manner, repeating the thought that had become petrified in my brain.
“Oh, so that is why you are here,” he said calmly. “But now it is quite out of the question. As you know, an altogether different preliminary resolution was adopted.”
“Preliminary resolution,” I repeated mechanically.
“As for the plan I was thinking of on that occasion,” added Sterni, “although I am not prepared to disown it entirely, I must admit that now I would not be inclined to defend it with such confidence.”
“Not entirely . . .” I repeated.
“Your recovery and the active part you have taken in the work of our society have partly demolished my arguments.”
“Annihilation . . . partly,” I interrupted. My unconscious irony must have revealed my sorrow and pain, for Sterni paled and looked at me anxiously. We both fell silent.
Suddenly the cold ring of pain wrung my heart with unprecedented, inexpressible force. I threw myself backward in the chair to stifle a mad scream. My fingers clutched convulsively at something hard and cold. I felt a heavy weapon in my hand as the pain within me swelled like an uncontrollable elemental force to a pitch of frenzied despair. I leapt up from the chair and dealt Sterni a terrible blow. One of the legs of the tripod struck him in the temple, and without a cry or even a groan he slumped to one side. I threw aside my weapon, which fell with a clatter against the machine. It was all over.
I went out into the corridor and told the first person I met that I had killed Sterni. He turned pale and rushed to the office. Evidently he could see immediately that help was no longer needed, however, for he returned to me at once. He took me to his room, told another comrade to telephone a doctor and then go to Sterni’s office, and we were alone. He could not make up his mind to speak to me. Finally I asked him:
“Is Enno here?”
“No,” he answered, “she went to visit Nella for a few days.”
We remained silent until the doctor arrived. He tried to question me about what had happened, but I told him I did not feel like talking. He took me to the nearest mental hospital, where I was given spacious and comfortable quarters and was left in peace for a long time. That was all I could possibly wish for.
The situation seemed clear. I had murdered Sterni, and because of that everything was lost. The Martians could now see what they could expect from closer relations with the people of Earth. They could see that even the man they thought best prepared to enter into their life had brought them nothing but violence and death. Sterni was dead, but his idea would be resurrected. The last hope had vanished—Earth was doomed. And it was all my fault.
These thoughts arose soon after the murder and lodged themselves in my mind alongside recollections of the deed. At first I found a certain comfort in their cold certainty, but soon the sorrow and pain returned, and it felt as though they could continue to grow forever. These sensations were accompanied by a profound self-contempt. I felt I had betrayed all of humanity. There was a flicker of hope that the Martians would execute me, but it was followed by the thought that their disgust and contempt for me would prevent them from doing that. They took considerable pains to hide their aversion, but I could sense it clearly.
I do not know how long I remained immersed in such thoughts. Finally the doctor came and told me that I needed a change of surroundings and would be sent back to Earth. I thought that this was merely a way of concealing from me the fact that I had been condemned to death, but I had no objections. My only request would be that, lest I defile the planets with my odious body, it be cast as far away from them as possible into space.
My recollections of the return trip are very hazy. There were no familiar faces and I spoke to no one. My mind was not confused, but I noticed practically nothing going on around me. Nothing mattered.
PART IV
1. Werner’s Clinic
I do not remember how I came to the clinic headed by my old comrade Dr. Werner. It was a Zemstvo* hospital in one of the northern provinces and was already familiar to me from Werner’s letters. Located a few kilometers from the provincial capital, it was in wretched condition and always terribly overcrowded. The steward was an unusually crafty sort, and the medical staff was undermanned and perpetually overworked. Doctor Werner waged a stubborn war with the very liberal Zemstvo Board over the steward, over the construction of additional barracks, which the Board was reluctant to finance, over the church, which it insisted on building at any price, over the wages of the staff, and so on. Instead of curing the patients, the hospital managed to reduce many of them to imbecility, while many others, weakened by a lack of fresh air and proper nutrition, perished from tuberculosis. As for Werner, he would of course have left long ago if he had not been forced to stay there by certain very special circumstances connected with his revolutionary past.
The charms of the Zemstvo clinic, however, were of no consequence to me. Werner was a good comrade who unhesitatingly provided me with the greatest possible comfort. He gave me two rooms in the large apartment allotted him as the senior physician. A third room was occupied by an assistant, while in the fourth he housed a comrade hiding from the police, disguising him as one of the medical staff. I did not, of course have all my former conveniences, and despite the tact of my young comrades, the surveillance to which I was subject was far more conspicuous than on Mars. However, none of this meant a thing to me.
Like the Martian physicians, Dr. Werner hardly treated me at all, merely giving me occasional sedatives. His main concern was for my comfort and tranquility. Each morning and evening he would drop in to see me after I had taken the bath prepared for me by my thoughtful comrades, but he limited himself to asking whether I was in need of anything. During the long months of my illness I had become quite unaccustomed to speaking, and would either answer him “no” or say nothing at all. I was touched by his solicitude, however, though at the same time I felt I was altogether undeserving of it and should tell him so. Finally I managed to summon enough strength to confess to him that I was a murderer and a traitor, and that all humanity was doomed to perish because of me. He smiled but said nothing, and after this occasion his visits became more frequent.
Leonid tries to recover from psychological disorientation outside the hospital on Earth after his return
Little by little my new environment began to exercise a beneficial influence on me. The pain became less intense, my sorrow began to fade, my thoughts became both livelier and brighter. I began leaving the apartment to stroll in the garden and wood. One of my comrades was always nearby, and although that was unpleasant, I understood that a murderer could not be allowed simply to walk around by himself. Sometimes I even conversed with them, though of course only on trivial topics.
It was early spring, and the reawakening of life around me no longer aggravated my painful memories. As I listened to the chirping of the birds I even found a certain melancholy comfort in the thought that they would remain and go on living while other people were doomed to die. Once near the wood I happened to meet a patient carrying a spade on his way to work in the fields. He hastened to introduce himself, pompously claiming (he was suffering from megalomania) that he was the village constable, evidently the highest authority he had known while still a free man. For the first time since the beginning of my illness, I involuntarily laughed. I realized I was in my mother country, and like Antaeus I gathered—albeit very slowly—new strength from contact with my native soil.
2. Reality or Fantasy?
As I began to pay more attention to my surroundings, I wanted to know whether Werner and my other comrades knew anything about what had happened to me or what I had done. I asked Werner who had brought me to the hospital. He replied tha
t I had come with two young strangers who were unable to tell him anything about my illness. They said that I was already ill when they happened to run into me in the capital, that they had known me earlier, before the revolution, and that when they heard me mention Dr. Werner they had decided to turn to him for help. They left the same day they had arrived. They impressed Werner as trustworthy people whom he had no reason to disbelieve. He had himself lost touch with me several years previously, and there was no one who could give him any information about me.
I wanted to tell Werner about the murder I had committed. It was difficult to do so, however, because the story was extremely complicated and contained a multitude of details which would appear very strange to any impartial listener. I explained the problem to Werner, who answered unexpectedly:
“It would be best not to tell me anything just now. It would not further your recovery. I do not intend to argue with you, of course, but I am not going to believe your story either. You are suffering from melancholia, a disorder in which people quite sincerely confess nonexistent crimes; their memory adapts to their delirium and fashions false recollections. But you will not believe me either until you have recovered, which is why it would be better to postpone your story until then.”
Red Star Page 17
