Far Rainbow/The Second Invasion from Mars

Far Rainbow/ The Second Invasion from MarsArkady and Boris StrugatskyIntroductionIt is a Strugatsky hallmark not merely to present wonders, but to have the characters take them for granted, in the expectation that readers will follow suit. In Far Rainbow there is considerable explanation, for example, of "zero physics" and the theory of instantaneous matter transmission over stellar distances and associated phenomena. It is not an explanation one is expected to understand fully, any more than Hannibal could be expected to understand a tunnel diode, for the advance in technology is of that magnitude. The special Strugatsky trick is to convince you absolutely that the people in the story understand it; for the authors have grasped the secret of storytelling: good fiction is never primarily about ideas, but only about people and their interaction with ideas and with one another. Pivotal as the technology and its effects on the planet Rainbow may be, it will be the people in these pages who will involve you. You will care about them very much indeed as it comes to you that this is a tragedy in the purest form of ancient Greek drama: a story of the inevitable. You will be made to care by witnessing not only their peril, but their love and laughter, and the meticulous etching of their varied personalities. Those who have enjoyed the sequential novel Noon: 22nd Century will have the pleasure of meeting an old friend here, the astronaut Gorbovsky. If you have wondered what ever became of him, you can now know. This may not please you, but you will never forget it. In a moment of ascending tension, he walks through a terribly threatened crowd, trying to guess their reaction to the doomsday news he is about to give them: "I believe in you, he thought stubbornly. I believe in you no matter what. I believe in you, you frightened, wary, disillusioned fanatics. People." In this moment, he speaks for the Strugatskys. It has been said that every writer has one thing to say, and he says it over and over again in everything he writes. If this is true, then the foregoing is what the Strugatskys say in every one of their amazingly different and distinctive works. The Second Invasion from Mars is a fable. A fable is a story exemplifying a moral, a statement that, on reflection, one finds to be larger than the narrative itself. All living literature is fable. Living literature is, like all living things, literature that grows as the reader grows. An eight-year-old will be enchanted by the image of Gulliver tied down on the sands by threadlike ropes manned by all those tiny little people and by his subsequent adventures with them. At twenty or so, the reader might learn that the story is an incisive lampoon of English and Irish politics of the day, complete with devastating caricatures of contemporary dignitaries. Ultimately, he might find a deeper level of human meaning, in which caring and compassion are shown to be the true sources of Swift"s derision. So you may read this fable for itself, and enjoy this conglomeration of village idiots: the bumbling retiree whose diary carries the narration, with his pompousness, his capacity for instant rationalization of cowardice, his slavish yet stubborn pursuit of his pension, his stamps, his cognac, and his self-respect; his wayward daughter and his acidulous housekeeper; the drunken honey-dumper who keeps driving his noisesome cess-truck into the architecture; the bird-brained constable who arrests him daily and jails him to sleep it off; and the damndest Martians you have ever encountered. Stitched through this comic opera is wit of a high order. "Our policemen," writes the narrator in his diary, "should be intellectuals, models for the youth, heroes to be emulated, people you can safely entrust with weapons and authority, but also with educational work. But Charon considers such a police force "a company of eggheads/ He says no state would want my kind of police force because it would start arresting and reeducating the very people the state finds most useful, beginning with the Prime Minister and the Chief of Police." And this: "In such a small town as ours, everyone knows the teacher. The parents of your pupils imagine for some reason that you are a wonder-worker and are able by your personal example to keep the children from following in their parents" footsteps." You noticed that name Charon. The dundering diarist"s name is Apollo—Phoebus Apollo. There is a Polyphemus (who has only one leg), an Achilles, a Zephyrus. Apollo"s amorous daughter (wife of Charon) is Artemis. The town madam is Persephone. Everyone has names like that, and there"s no end to the delving that can be done to reach the many levels of puckishness involved. This town could be any town, the people (under the clown suits) any people anywhere. And when you"re done laughing, the moral of this fable is utterly terrifying. —Theodore Sturgeon Los Angeles, 1979 Far RainbowChapter 1Tany"s hand, warm and slightly chapped, lay over his eyes, and he wasn"t interested in anything else. He was aware of the bitter salty smell of the dust, the prairie birds chirping in their sleep, and the dry grass that prickled and tickled the back of his neck. The ground was hard, and it was uncomfortable lying like this, and his neck itched unbearably, but he didn"t move, listening to Tanya"s quiet, even breathing. He was smiling and glad that it was dark, because his smile, he was sure, was indecently stupid and smug. Then just at the wrong time, the phone signal went off at the laboratory on the hill. Let it. It wouldn"t be the first time. Tonight all calls were just at the wrong time. Rob, dear," Tanya whispered, "don"t you hear it?" "I don"t hear a thing," Robert muttered. He blinked so that his lashes would tickle Tanya"s hand. Everything was far, far away and absolutely unnecessary. Patrick, forever groggy from lack of sleep, was far away. Malyaev, the Ice Sphinx, was far away. That whole world of constant hurry and pressure, constant superintellectual arguments, constant dissatisfaction and anxiety, that whole nonsensory world where they despise the obvious, where they welcome only the unclear, where people have forgotten that they are men and women—all that was far, far away. ... Only the plains at night, hundreds of miles of plains, existed, nothing but empty land that had swallowed the broiling day and was warm and filled with dark, stimulating fragrances. The phone shrilled again. "Again," said Tanya. "Let it. I"m not here. I"m dead. I was eaten by the earth-movers. I"m fine right here. I love you. I don"t want to go anywhere. Why should I? Would you go?" "I don"t know." "That"s because you don"t love me enough. A person who loves enough never has to go anywhere." "Theorist." "I"m no theorist. I"m a practicalist. And as a practicalist I ask you, why should I suddenly go off somewhere? One must know how to love. And you don"t know how. You only talk about love. You don"t love love. You love to talk about it. Am I talking too much?" "Yes. Terribly." He removed her hand from his eyes and put it to his lips. Now he could see the sky, swathed in clouds, and the red warning light at the twenty-yard level on the tower supports. The phone rang and rang, and Robert pictured Patrick, pushing on the button, and getting angrier and angrier, his kind, fat lips pouting. "I"m going to unplug you," Robert said in a muffled voice. "Tanya, would you like me to shut him up forever? I might as well do everything forever. Our love will be forever, and he"ll shut up forever." He could see her face in the darkness—luminous, with huge shining eyes. She pulled her hand away and said, "Let me talk to him. I"ll tell him that I"m a hallucination. People are always having hallucinations at night." "He never has hallucinations. He"s that kind of guy, Tanya. He never fools himself." "Do you want me to tell you what he"s like? I love to guess people"s personalities on the basis of a videophone call. He"s a stubborn, mean, and tactless man. And nothing in the universe could force him to sit with a woman in the plains at night. That"s him—in a nutshell. And the only thing he knows about night is that it"s dark." a a "No," said Robert. "You"re right about the woman. But let"s be fair. He"s really kind and gentle. A pussycat." "I don"t believe it," Tanya said. "Just listen." They listened. "Is that a pussycat? That"s an obvious tenacem propositi virum, "a man steadfast in his intentions," as Horace put it." "Really? I"ll tell him." "Go ahead. Go and tell him." "Now?" "Immediately." Robert got up, and she stayed seated, hugging her knees. "But kiss me first," she added. In the elevator, he pressed his forehead against the cool wall and remained that way for a while, eyes shut, laughing, and running his tongue over his lips. There wasn"t a single thought in his head, only a triumphant voice that exulted: "She loves! Me. She loves me! So there! She loves me!" Then he discovered that the elevator had stopped a long time ago, and he tried to open the door. He couldn"t find it right away, and somehow the laboratory turned out to be filled with excess furniture: he found himself knocking over chairs, banging into tables, and bumping into cabinets until he finally realized that he had forgotten to turn on the lights. Roaring with laughter, he felt for the switch, picked up an overturned armchair, and sat down at the videophone. When Patrick appeared on the screen, Robert greeted him in a friendly manner. "Good evening, my little piglet! Why aren"t you asleep, sweetie pie?" Patrick was looking at him in bewilderment, his inflamed eyelids blinking rapidly. "What are you staring at, puppy boy? You rang and rang, dragging me away from highly important things, and now your"re silent!" Patrick finally opened his mouth: "Are you ... ? You"re___" He pounded his head with his fist, and a questioning look appeared on his face. "And how!" Robert exclaimed. "The solitude! Loneliness! The forebodings! And then, the hallucinations! I almost forgot about them!" "Are you kidding?" Patrick asked seriously. "No! You don"t kid on duty. But don"t pay any attention to me and get on with it." Patrick blinked with uncertainty. "I don"t understand," he admitted. "How could you!" Robert said gloatingly. "Emotions, Patrick, that"s what we"re talking about! You know? ... How can I put it so you"ll understand? ... Well, how about not completely algorithmical excitation in the supercomplex logical complexes. Got it?" "Uh-huh." Patrick scratched his chin and gathered his thoughts. "You asked why I"m calling you, Rob? Here"s the problem. There"s a leak somewhere again. Maybe it"s not a leak, and maybe it is. Just in case, check the ulmotrons. The Wave is kind of strange today...." Robert looked out the open window in puzzlement. He had completely forgotten all about the eruption. It turned out that he was sitting there because of the eruptions. Not because Tanya was there, but because somewhere out there was the Wave. "Why aren"t you talking?" Patrick asked patiently. "I"m looking to see how the Wave is doing," Robert replied angrily. Patrick"s eyes bugged. "You can see the Wave?" "Me? Where did you get that idea?" "You just said you were looking at it." "Yes, I am!" "Well?" "That"s it. What do you want from me?" Patrick"s eyes grew wide again. "I misunderstood," he said. "What were we talking about? Oh yes! So definitely check the ulmotrons." "Do you know what you"re saying? How can I check the ulmotrons?" "Somehow," Patrick said. "At least the connections.... We"re completely lost. I"ll explain it to you.... Today the Institute transported matter toward Earth—but you know all that." Patrick waved his outspread fingers in front of his face. "We were expecting a powerful Wave, but we"re registering some tiny dribble. Do you see the picture? A thin, tiny dribble-----Dribble___" He moved closer to the videophone, so that the screen only showed a huge, bleary eye. The eye blinked furiously. "Understand?" The speaker blared. "Our equipment registers a quasi-zero field. The Young Counter shows a minimum.... Almost negligible. ... The fields of the ulmotrons overlap in such a way that the resonating surface falls into the focus hyperplane, can you imagine? A quasi-zero field is made up of twelve components, and the receiver channels it into six precise components. ... So the focus is hexacomponential...."