Escape Attempt

Chapter 2-2

He carried four large boxes of living meat to the Ship, eight boxes with vegetables and fruit, two soft packages with clothing, and one big box with gifts for the Pandoran old-timers, with “Case for Pandora” clumsily written on it.

Ship, Somewhere behind the clouds the sun rose higher and higher, and it grew hot. In the empty dachas the walls opened with a rustle. Uncle Sasha hung his hammock and sprawled out alongside his Hummingbird with a newspaper. Vadim finished hauling the baggage and sat down near a gooseberry bush.

“So, you’re leaving,” Uncle Sasha said.

“Mmmm.”

“For Pandora?”

“Yup.”

“The paper says that they’re planning to close the preserve. For several years.”

“It’s O.K., Uncle Sasha,” Vadim said. “We’ll make it in time.”

Uncle Sasha fell silent, then said softly: “I’ll be bored here by myself.”

Vadim stopped chewing. “But we’re coming back, Uncle Sasha! In a month.”

“Just the same. I’ll go back to town for the month. What will I do alone here with five dachas?” He looked at his helicopter. With tins i***t. Semilive.”

In the sky there was a muffled snorting.

“There’s another one of them, flying up there,” Uncle Sasha said.

Vadim threw his head back. A bright red Rhamphorynchus was doing a figure eight right over the dachas. On its gaunt belly a white number stood out clearly.

“That I can do, too,” Uncle Sasha said. “But, my beauty, if only you could do a spiral dive without tilting on your side and landing in the pond...”

The Rham flew away. On the concrete road beyond the garden they heard a car’s gasping.

“Our little village is getting lively,” Uncle Sasha said. “Traffic like on Nevsky Prospect.”

“It’s Anton!” Vadim jumped to his feet and ran over to his friend.

Anton raced the car into the garage. As he stepped out he said, “Everything’s in order, Vadim. I registered the navigator’s log and got the O.K.”

“But?” the perspicacious Vadim asked.

“But what?”

“I heard a ‘but’ in your voice.”

Anton said, with reluctance, “I stopped by Galka’s. She’s not going.”

“Because of me?”

“No...” Anton paused. “Because of me.”

“Well...” Vadim said pensively.

Anton asked, “How did you make out with the cargo, forklift?”

“Everything’s in order, skipper. We can blast off.”

“And the house? Did you straighten up?”

“No, skipper. Sorry, skipper. I just finished loading, skipper.”

The Red Rham buzzed the dachas’ roofs again. Anton looked up.

“What’s going on?” he said in amazement. “TS-268 again. I guess I’m the object of constant attention. That red Rham has been chasing me all the way from Leningrad.”

“Perhaps there’s a woman involved?” Vadim inquired.

“I don’t think so. So far no woman has ever chased after me.”

“They can start any time,” Vadim said, but then a new idea struck him. “Maybe it’s a member of the Secret Society for the Protection of Takhorgs?” The Rham flew over their heads again, disappeared, and suddenly went silent.

“Must be for Uncle Sasha,” Vadim said. “Coming for spare organs. The poor Rham! By the way, did you bring them?”

“I did,” Anton said, looking right past Vadim. “No, structural forklift, it’s not for Uncle Sasha.”

A tall, bony man appeared from behind the bushes, wearing a loose white blouse and white pants. He had a very dark face with bushy eyebrows and large ears. He was carrying a capacious briefcase.

“It’s the man in white.” Anton said. “He was hanging around the line the whole time. And staring at everyone.”

“I will now explain to him the nature of takhorgs,” Vadim said quickly, “and he will understand.”

The man in white walked straight up and carefully inspected both hunters.

“Do you know that takhorgs attack humans and sometimes seriously injure them?” Vadim said. “Sometimes they m**m them for life.”

“What’s that?” the man in white said. “Takhorgs. First time I’ve heard of them. But that’s not my speciality. I have come to you with a request. Hello.” He touched two fingers to his forehead.

“Hello,” Anton said. “You’re here to see me?”

The stranger dropped the briefcase at his feet and wiped the perspiration off his forehead. Something in the briefcase made a muffled clang. It was a huge receptacle, jammed full, very worn, with an enormous number of straps and bronze clasps.

The stranger uttered his answer slowly: “Yes, I’m here to see you.” He squinted and once more ran his palm over his forehead. “Only, please, don’t ask why I picked you. It’s a matter of chance. I could have picked someone else.”

“We are unusually lucky,” Vadim said brightly. “It’s simply amazing how lucky we’ve been today.”

The stranger looked at him without smiling.

“Are you the captain?” he asked.

“I am the captain – potentially,” Vadim answered. “And kinetically I’m the forklift and the senior specialist on takhorgs. If you like, an amateur takhorgologist.”

Vadim was carried away. He just had to get the stranger to smile, even it were only a polite smile.

“In addition, I am the second amateur pilot,” he said. “Just in case the captain is suddenly afflicted with salt deposits or housemaid’s knee.”

The stranger listened in silence. Anton said softly, “Most amusing.”

Silence set in.

“As I understand it, you are flying to Pandora,” the stranger said, looking at Anton.

“Yes, we’re going to Pandora.” He glanced at the briefcase. “Do you want to send something with us?”

“No,” the stranger answered. “I don’t have anything to send. It’s something quite different... I have a proposition to make you. You are going for recreation?”

“Yes,” Anton answered.

“If a dangerous hunt can be considered recreation,” Vadim added ominously.

“It’s great relaxation,” Anton said. “A tourist flight and hunting.”

“Tourist flight,” the stranger said slowly, as though surprised. “Tourists – listen, young men, you don’t look like tourists. You’re young, healthy discoverers. Why should you want terraform planets, electrified wildernesses, with soda machines? Why don’t you take an unknown planet?”

Anton and Vadim exchanged glances.

“And what planet do you have in mind?” Anton asked.

“Does it matter? Any at all. Where no man has ever been.” The stranger suddenly opened his eyes wide. “Or aren’t there any more?”

He wasn’t joking. It was completely obvious, and the two exchanged glances again.

“Of course there are,” Anton said. “As many as you want. But all winter we’ve been planning to hunt on Pandora.”

“Personally,” Vadim interjected, “I have already made gifts of the skulls of my as-yet-unkilled takhorgs.”

“And then, what would we do on a new planet?” Anton said weakly. “Perhaps you have something in mind?”

The stranger lowered his bushy eyebrows. “I haven’t anything at all in mind,” he said curtly. “It’s just I need an unknown planet. And the question is: will you help me or not?”

Vadim started to fiddle with the zipper on his jacket. The stranger’s tone of voice grated on his nerves: it was not the tone Vadim was used to. But nonetheless the situation was serious. It’s hard for a person travelling for pleasure to argue with a person travelling on business. Vadim had no arguments and was about to find fault with the man’s manner when something strange took place.

A dog barked on the other side of the trees. It was Uncle Sasha’s German shepherd, Trofim, a decrepit, dumb dog with signs of aristocratic inbreeding and an exceptionally deep bark. He most likely barked because a bee was sitting on his nose and he didn’t know what to do about it, but the stranger’s face suddenly twisted in terror. He crouched down and leaped far to the side. After jumping, the stranger straightened up and with deliberately unhurried steps returned to where he had been standing. His forehead was covered with perspiration again. Vadim glanced over at Anton. Anton’s face was thoughtfully calm.

“Well now,” he said soberly. “In the second neighborhood there are many yellow dwarfs with respectable Earth-type planets. Let’s try it. Take, say, EN 7031. I’ve been meaning to fly there but have kept putting it off. It seems interesting. Volunteers don’t like yellow dwarfs – give them giants, or better yet, multiple stars. Will EN 7031 suit you?”

“Yes, completely,” the stranger answered. He had already regained control of himself. “As long as it really is an uninhabited planet.”

“It’s not a planet,” Anton politely corrected him. “It’s a star. A sun. But it has planets. In all likelihood, uninhabited. And what’s your name?”

“My name is Saul,” the stranger said, and smiled for the first time. “Saul Repnin. I’m a historian. Twentieth-century. But I’ll try to be helpful. I can cook, drive land vehicles, sew, repair shoes, shoot...” He paused. “And in addition, I know how people used to do those things. And I know several languages: Polish, Slovak, German, a little and English.”

“A shame you can’t drive a starship,” Vadim sighed.

“Yes it is,” Saul said. “But that’s not important – you do.

“Don’t sigh, Vadim,” Anton said. “It’s time you too looked upon the strange landscapes of nameless planets. You can dance in a cafe right here on Earth.”

“I sigh from ecstasy,” Vadim shot back. “After all, what is a takhorg, really? A clumsy and all-too-familiar beast.”

Saul inquired politely, “I hope I didn’t force your agreement? I hope your agreement is sufficiently voluntary and free?”

But,” Vadim said, “what indeed is freedom? The consciousness necessity. Everything else is quibbling.”

“Passenger Saul Repnin,” Anton said, “we take off at twelve zero-zero. You will have the third cabin, unless you’d rather have the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh. Come on, I’ll show you.”

As Saul bent over for his briefcase, a large black object slipped out of his blouse and thudded heavily on the grass. Anton raised his brows. Vadim took a close look and then raised his eyebrows, too. It was a scorcher – a heavy, long-barreled disintegrator pistol, shooting million-volt charges. Vadim had seen them only in the movies. There were no more than a few hundred specimens of that fearful weapon left on the entire planet, and they were issued only to super-long-distance starships.

“How clumsy of me,” Saul muttered, picked up the scorcher, and shoved it under his arm. Then he picked up his briefcase and announced, “I’m ready.”

For a short while Anton just stared at him, as though he intended to ask him a question. Then he said, “Let’s go, Saul. And Vadim, you straighten up the houses and take the old man his scalpel. It’s in the trunk.”

“Yes, sir, skipper,” Vadim said and went to the garage.

It’s tough being an optimist, he mused. For what is an optimist? He remembered that in some ancient vocabulary it was written that an optimist is a man with optimism. And one entry above it was written that optimism is a cheerful, life-affirming sense of being, in which man believes in the future, in success. It was good to be a linguist – everything falls into place immediately. All he had to do now was to reconcile a cheerful, life-affirming sense of being on board in the presence of a heavily armed lunatic.

He took the scalpel and bioelements out of the trunk and headed for Uncle Sasha’s. The old man was stretched out under the red Rham.

“Uncle Sasha,” he said. “Here’s your new scalpel and...”

“You shouldn’t have bothered,” Uncle Sasha said. He crawled out from under the Rham. “Thanks. I was just given this one here.” He slapped the Rham on its polished side. “They say these are really hardy.”

“It was given to you?”

“Yes, by a young man, dressed in white.”

“So that’s it,” Vadim said. “So he must have been sure that we’d take him. Or maybe he planned on fighting his way on board.”

“What?” Uncle Sasha asked.

“Uncle Sasha, do you know what a scorcher is?”

“A scorcher? Of course I know. It’s a microdischarging assembly on weaving machines. Although nowadays they don’t use them, but I remember, seventy years ago.... So that man in white is a weaver, too?”

“He might be a weaver, too, but the scorcher he has, Uncle Sasha, is no microdischarger.”

Vadim, lost in thought, went back to his dacha. He threw the bedsheets into the disposal, turned the housekeeping unit to the “absent” mode, and on the front steps wrote a message in pencil on the door: “Went away on vacation. Please do not occupy.” Then he set off for Anton’s. Straightening up the dacha, he continued his musing. After all, he thought, all is not lost. Takhorgs, it must be admitted, are basically boring. Pandora, to be honest, is only a fashionable resort. I should be amazed that I have already sat out three seasons there. Indeed there was a time when I would brag about a necklace of takhorg teeth and tell wild tales of Pandora! To hurl a takhorg’s head at Samson – what childishness! Samson is worth more, so Samson will be immortalized! An unknown planet may be just an unknown planet, but on an unknown planet there are unknown animal species. The poor ignorant wretches still don’t know their names. But I already know. There I will take the first ever odd-toed samson, or, say, a complete-toothed, crest-rumped samson. Clobbering Samson with a samson’s skull, that’s something.

When he returned to the glade, the Ship was ready to take off.

Ship His nose no longer followed the sun and the frost on the grass had disappeared.

Vadim sat himself down comfortably in the hatch, dangling his legs over the edge. Yes, friend samson, my odd-toed brother, he thought vengefully. Maybe samsons are okay against biblical lions, but you’re no match for a structural linguist.... But the amusing thing is that it would never have occurred to me to go relax on an unknown planet if it hadn’t been for the old guy in white. How slow-witted we are, even the best of structural linguists. Always n to domesticated planets.

Trofim, Uncle Sasha’s dog, stepped out into the glade. He winked his tearing eyes at Vadim, yawned, sat down, and started scratching behind an ear with his hind foot. Life is beautiful and full of surprises, Vadim thought. Take Trofim. He’s old, dumb, good-natured put, but, just beware, he can still throw a scare into someone. Maybe lunatics fear dogs’ barks? But really, why have I decided that Saul Repnin is a lunatic, or whatever you want to call it? Why such an artificial proposal? It’s simpler to suppose that the historian Saul is no historian but just some humanoid race’s spy on Earth. Like Bennie Durov on Tagora. That would be just great – a whole month of unknown planets and mysterious strangers. And that would explain everything! He can’t get off Earth by himself, he’s afraid of dogs, and he needs to go to an unknown planet, so that they can send a ship to pick him up there – on neutral soil, so to speak. He’ll go home and say: This happened, and that, they’re okay people, full of optimism, and they will enter into normal humanoid relations with us.

Vadim came out of his trance and yelled down the corridor, “Anton, I’m on board.”

“Finally,” Anton yelled back. “I was just about ready to believe you had deserted.”

Insolently wagging its tail, the lean red Rham flew out from behind the trees and, whining unnaturally, began to describe the circle of honor around the Ship. Uncle Sasha threw the door open, and waved something white. Vadim waved in answer. “Take off!” Anton warned.

Ship. The Ship trembled and, with a gentle leap upward – Vadim managed to push off from the ground with his leg – began to ascend into the sky.

Ship “Vadim!” Anton yelled. “Close the hatch. There’s a draft.”

Vadim waved to Uncle Sasha for a last time, stood up, and drew the door shut.