And little groups and solitary figures among the public began running from place to place to get a better view. In the very first minute the group of quick-moving death machines fanned out across the course, taking positions around and under the barrier, the ditch, and the Irish barricade, aiming their sparkers and bomb-hurlers and echo-cannons at one another, blasting vividly away. To the spectators it seemed as though they had all started simultaneously, the field erupting in one bright blossom of furious movement and electrical fire, but to the gladiators there were seconds of difference that had great value to them.
First to fall was Vronsky"s drinking companion, Oposhenko, in his spider-like exterior, who foolishly directed his powerful magnet at the worst possible foe: the confident hussar astride the missile, who flew directly at him and into one of the arachnid Exterior"s gleaming "eyes." Both Exteriors exploded violently, and the eight spider legs were sent flying helter-skelter around the course. A huge shambling golem of an Exterior stopped shambling abruptly and tipped over, caught just below the neck plate by the sharpened tip of one of these spider legs. The golem suit owner, Pyotrovich, tumbled out onto the course, cursing and clutching at his legs.
Frou-Frou, excited and over-nervous by all of the activity, spun around in the first moments, unloading her heavy-fires at will, but Vronsky soon gained control, expertly maneuvering his fingers beneath the palm disc. Sweating inside the c.o.c.kpit, teeth gritted, he stared intently through the long-tube, scanning the field till he found whom he wanted: timid Kuzovlev in his monolithic obsidian crate of an Exterior.
"Low-hanging fruit," Vronsky murmured, loosing a sharp discharge of electricity from Frou-Frou"s front grill directly at the midline of Kuzovlev"s ugly black battleship. But the electric blast ricocheted off the front of the monolith, and Vronsky scowled with disappointment-how has he plated the thing?-before laughing with astonishment at his good luck: the fiery charge, sailing through the sky like a blazing croquet ball, caught Mahutin"s Matryoshka instead. The blast slammed directly into the gaudy peasant-man face of the exosuit, and Vronsky was pleased that this happy accident had taken out his main rival.
In celebration, Frou-Frou drew up her legs and back and leapt like a cat, and, clearing the wreckage of Mahutin"s downed Exterior, alit beyond her.
O the darling! thought Vronsky. thought Vronsky.
"Bravo!" cried a voice from the stands.
At the same instant, under Vronsky"s eyes, right before him flashed the palings of the barrier. As he directed Frou-Frou in her efforts to navigate it, Vronsky glanced backward through the long-tube and cursed what he saw: his chief rival was not, in fact, dispatched. As Vronsky watched in horror, Matryoshka"s smoldering upper portion, decorated with the face of a peasant man, molted like a layer of skin-revealing a second, second, fresh Exterior beneath, this one painted with the gaudy colors of a peasant fresh Exterior beneath, this one painted with the gaudy colors of a peasant woman. woman.
"Drat!" Vronsky shouted. "Nested!"
He turned back to the barrier and regretted at once that he had allowed himself to be distracted: his position had shifted and he knew that something awful had happened. He could not yet make out what had happened, when the sledge-shaped Exterior rocketed by close to him, and the new, matronly Matryoshka gamboled by in pursuit. Frou-Frou was attempting to clear the barrier, but her ma.s.sive back leg had smashed into it, and she went spiraling end over end, banging Vronsky violently against the interior walls of the tiny c.o.c.kpit. They lay then on the muddy course just past the barrier, an open target, and Vronsky knew what would come next-his clumsy movement in clearing the barrier had doomed her.
THE QUICK-MOVING DEATH MACHINES FANNED OUT, AIMING THEIR BOMB-HURLERS AND ECHO-CANNONS AT ONE ANOTHER.
Desperately he willed Frou-Frou back onto her feet, but it was too late-he looked into the long-tube and saw that his vulnerable state had not gone unnoticed by his rival. By this time Galtsin"s sickle-suit had destroyed Matryoshka"s matriarch-tier, but of course now Vronsky was not surprised to see a still smaller war-suit had emerged from within. The last thing to register upon his eyes before impact was the happy, painted peasant-boy face of Matryoshka"s third metal sh.e.l.l flying through the air directly at him and his poor disabled Frou-Frou.
Somehow, in the crazed, fiery moments after the collision, Vronsky kicked open the door of the c.o.c.kpit and rolled onto the match ground.
"A-a-a!" groaned Vronsky, clutching at his head, tearing his helmet from it, tiny fires still burning on various spots of his body. "Ah! What have I done!" he cried. "The battle lost! And my fault! Shameful, unpardonable! And the poor darling, ruined machine! Ah! What have I done!"
A crowd of men, a doctor and his a.s.sistant, the officers of his regiment, ran up to him as he exited the arena. To his misery he felt that he was whole and barely burnt, but the poor machine had been wounded past repair, and it was decided to junker it. Vronsky could not answer questions, could not speak to anyone. He turned, and leaving his helmet in a charred mess by the pond, walked away from the match course, not knowing where he was going. He felt utterly wretched. For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, and caused by his own fault.
Half an hour later Vronsky had regained his self-possession. But the memory of that Cull remained for long in his heart, the cruelest and bitterest memory of his life.
CHAPTER 15.
WHEN ALEXEI ALEXANDROVICH reached the death-match arena Anna was already sitting in the stands beside Betsy, in that area where all the highest society had gathered. She caught sight of her husband in the distance. Two men, her husband and her lover, were the two centers of her existence, and even unaided by Android Karenina"s vibratory sensors she was aware of their nearness. She was aware of her husband approaching a long way off, and she could not help following him in the surging crowd in the midst of which he was moving. She watched his progress toward the pavilion, saw him now responding condescendingly to an ingratiating bow, now exchanging friendly and nonchalant greetings with his equals, now a.s.siduously trying to catch the eye of some great one of this world, and tapping his metal cheek with an elegant forefinger. All these ways of his she knew, and all were hateful to her. reached the death-match arena Anna was already sitting in the stands beside Betsy, in that area where all the highest society had gathered. She caught sight of her husband in the distance. Two men, her husband and her lover, were the two centers of her existence, and even unaided by Android Karenina"s vibratory sensors she was aware of their nearness. She was aware of her husband approaching a long way off, and she could not help following him in the surging crowd in the midst of which he was moving. She watched his progress toward the pavilion, saw him now responding condescendingly to an ingratiating bow, now exchanging friendly and nonchalant greetings with his equals, now a.s.siduously trying to catch the eye of some great one of this world, and tapping his metal cheek with an elegant forefinger. All these ways of his she knew, and all were hateful to her. Nothing but ambition, nothing but the desire to get on, that"s all there is in his soul, Nothing but ambition, nothing but the desire to get on, that"s all there is in his soul, she thought. she thought. As for these lofty ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many tools for getting on. As for these lofty ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many tools for getting on.
From his glances toward the ladies" pavilion she saw that his mechanical oculus was scanning the stands for her, but she purposely avoided noticing him.
"Alexei Alexandrovich!" Princess Betsy called to him. "I"m sure you don"t see your wife: here she is."
He smiled his chilly smile, and his metal face glinted almost beautifully in the bright sun.
"There"s so much splendor here that one"s eyes are dazzled," he said, and then added, humorlessly "or rather, one"s eye." eye." He smiled to his wife as a man should smile on meeting his wife after only just parting from her, and greeted the princess and other acquaintances. There was an interval between the races, and so nothing hindered conversation. An adjutant-general expressed his disapproval of the death matches, and Alexei Alexandrovich, carrying when he spoke the authority of the Higher Branches, defended them at length, explaining grandiloquently why the contests had been deemed necessary by those in a position to understand their importance. He smiled to his wife as a man should smile on meeting his wife after only just parting from her, and greeted the princess and other acquaintances. There was an interval between the races, and so nothing hindered conversation. An adjutant-general expressed his disapproval of the death matches, and Alexei Alexandrovich, carrying when he spoke the authority of the Higher Branches, defended them at length, explaining grandiloquently why the contests had been deemed necessary by those in a position to understand their importance.
Anna heard his high, measured tones, not losing one word, and every word struck her as false and stabbed her ears with pain.
When the Cull was beginning and the dazzle of heavy fire lit up the course, she bent forward and gazed with fixed eyes at Vronsky as he went up to his Exterior and climbed inside it, and at the same time she heard that loathsome, never-ceasing voice of her husband. She was in an agony of terror for Vronsky, but a still greater agony was the never-ceasing, as it seemed to her, stream of her husband"s shrill voice with its familiar intonations.
"I"m a wicked woman, a lost woman," she said in a grave whisper to Android Karenina. "But I don"t like lying, I can"t endure falsehood, while as for him him-" her eyes flickering quickly toward her husband-"it"s the breath of his life, falsehood. He knows all about it, he sees it all; what does he care if he can talk so calmly? If he were to kill me, if he were to kill Vronsky, I might respect him. No, all he wants is falsehood and propriety." Android Karenina offered no reply, other than to decorously suggest, with a small motion of one hand, that her mistress would do well to lower her voice.
Anna did not understand that Alexei Alexandrovich"s peculiar loquacity that day, so exasperating to her, was merely the expression of his inward distress and uneasiness. As a child who has been hurt skips about, putting all his muscles into movement to drown the pain, so in that same way Alexei Alexandrovich needed mental exercise to drown the thoughts of his wife that, in her presence and in Vronsky"s, and with the continual iteration of his name, would force themselves on his attention. And it was as natural for him to talk well and cleverly as it is natural for a child to skip about.
"Princess, bets!" sounded Stepan Arkadyich"s voice from below, addressing Betsy. "Who"s your favorite?"
"Anna and I are for Kuzovlev," replied Betsy. "That thing looks well-nigh impenetrable!"
"I"m for Vronsky. A Cla.s.s One on it? Winner"s choice?"
"Done!"
"But it is a pretty sight, isn"t it?"
Alexei Alexandrovich paused in what he was saying while there was talking about him, but he began again directly.
"I admit that manly sports do not . . . ," he was continuing.
But at that moment the racers started, and all conversation ceased. Alexei Alexandrovich too was silent, and everyone stood up and turned toward the stream. Alexei Alexandrovich took no interest in the Cull, and so he did not watch the combatants, but fell listlessly to scanning the spectators with his weary eyes. His mechanized eye bore into Anna.
Her face was white and set. She was obviously seeing nothing but one Exterior, thinking of no one but the man inside it. Her hand had convulsively clutched her fan, and she held her breath. Alexei Alexandrovich looked at her and hastily turned away, scrutinizing other faces.
"But here"s this lady too, and others very much moved as well; it"s very natural," Alexei Alexandrovich thought for the benefit of the Face, but the Face did not answer-did it chuckle? was it possible he heard a droll, low chuckle reverberating in the chambers of his mind?-and he gazed as if absently through his I/Binocular/8 and tried to remain calm. He tried not to look at her, but unconsciously his gaze was drawn to her. His oculus scanned her again, trying not to read what was so plainly written on her face, and against his own will, with horror read on it what he did not want to know.
The first ma.s.sive collisions-when the arachnid Exterior was exploded by the hussar"s missile and sent its razor-sharp leg into the neck of the shambling golem suit-these agitated everyone, but Alexei Alexandrovich saw distinctly on Anna"s pale, triumphant face that the man she was watching had not fallen. A shudder of horror pa.s.sed over the whole public, but Alexei Alexandrovich saw that Anna did not even notice it, and had some difficulty in realizing what everyone was talking of. But more and more often, and with greater persistence, he watched her. Anna, wholly engrossed as she was with the Cull, became aware of her husband"s cold eyes fixed upon her from one side.
She glanced round for an instant, looked inquiringly at him, and with a slight frown turned away again.
"Ah, I don"t care!" he thought he saw her say to her android, and she did not once glance at him again.
CHAPTER 16.
THE CULL WAS UNUSUALLY, even disturbingly successful in its purpose of identifying the weak officers and the strong: mere minutes into the bout, more than half of the seventeen officers competing had already been downed, and half of that number clearly had not survived.
Everyone was loudly expressing their unease at all the death and violence, and everyone was feeling horrified; so that when Frou-Frou was dispatched by Matryoshka, and Vronsky rolled out of it on fire, there was nothing very out of the way in it. But afterward a change came over Anna"s face which really was beyond decorum. She utterly lost her head. She began fluttering like a caged bird, at one moment got up and moved away, at the next turned to Betsy.
"Let us go, let us go!" she said.
But Betsy did not hear her. She was bending down, talking to a general who had come up to her.
Alexei Alexandrovich went up to Anna and courteously offered her his arm.
"Let us go, if you like," he said in French, but Anna did not notice her husband.
Without answering her husband, Anna lifted her opera gla.s.s and gazed toward the place where Vronsky"s machine had blown up; but it was so far off, and there was such a crowd of people about it, that she could make out nothing. She laid down the opera gla.s.s, and would have moved away, but at that moment an officer galloped up and made some announcement. Anna craned forward, listening.
"Stiva! Stiva!" she cried to her brother.
But her brother did not hear her.
"Small Stiva!" she cried, but the fat little robot did not hear her, either.
"Once more I offer you my arm if you want to be going," said Alexei Alexandrovich, reaching toward her hand.
She drew back from him with aversion, and without looking into that face which so unsettled her.
"No, no, let me be, I"ll stay."
She saw now that from the place of Vronsky"s accident an officer was running across the course toward the pavilion. Betsy waved her handkerchief to him. The officer brought the news that the rider was not killed, but the machine was to be junkered.
On hearing this Anna sat down hurriedly, and hid her face in her I/Fan/9. Alexei Alexandrovich saw that she was weeping, and could not control her tears, nor even the sobs that were shaking her bosom. Alexei Alexandrovich stood so as to screen her, giving her time to recover herself.
"For the third time I offer you my arm," he said to her. Anna gazed at him and did not know what to say. Princess Betsy came to her rescue.
"No, Alexei Alexandrovich; I brought Anna and I promised to take her home," put in Betsy.
"Excuse me, princess," he said, smiling courteously but looking her very firmly in the face, "but I see that Anna"s not very well, and I wish her to come home with me."
Anna looked about her in a frightened way, got up submissively, and laid her hand on her husband"s arm.
"I"ll send to him and find out, and let her know," Betsy whispered to Android Karenina, who received this input obediently and motored after her distressed mistress.
As they left the pavilion, Alexei Alexandrovich, as always, talked to those he met, and Anna had, as always, to talk and answer; but she was utterly beside herself, and moved hanging on her husband"s arm as though in a dream.
Is he killed or not? Is it true? Will he come or not? Shall I see him today? she was thinking. she was thinking.
She took her seat in her husband"s carriage in silence, and in silence drove out of the crowd of carriages. In spite of all he had seen, Alexei Alexandrovich still did not allow himself to consider his wife"s real condition. He merely saw the outward symptoms. He saw that she was behaving unbecomingly, and it was his duty duty to tell her so. He opened his mouth to tell her she had behaved unbecomingly, but he could not help saying something utterly different. to tell her so. He opened his mouth to tell her she had behaved unbecomingly, but he could not help saying something utterly different.
"What an inclination we all have, though, for these cruel spectacles," he said. "I observe . . ."
"Eh? I don"t understand," said Anna contemptuously.
BE A MAN. SHOW YOUR METTLE, p.r.o.nounced the Face, suddenly resonating inside Alexei Alexandrovich"s mind. Never before had he heard the Face speak so loudly, and the vehemence and power of the voice scattered his thoughts and sent a vivid shiver down his spine. p.r.o.nounced the Face, suddenly resonating inside Alexei Alexandrovich"s mind. Never before had he heard the Face speak so loudly, and the vehemence and power of the voice scattered his thoughts and sent a vivid shiver down his spine.
"I am obliged to tell you," Alexei Alexandrovich began again, and then hesitated.
I AM METAL AND YOU ARE ME.
SHOW METAL METAL.
Anna shuddered to see a strange ripple pa.s.s over the metal portion of her husband"s face, like a cl.u.s.ter of shadowy spiders rushing from forehead to chin and then disappearing. "So now we are to have it out," she murmured quietly to Android Karenina.
"I am obliged to tell you that your behavior has been unbecoming today," her husband said to her in French.
YES . . . TELL HER . . . TELL HER. . . .
"In what way has my behavior been unbecoming?" she said aloud, turning her head swiftly and looking at him straight in the face, not with the bright expression that seemed to be covering something, but with a look of determination, under which she concealed with difficulty the dismay she was feeling. Android Karenina glowed a deep, soothing purple and lay her fingers on Anna"s shoulder, trying to exert what calming influence she could.
"What did you consider unbecoming?" Anna repeated.
"The despair you were unable to conceal at the accident of one of the riders."
THERE. THERE, ALEXEI. TELL HER. CHASTISE HER.
CONTROL HER.
Alexei, agitated by this continuing imprecation inside of him, waited for his wife to answer, but she was silent, looking straight before her.
"I have already begged you so to conduct yourself in society that even malicious tongues can find nothing to say against you. There was a time when I spoke of your inward att.i.tude, but I am not speaking of that now."
GO ON, GO ON, GO ON. MAKE HER UNDERSTAND. YOU WILL NOT BE MADE A FOOL OF.
"Now I speak only of your external att.i.tude. You have behaved improperly, and I would wish it not to occur again."
OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES. CONSEQUENCES! CONSEQUENCES!.
Anna did not hear half of what he was saying; she felt panic-stricken before him, before the harsh sound of his voice and the uncanny expression on his face. She was thinking whether it was true that Vronsky was not killed. Was it of him they were speaking when they said the combatant was unhurt, but the machine had been broken past repair? She merely smiled with a pretense of irony when he finished, and made no reply, because she had not heard what he said. Alexei Alexandrovich had begun to speak boldly, but as he realized plainly what he was speaking of, the dismay she was feeling infected him too. He saw the smile, and a strange misapprehension came over him.
She is smiling at my suspicions, he thought, and the Face eagerly threw fuel on the fire of his anger. he thought, and the Face eagerly threw fuel on the fire of his anger. SMILING! LAUGHING! HOW DARE SHE? TO HER IT IS ALL A COMEDY, AND YOU ARE CHIEF AMONG THE CLOWNS SMILING! LAUGHING! HOW DARE SHE? TO HER IT IS ALL A COMEDY, AND YOU ARE CHIEF AMONG THE CLOWNS.
But Alexei could not yet feel so hateful toward her as his Cla.s.s III implored. At that moment, when the revelation of everything was hanging over him, there was nothing he expected so much as that she would answer mockingly as before that his suspicions were absurd and utterly groundless. So terrible to him was what he knew that now he was ready to believe anything. But the expression of her face, scared and gloomy, did not now promise even deception.
"Possibly I was mistaken," he said. "If so, I beg your pardon."
"No, you were not mistaken," she said deliberately, looking desperately into his eyes, one mechanical, one real, both radiating sadness and anger. Android Karenina tightened her grip on Anna"s shoulder, trying to warn her back from the brink of this confession, but it was too late-Anna placed her hand upon that of her Cla.s.s III, for strength, and pressed on.
"You were not mistaken. I was, and I could not help being in despair. I hear you, but I am thinking of him. I love him, I am his mistress; I can"t bear you; I"m afraid of you, and I hate you. . . . You can do what you like to me."
Alexei reeled back, shocked, and in the next instant the carriage rocked violently, as if it, too, was stricken by Anna"s confession, and flew up into the air.
As Vronsky had been warned by his engineer, the roads leading in and out of the arena were mined with emotion bombs, among the most ingenious of UnConSciya"s cruel a.r.s.enal of terroristic weaponry. In Alexei Alexandrovich and his wife, they had, at this moment, an ideal target. Alexei"s heart pounded with wild emotion in response to Anna"s outburst, while Anna felt flushed and half-mad over what she had announced, and the biological effects of these pa.s.sionate feelings were together enough-far more than enough-to trigger the physiochemical-sensing bombs that pitted the roadway.
The carriage was flung high into the air, then landed on its side and spun along the roadway until it smashed into the carriage in front of them, which carried the junkered bodies of Exteriors destroyed in the Cull. The shock and terror of that carriage"s pa.s.senger, a Ministry engineer, triggered a second blast; the junkered Exteriors flew up and were soon coming down again, a rain of deadly metal shrapnel pelting the tipped-over carriage of Anna and Karenin.
All of this Anna hardly noticed; dropping back into the corner of the upset carriage, she was sobbing, her face hidden in her hands; she did not notice, either, that with each wave of despair, a fresh explosion went off along the roadway, causing more dirt and gravel and bits of fractured metal to explode into the air. Android Karenina spread her arms widely, valiantly laying her metal body over that of her mistress.
Alexei Alexandrovich did not stir, and kept looking straight before him. But the telescopic eye embedded in the left side of his face slowly extended outward, and then upward, and as it did, the burning chunks of metal hurtling down toward the carriage halted in midair and hovered there. Anna raised her head from the crook of her arm and watched confusedly as, responding to minute movements from her husband"s mechanical eye-or so it seemed-the burning hunks of shrapnel crumpled harmlessly, one after the other, in the air above them.