Chapter 13
WHEN VRONSKY LOOKED at his watch, he was so greatly agitated and lost in his thoughts that he saw the figures on the watch’s face, but could not take in what time it was. He came out onto the highroad and walked, picking his way carefully through the mud, to his carriage, detaching and reattaching the electrodes to his chest and forehead as he went. He was so completely absorbed in his confusion about the godmouth that he did not even think what o’clock it was. But the excitement of the approaching Cull gained upon Vronsky as he drove further and further into the atmosphere of the arena, overtaking carriages driving up from the summer villas or out of Petersburg.
He arrived to find Frou-Frou standing in the silo, torso door hanging open, at the ready. They were just going to lead her out.
“I’m not too late?”
“It’s all right! It’s all right!” said the Englishman, looking nervously at his I/Physiolographer/99. “For Heaven’s sakes, don’t upset yourself!”
Vronsky once more took in, in one glance, the exquisite lines of his Exterior, which was oscillating all over, quivering with excitement up and down its sleek lines. He surveyed the rows of pavilion seating, quickly scanning the crowd before climbing inside his death-suit to begin combat.
“Oh, there’s Karenin!” said an acquaintance from his regiment. “He’s looking for his wife, and she’s in the middle of the pavilion. Didn’t you see her?”
“No,” answered Vronsky, and without even glancing round toward the pavilion where his friend was pointing out Madame Karenina, he went up to his Exterior.
In a moment, the cry was heard: “Entrez!”
Vronsky climbed inside Frou-Frou’s groznium torso door and with a series of deft movements attached himself to her contact board. He then slipped his forefinger and index fingers under the palm-sized steering disc, which was his secondary means of control, and pressed its small central button firmly, once, with his thumb. Instantly the war-machine reared back, tilted her head upward, and fired a massive jolt of electricity into the sky. Vronsky smiled: She is ready.
Outside the beast, the Englishman puckered up his lips, leaned against the torso door, and shouted in:
“Good luck, your Excellency.” And then, in English, added his traditional final word of support: “Survive.”
Vronsky peered into the long-tube, a periscope-like exterior sensor, to gain a last look at his rivals. Once the match began, they would in the grand tradition of the Cull no longer be his beloved fellow Border Officers, but targets. One Exterior, belonging to a drinking companion of his, Oposhenko, was in the shape of a massive arachnid, with glittering golden “eyes” that Vronsky knew could exert a powerful magnetic force, to draw enemies into the Exterior’s “web.” A second battle-suit was a modified sledge, with engines attached to the back, allowing it to function as a kind of battering ram, simple but effective. Galtsin, a friend of Vronsky’s and one of his more formidable rivals, had an Exterior patriotically fashioned in the shape of a massive sickle, such as that used in the time of the Tsars by traditional peasants in their fields; she could roll with deadly speed along the periphery of the conflict, and then dart in to slice through heavy armor plating with her sharpened edge.
A little light hussar was boldly taking the field in a modified Exterior, which one did not wear at all; in tight riding breeches he shot by astride a missile, which he had harnessed and sat upon like a cat on the saddle, in imitation of English jockeys. How this hussar could hope to kill his opponents and yet survive himself, it was impossible for Vronsky to conceive. Prince Kuzovlev rode out inside a monolithic block of black groznium, which Vronsky knew to be well-armored but utterly useless in offensive capability. Vronsky and all his comrades knew Kuzovlev and his peculiarity of “weak nerves” and terrible vanity. They knew that he was afraid of everything, and therefore had entered the field in this upright coffin of an Exterior, prepared to survive a Cull, but never to win one.
The combatants were ambling and motoring forward past a dammed-up stream on their way to the starting point. Several of the riders were in front and several behind, when suddenly Vronsky heard the sound of a loud, primitive engine in the mud behind him, and he was overtaken by Mahutin inside his fat-bellied, curiously adorable Exterior, Matryoshka, with the fat, rounded bottom, tapered top, and jaunty, painted peasant’s face. Vronsky grimaced and looked angrily at him; there was something curious about that Exterior, and Vronsky regarded him now as his most formidable rival.
Frou-Frou, feeding off Vronsky’s anticipation like a horse lapping at a clearwater stream, engaged her powerful rear legs in an excited dash to the starting point, thrusting Vronsky back against the rear wall of the cockpit.
“This is going to be a worthy match,” he thought.