Chapter 13
KONSTANTIN DMITRICH LEVIN stood just within the creaking, rusted door of the abandoned Huntshed, which, though long unused, still housed the Surceased bodies of three massive Huntbears, their crudely fashioned paws frozen in positions of attack. He looked again down the long path leading to the Huntshed, and decided that this was a fool’s errand, just as Kitty had warned. Only when he began to exit the shed and walk back to his carriage did he hear a distant rumble coming through the forest; he watched as the trees shook, and from them emerge a roughly hewn Exterior battle-suit, accompanied by a regimental Class III robot in the shape of a great gray wolf. Both machines stopped, and with a high creak the torso door of the Exterior opened to reveal the dapper form of Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky.
“Konstantin Dmitrich! Delighted!” Vronsky called out as he emerged. “I believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you . . . at Princess Shcherbatskaya’s,” he said, giving Levin his hand.
“Yes, I quite remember our meeting,” said Levin, and blushing crimson, he turned away immediately and looked instead at the frozen Huntbears. The days when both had courted Kitty Shcherbatsky were a lifetime ago, but the pain and embarrassment sprang back to Levin undimmed. His mind leapt to the business at hand. “For what reason have you requested a meeting?”
“I requested it? No, sir,” countered Vronsky, tugging suspiciously on his mustache. “You mean it was not you?”
Suddenly Lupo snarled, whipped his head around, and bared his teeth. A moment later, Vronsky and Levin saw what had excited the keen-eared wolf: a short, squat man with a long beard, tangled and filthy, draped in an equally squalid laboratory coat.
“Mea culpa, mea culpa” said this strange personage, speaking with exceptional rapidity. “My name is Federov, and I am afraid the blame for the ambiguity attendant on our little tête-à-tête is entirely mine. But hardly could I have sent a communiqué grandly requesting your presence at a meeting with a representative of the Union of Concerned Scientists.”
“UnConSciya!” shouted Vronsky, and in an instant his hot-whip was deployed, crackling across the space between himself and Federov. But the man merely touched a small device on his belt, and the whip seemed not even to touch him.
“Now, now,” the little man in the lab coat said, as if chastising a child. “I am hardly in a position to ask you to disarm, but our meeting will go more smoothly if you refrain from such posturing. I myself am wearing an array of defensive clothing and underclothing, created of technologies several generations ahead of any you might have access to. ‘Always be prepared,’ that’s the motto of our little society.”
Levin looked carefully at Federov. “What is it that you want?”
“Each of you, in your own way, is now as much an enemy of the Ministry as we are. You have come to understand what we have long understood: that our benevolent protectors are at heart neither benevolent, nor protective. Soon all Russia will know it, too, and they will need their leaders.”
The squat, strange little man turned to Konstantin Dmitrich and looked him directly in the eye. “Levin, we beg you to travel with your household to Moscow, and wait there until such time as you can be of use.”
Vronsky sneered, and spoke derisively, “You ask us to enter into conspiracy with the greatest criminals in Russian history.”
“Yes,” Levin echoed, his mind racing. “How can we?”
“By knowing this: we have never committed a single one of the violent acts attributed to us by the Ministry. Yes, we left the government laboratories en masse because we did not like certain orders we had been given, the path our rulers demanded technological innovation travel down. But we have never committed a single act of violence.”
The funny little man leaned forward, his eyes welling with tears: “Not a single one. The emotion bombs, the malfunctions—the Ministry itself has done it all. Remember, if you want to control someone, first protect them. And if you will protect someone, you need something to protect them from.”
Vronsky snorted with derision, and shook his head, but Levin trembled like a man hearing the word of God. He was moved beyond words to see that tears were openly rolling down Federov’s dirty, bearded face. “I apologize for becoming so emotional,” said Federov. “But we have spent a generation outside of possibility, and now I stare at you two proud Russian gentlemen, and I cannot help it—I feel—hope.”
BOOM!
The forest exploded with fire.
“No,” cried Federov. “An emotion bomb! I should have known.”
BOOM! A second hope-bomb rattled the treeline, and with a terrible crack a massive oak tree splintered and fell before them, its leaves alive with fire. All three men ducked down to the earth, covering their ears against the concussive roar of the detonations. “It is me,” screamed Federov. “My hope! My—”
BOOM! A third blast, the loudest yet, knocked Vronsky’s massive Exterior to the ground and tore the roof from the Huntshed. Levin caught a glimpse of the tops of the Surceased Huntbears, their fight grimaces glinting in the fire-lit darkness, before a burning branch cracked free and landed across his back.
“Ahh!” he screamed in terrible pain, and Vronsky rolled atop him, causing him exquisite agony but extinguishing the blaze. Levin wailed helplessly, while Vronsky screamed to Federov. “It is a trap! You have trapped us here! What have you done? You’ve killed him!”
“I did not cause this attack!” shouted Federov, staggering to his feet. “But I can still the hope that provokes it!” Levin, moaning, clutching at himself with his badly scalded hands, sat up and stared—as Federov pulled out a dagger and drove it into his own heart.
Levin gasped; the man from UnConSciya screamed and doubled forward, pushing the knife in to the hilt. No further bombs were heard, only the eerie crackling of the burning forest.
“Remember these words, men,” Federov said between clenched teeth, sinking to his knees. “Rearguard . . . Action.”
“Rearguard . . . ,” intoned Levin, as if hypnotized.
“Action,” Vronsky mumbled.