Alexander Kazantsev. The Destruction of Faena

     Translated by Alex Miller
     RADUGA PUBLISHERS MOSCOW
     OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2/ ║ http://home.freeuk.com/russica2/
     Translation from the Russian
     Illustrated and designed by Mikhail Verkholantsev
     Original Russian title: ГИБЕЛЬ ФАЭНЫ
     На английском языке
     (c)Издательство "Детская литература" 1974
     English translation (c)Raduga Publishers 1989

        CONTENTS

     From the author

     Part One. Tension

     Chapter One. The Wave
     Chapter Two. Two Shores
     Chapter Three. The Masters
     Chapter Four. The Temple of Eternity
     Chapter Five. Blood
     Chapter Six. No Happiness in this World
     Chapter Seven. The Forgotten Hump

     Part Two. Explosion

     Chapter One. The Little World
     Chapter Two. The Golden Apple
     Chapter Three. Paradise Lost
     Chapter Four. At the Peak of Civilisation
     Chapter Five. Craters in the Wilderness
     Chapter Six. Judgement
     Chapter Seven. The Star of Hatred

     Part Three. Fragments

     Chapter One. Twilight
     Chapter Two. Mutiny in Space
     Chapter Three. In the Name of Reason
     Chapter Four. Spiders in Jar
     Chapter Five. The Naked Leader
     Chapter Six. The Testament of the Great Elder

     Epilogue. The Talking Beast



     From the author

     Cosmogony is no less  full of  riddles than  the history of  Earth. And
where  there  are  riddles,  there  is room for fantasy. However,  if  it is
divorced from  reality  and rejects verisimilitude and authenticity, fantasy
is empty,  it  leaves no  trace in  the  heart;  the  best it can  do is  to
titillate  the  reader's  senses.  But  I  have  always  wanted  to  achieve
"authenticity in the  incredible", to  write fantasy founded  solely on real
facts and unsolved mysteries.
     One  such riddle  that  excited  me was the  ring  of  asteroids (minor
planets) between the orbits of  Mars  and Jupiter  instead of the planet, as
predicted  by  Kepler's  law,  which had exploded  for  some unknown reason,
scattering fragments all round its orbit. How could that have happened?
     If the  planet had  exploded from within  because of certain processes,
its fragments would have flown in all directions as  from  a  high-explosive
bomb  and would have continued moving  round the sun in elongated elliptical
orbits...  But  they  are  moving  round in  their  former  almost  circular
planetary  orbit.  If the  planet had perished because  of a  collision with
another  cosmic  body,  their  common  fragments would have tended towards a
resultant,  also  acquiring  elongated  elliptical  orbits;  but  they  have
virtually stayed where they were.
     The  planet  apparently  cracked  as the  result of  a  powerful impact
received simultaneously from all directions; it then disintegrated under the
influence of the gravity of Mars and Jupiter. Its remains kept colliding and
breaking up, creating swarms of meteorites and stringing out round the whole
former orbit of the planet. But what kind of explosion was it? The explosion
of its water envelope, its oceans?
     It  so happened  that  I was able  to  put  this question to  the great
20th-century physicist. Nils Bohr when he met us Moscow writers.
     "Can  all a planet's oceans  explode if a super powerful nuclear device
is detonated in their depths?" I asked him.
     "I don't deny  such a possibility," he replied, and added, "but even if
it weren't so, nuclear weapons must be banned in any case."
     He  understood it  all  at  once! If the planet had  perished when  its
oceans exploded, then  there was  a  civilisation on it  that  had destroyed
itself because of a nuclear war.
     This  was  the stimulus for me as  a novelist  to  write my trilogy The
Faetians. Other problems found their way  into it.  Why has the missing link
between  man and the Earth's  animal world never been  discovered?  Why does
Mars seem  uninhabited, and was it always so? Why did great cataclysms occur
on Earth,  such  as  the  sinking of  Atlantis  and the  rise of the  Andes?
According to some theories, the cause was a gigantic asteroid that fell onto
Earth,  or the appearance  of the hitherto non-existent Moon in the sky over
Earth. Is this so?
     The reader will learn all about it in the novel as he follows the lives
of the characters, who witnessed unprecedented catastrophes.
     The author will be  happy if this book  helps the reader to  acquire  a
taste for the great secrets of the Universe and of Earth's history.

     Alexander Kazantsev


     Peace is the virtue of civilisation.
     War is its crime.
     Victor Hugo

        PART ONE

     Tension

     Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,Profaners of
     this neighbour-stained steel.
     Will they not hear?-
     What ho! You men, you beasts.
     That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
     With purple fountains issuing from your veins.
     On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
     Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground...

     W. Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet

     Chapter One

        THE WAVE

     Translation of an extraterrestrial message inscribed in the language of
the Faetians who  lived on Faena a million years ago.  (Books 2  and 3 of my
science-fantasy novel, The Faetians, tell of who wrote and sent this message
to Earth and who deciphered it.)

     The only daughter of the Dictator  of Powermania, an  ancient continent
of Faena, was named Yasna after her mother. Her  father,  Yar Jupi, had been
hoping for a son, but he loved his daughter beyond measure. He kept dreaming
that she would  grow up, get married and leave him. When, as was the custom,
he  needed  to give  his grown-up daughter a  final name, he could think  of
nothing better than calling her  Mada, which meant Falling-in-love. Surnames
on Faena were borrowed from the  stars and planets. For example.  Mar, Jupi,
Alt or Sirus.
     Mada  Jupi took after her  mother:  she was  called beautiful. Her face
baffled  the  artists,  being lively, always changing, now merry, now clear,
now pensive.  How  could  they  paint  her?  She typified  the  best  of the
longfaces, but the oval of her features was moderate and soft, her  nose was
straight and her lips were firmly compressed.
     This  blue-eyed Faetess (as  they were called on Faena) was met  on the
Great Shore by Ave Mar, a visitor to Powermania. The girl  was coming out of
the water, having chosen the moment when a  breaker had crashed on the shore
and was sliding back in a mass of hissing foam.
     Ave wished he had  been  a sculptor. Everything he had heard about Mada
from his  hunchbacked secretary  Kutsi Merc  was pale, inadequate  and  dull
compared with what he could see with his own eyes.
     A fat, elderly Faetess, one of the roundheads, ran into  the  water and
wrapped the girl in a soft, fluffy sheet as she emerged.
     Mada took no notice  whatever  of Ave, although from what her companion
had told her, she knew quite a lot about him. The nanny deftly put a folding
chair down on  the sand and Mada sat on it, wrapping the sheet  round her as
the ancients used to drape themselves in their robes.
     Kutsi Merc noticed the  impression that  Mada had  made on Ave,  and he
hunched his back even more as he bent down to speak.
     "Shall we show this to the local natives?"
     And with a significant smile on his clever, evil face, he held a small,
smooth board out to Ave. Sitting on  the sand and admiring Mada, Ave vaguely
replied:
     "Well, I didn't realise we'd brought that with us!"
     "The  proud and  beautiful  Mada  Jupi  is here,"  said  the  secretary
encouragingly.  Ave Mar stood  up.  Thanks to  his impressive  height, long,
strong  neck and piercing eyes, he gave  the impression of  looking over the
heads of everybody else.
     In obedience to his own impulse, as it seemed to him, he took the board
from Kutsi and walked boldly with it into the water.
     Without taking  her eyes off Kutsi, Mada's companion whispered into the
girl's ear:
     "Look, Mada! The stranger from Danjab I was telling you about has taken
a board with him."
     In spite of the breakwater, built to make swimming easier when the tide
was coming in, the waves were crashing violently onto the shore. Outside the
barrier, they were truly gigantic, rearing up their foaming crests one after
another as on the open sea.
     "Where's he  swimming to?" asked  Mada's companion in alarm. "Shouldn't
we call the lifeguards?"
     "He's a better swimmer than you think," commented Mada vaguely.
     "But why's he taken that board? It's frightening to watch."
     Even so, she couldn't take her eyes off him.
     Ave swam as  far  as the  breakwater  and climbed  over it.  He had now
attracted the attention of many swimmers.
     "Why did you decide he's that particular stranger?" asked Mada.
     "Because of his  companion.  Roundheaded, like me; a hunchback into the
bargain, yet he's as proud as if he was strolling along the beach of Danjab.
I feel ashamed for our own people. Isn't anyone going to teach that show-off
how to swim?"
     "No, I don't  want  to," said  Mada, watching as the gigantic  breakers
swept the foreign visitor up onto their crests.
     And suddenly all the holidaymakers on the beach stirred in amazement.
     The swimmer chose the moment when a particularly big wave lifted him up
on its crest, jumped  to his  feet and  waved his arms, as if wanting to fly
like  a bird. He did not take  off, however,  but simply kept his balance on
the  slippery  board.  He  stood like  that  on the foaming crest  and  with
frightening speed swept towards the shore, clad in foam and spray. It seemed
incredible that he should stay on the moving watery mountain. But the madman
not only held his position; laughing  defiantly, he  began  gliding down the
steep watery slope, then allowed the wave to throw him upon its crest again.
     The crowded beach gasped at this bold display of skill.
     "But I must  see how that's  done," said Mada determinedly, casting off
the "ancient robe" and handing it to her worried nanny.
     "What are  you doing, my  dear?" she  protested, forgetting  her recent
advice. "He'll bump you with  his board. And is it fitting for the  daughter
of Yar Jupi to swim beside him?"
     Mada ran into the sea and dived into an oncoming wave.  The dark cap of
stretch  material protecting her thick  hair from the water  bobbed amid the
foaming crests.
     Mada swam as far  as the breakwater and climbed onto it. From there she
saw  the foreign swimmer going back  to the sea  with his board for  another
ride on the breakers. She waved to him, although he could not see her.
     There was  unlikely to be as skilful a  swimmer on the  Great  Shore as
Mada. The  ocean waves bore her  up onto their crests and tried to hurl  her
back.  But she was not accustomed to giving up once she had set her heart on
something.  She decided that she absolutely must stand on that magic  board,
and no force in the world could have stopped her.
     The foreigner swimming away from the shore didn't even look round.
     Mada  only had a glimpse of the stranger, but as she swam after him she
had the  distinct impression of  an athletic  figure  in a loincloth, strong
muscles rippling under the skin, and curly hair as tousled as that of a boy.
     Suddenly, Mada  saw him. He was  standing on a foaming crest. The water
seemed to be boiling under him, and with reckless abandon  he began  gliding
down the watery slope straight at Mada.
     Ave  noticed her at the last moment  and jumped, while Mada dived under
the board.
     It seemed to her that the wave had crashed down on her, but it was just
the board grazing her slightly.
     Mada  surfaced and  looked  round. The stranger's eyes  met hers as  he
bobbed up  to the surface.  He laughed joyfully and  promptly began swimming
towards her, seizing the board on the way.
     "Hold on!" he shouted while still some distance off.
     Mada could  not make anything out, but she smiled in answer, since  she
realised that he was hurrying to her assistance. When he swam up to her, she
said:
     "I want to stand on that..." and she pointed at the board.
     "Ave Mar will be happy to help..."
     "Mada Jupi."
     "You'll learn the meaning of joy, strength and happiness!"
     The  people  standing  on the  shore watched what was happening  on the
other side  of the breakwater. A sigh coursed  along the beach  when the two
figures appeared standing  straight up on the crest of a wave, holding on to
one another  and each evidently  standing with  one  foot  on  the board. It
seemed  like a  miracle. With their arms round  each other's  waists in full
view  of the onlookers  and without falling, they were borne on the  foaming
crest towards the beach.
     Never had Mada experienced such pleasure before.
     Even  so, when Mada  and Ave crossed the  breakwater and were returning
with  the board to the crowded beach, Mada felt  uneasy. If someone had told
her the day before that she was  capable of such flightiness, she would have
burst out laughing.
     Ave held the board in one hand  and  was ready  to  help  Mada with the
other  if the  surf  swept her off her feet. But Mada went ahead of him and,
skipping  over the gurgling foam with a laugh, was the first to  run up onto
the beach.
     She seemed to be showing that, as the Dictator's daughter, she could do
whatever she liked!
     Her anxious companion wrapped her charge up in the fluffy sheet.
     "How good it was! If you only knew how good it was, Mother Lua!"
     "As if I couldn't know," she grumbled. "I nearly died, waiting for you.
If anything  happened to you, I'd surely be  executed  by order of  Yar Jupi
(may he be happy, the great man!)"
     "It's a good thing  you're alive and can help me with one or two little
matters."
     Mother Lua gave her a stern look.
     "It frightens me to think of it, my dear."
     Mother Lua had  guessed rightly about her charge's intentions. Mada had
always dreamed about a real  Faetian,  manly, noble and pure. The uncultured
Faetians among  the  Superiors, flaunting a  civilisation  that  had  become
static since ancient times,  repelled her with their  boorishness, arrogance
and contempt for  the roundheads, whose children her mother had once nursed.
The  stranger,  as  her  nanny  had  told  her,  was  alien  to  all  gloomy
superstitions of the Superiors; he  was  a scholar  of  Danjab  who was  not
afraid to break free of the Science of Death there and end up at loggerheads
with everybody. It was just such a Faetian  that Mada could dream about, and
he had, on top of all that, turned out to be athletic, daring and handsome.
     It  was innate in Faetians to be mutually attracted  "at  first sight",
which they did not always admit even to themselves.
     The daughter of Yar Jupi had  justified the name  her  father had given
her-she had fallen in love straightway  with a visitor  clad in foam and, in
Mother Lua's opinion, had lost her wits.
     "Think,  my dear! If he was a  longface, it  would have been all right.
But they're going to call this one a half-breed. Contempt and hatred!  Think
again, my dear! I taught you the truth about  all the  Faetians, but not for
that!.."
     "No," replied Mada firmly. "Let it be the way I want it. You will go to
his companion and tell him where Ave and I are going to meet."
     "You'll be noticed together! The Blood Guard will seize him. Don't wish
him harm."
     "It shall be as I have said. Others will not be able to look at us.  We
shall meet in the palace garden."
     "The garden behind the Wall?" echoed Lua in alarm.
     "You will escort them through the Blood Door."
     Mother Lua looked downcast. But Mada paid no attention to her,  walking
on with her chin up.
     The Blood Door! It was one of  the most reliable of the devices  in the
Lair, as  the Dictator's palace was called. Yar Jupi had long been racked by
persecution mania.  It seemed to him  that there were conspiracies under way
everywhere  to assassinate him.  Consequently, he had  been living for  many
cycles  without leaving the  territory of the Lair and never letting himself
be  seen outside its walls. He communicated with his subordinates only  over
closed  TV.  He  trusted  no one. Security  was  maintained at key points by
automatons  who  admitted  only  chosen  Faetians  with  identifiable  brain
biocurrents.
     Only the  Faetians closest to  the  Dictator could use the  Blood Door.
There was no other key to it and no outsider could open it.
     And now Mother Lua had to escort foreigners into the garden outside the
Wall. She knew that her charge would not change her mind. Moreover,  she did
not want to obstruct Mada in any case.
     Need it be said that  Ave, the young Faetian, had also fallen in  love?
Inclined to extremes by  nature, time and  time again he relived the moments
when,  with  their  arms  round  each other's waists,  he and  the wonderful
Faetess had  ridden the surf together. He was in  a fever, but he  could not
imagine how to see  his beloved again, since she had turned  out to  be  Yar
Jupi's daughter.
     Grunting as if carrying a  heavy load, Kutsi Merc trudged along  behind
Ave. He was not in the least surprised  to notice  that the nurse had fallen
behind her charge and was adjusting a shoelace.
     Letting Ave go ahead, the  hunchback hung back near  the roundhead, and
she, without straightening up, said almost inaudibly:
     "As soon  as  shining  Jupi rises in  the sky,  take your master to the
ruins of the old shrine in the Dread Wall."
     Kutsi Merc nodded, grinned craftily and caught up with his master.
     "Success is  the  envy of  failures. A tryst  has been  made at the old
ruins in the light of Jupi, the brightest of planets."
     Ave looked round suddenly.
     "Are you jesting?"
     "Jesting is of no avail in my profession. Kutsi  Merc is too good a ...
helper."


     By a whim of the Dictator's, the Dread  Wall round his Lair ran through
a tiny  ruined shrine dividing  it  into two halves. This screened from view
the Blood Door,  which was hardly noticeable in any  case. The  wall in  the
lower part  divided  in obedience to the brain biocurrents written  into the
program of the electronic automatons.
     Mother Lua  nervously gave  the door its  mental  instructions  and  it
opened.
     Ave and  Kutsi Merc,  who  were  standing  in  the half-ruined portico,
quickly proceeded  through  the gap, Lua followed  them and  the Wall closed
behind  her. Only the ruins on the  inner  side of the wall  showed where to
look for the vanished door.
     Ave looked  round. He was  in a  luxuriant  garden. Sinuous lianas hung
down like snakes guarding their prey. Beyond the shaggy tree-trunks lurked a
gloom  that seemed dense and clammy. Lua, the nocturnal  luminary whose name
the nurse  bore, had not yet begun to rise,  and Jupi,  the brightest of the
planets, was only just silvering the tree-tops. Under them it was as dark as
on a starless night.
     The young Faetian's heart was thudding in his breast.
     Kutsi Merc's pulse was throbbing evenly enough. He had gained access to
the Lair, into which not even a snake could crawl its way...


     Chapter Two

        TWO SHORES

     Ave  Mar first  met  Kutsi Merc, his secretary, half a cycle before the
encounter with Mada on the Great Shore.
     Ave Mar's steamcar stopped that day in a mountain pass on the continent
of the Culturals of Danjab.
     The view  took Ave's  breath  away. The ocean,  revealed from high  up,
seemed to ascend to the  very heavens. The misty band of the  horizon looked
like a ridge of lofty clouds.
     Below  lay Business  City. The skyscrapers stood in concentric circles.
They were  linked  by ring and radial streets and avenues, on both sides  of
which lay  green  parks and glittering lakes. In  the city centre towered  a
skyscraper resembling the conical axis of  the  monstrous Wheel  of Business
Life.
     Ave put his  foot down on  the  pedal to open the high-pressure  boiler
valve. The steam drive slowly moved the car  from its place, accelerating it
to the required speed.
     Steamcars  had  appeared very  recently, but  had  quickly replaced the
obsolete vehicles powered by internal  combustion engines.  In  their  time,
these machines had  poisoned the air of the cities with their exhaust gases.
The fuel  they consumed could  have  served as  chemical  raw  material  for
clothing and other goods in daily use.
     As he drove at  top  speed  along the magnificent road, Ave Mar crossed
the outer circle avenue on which stood the tower blocks of Business City.
     From a  distance, they seemed conical. In fact, they were stepped. They
were girt  by a spiral  steamcar road  which gave  access to  each storey in
succession and to the garage entrances outside every flat.
     The conical  towers  housed shops with corridors  leading to exits onto
the  spiral  road, restaurants,  cafes,  and  also theatres and  concert  or
viewing halls. There were production workshops and  business  offices in the
centre of the multistorey building.
     Moving staircases led to the garages under the living quarters.
     The ordinary Faetians, toiling in the workshops, had no cars and hardly
ever left  their cramped little rooms,  unaware of any world other than that
shut in by the skyscraper's spiral roadway.
     Ave stopped his steamcar. The  garage  doors  opened  automatically and
closed behind him when he had driven in.
     The car needed no maintenance, being permanently ready for use with the
necessary steam pressure in its boiler. The heating device of disintegration
matter was, so to speak, part of the machine and wore out with it.
     Ave Mar was in  a dejected  mood. He dropped in on one of his  friends;
but  the friend had summoned a secret meeting  and had  not invited Ave. Ave
understood what it was all about and drove off immediately.
     On the  way back he saw the pathetic hovels of the  Faetians who worked
in the  fields. He felt ashamed  of himself  for  having,  over his  garage,
several living rooms in which no one lived, in fact, except for himself.
     He had never known lack of room, but he  had known loneliness and could
only call  up his mother over  the  screen. Oh, Mother, Mother! Even at that
enormous distance, she unerringly guessed what  was  in her son's heart  and
was always the first to appear on the screen.
     Ave glumly stepped onto the upward moving staircase.
     What was the  meaning of life, if all that lay  ahead was a blind alley
from which the Faetians could not escape? It was madness to seek deliverance
in wars of annihilation. Many Faetians understood as much...
     But why did his friends not trust him? He needn't keep quiet with them.
Did he not also subscribe to the  Doctrine of Justice? But they didn't  need
him... No one needed him...
     Ave went  into the  first of  his  round  rooms  and  stopped  dead  in
amazement. A broad-shouldered,  burly hunchback came up to  meet him with  a
guarded smile on his hard face.
     "Ease  and  happiness!" said the stranger.  "I am Kutsi Merc! The Ruler
Dobr Mar gave me the key of this flat as his son's secretary."
     Ave smiled bitterly.
     "Is my father worried that his son is gnawed by misery?"
     "Your father was thinking of something more important."
     "Will it deliver me from bitterness?"
     "Would it be a bad thing to visit  the ancient continent of Powermania?
High technology in the hands of barbarians who call themselves Superiors?"
     "What's the sense of such dreams? I worked with Um Sat. I specialise in
the  disintegration of  matter, so I am  not allowed  to travel overseas. We
live in times of emptiness, disillusion, tension..."
     "As your  secretary, I shall help you in everything,  even in a trip to
the continent of the barbarians."
     So  saying, the hunchback went into the  other room.  He soon  returned
carrying  vessels with  beverages and  two cylinders of  compressed narcotic
smoke  which  the Culturals  loved  to  inhale  when  relaxing. Kutsi Merc's
clothes were stretched tight over his hump, as if tailored for someone else.
     Ave  was amazed at  the speed  with  which  his  new  acquaintance made
himself at home. The neglected flat was transformed. Mechanisms, switched on
before the occupant's arrival, had cleaned the place up.
     As he inhaled the smoke, the young Faetian studied Kutsi Merc.
     "If only  we  journey  to  Powermania," he said  reflectively,  "before
misery kills desire..."
     "Desires must  be  fulfilled.  Otherwise it is not  worth desiring. The
Faetesses over the ocean are very beautiful."
     "How can that be of any importance? Even knowledge is powerless to lead
the  Faetians  out  of  their  blind  alley. Soulless power politics,  blind
subordination to dogma! The blockheads refuse to listen  to anything that is
unfamiliar to them!.." Ave was suffering from rejection of his ideas and was
airing his sense of injury.
     "The  great law of inertia! Inertia can be overcome  by the application
of energy. The law must be interpreted more broadly."
     "Kutsi Merc  is  undoubtedly  more  than  adequately  equipped for  the
obligations of secretary."
     "One must also overcome the inertia in oneself." Kutsi Merc blew out an
intricate pattern of smoke.
     The hunchback was certainly astonishing Ave  Mar; but there were  still
more surprises to come.
     Kutsi  now  came  to see Ave Mar every day and tirelessly  told stories
about  the legendary continent of a very ancient civilisation. It turned out
that he knew Power-mania extremely well, was familiar with its history, art,
and architecture, had evidently been there a number of times, and was fluent
in the  language  of  the  barbarians,  as  he  called  the  inhabitants  of
Powermania.
     "Look and marvel. The depths of ignorance and the heights of knowledge,
an alien technology and the wild theories of the Superiors, the slums of the
roundheaded monsters and the legendary beauty, Mada Jupi."
     "The Dictator's daughter?" asked Ave, interested in spite of himself.
     "Brought  up  by a  most  cultured nurse  of  roundhead stock. Became a
Sister of Health, looks after  children in spite of her father's Doctrine of
Hatred. He loves her so much that he will tolerate any of her whims."
     "What does she look like?" asked Ave vaguely.
     Kutsi brightened up.
     "The long legs of the runner, but feminine. The lines of her body would
make a classical sculpture. A soft heart and the hauteur of pride. It's hard
to win her indulgence."
     "It looks as though Kutsi Merc has been having a try."
     With a bitter smile, the hunchback pointed to his hump.
     "Kutsi Merc bears too heavy a burden in life."
     He had now completely  relieved Ave Mar of  his daily household chores.
He went on talking about Powermania, but didn't mention Mada again.
     It was Ave Mar who  raised the subject of  a  possible journey over the
sea.
     Kutsi Merc had apparently been waiting for this.
     "The berths on the ship have been booked."


     Ave Mar stood on the deck  of the ocean-going ship and looked  into the
distance. This time, the ocean wasn't rising  to heaven, as in the view from
the  mountain  pass, but it was  as boundless and  no less  striking  to the
imagination.
     Dm Sat had confided a terrible secret  to  his pupil  about this ocean.
Every  secret  is  a burden,  and this  one, concerning the destiny  of  all
Faetians, was a particularly heavy weight on Ave's mind.
     Kutsi warily tried to  found out the cause  of  Ave's bad mood, but Ave
avoided the subject by holding forth against scientists who would not accept
his ideas about the possibility of life on other planets.
     Kutsi  grinned craftily and poked fun at the young Faetian, maintaining
that the real reason was that he hadn't yet fallen in love.
     The  barbarians' continent appeared on the horizon. Sharp arrows seemed
to be sticking up out of the water. Over the sea rose the weird buildings of
the ancient continent, on which the houses were not  round,  but rectangular
(how  absurd!}.  Incredibly crowded, they reached for the sky  and gradually
merged  into  a  pile of  irregular acute-angled pillars  that  suggested  a
cluster of crystals.
     Almost  leaping out of the water, a security launch  raced towards  the
ship.
     They were faced  with the control procedure. Kutsi Merc sought  out his
master so as to be at his side.
     Longfaced  men with hooked noses were climbing aboard. They were all in
identical  angular clothes with collars upraised at the back  and short dark
hooded capes that became rectangular bands on the chest.
     "Hey  you, hunchbacked offspring of carrion-eaters! Make way before the
Blood Guard!" snarled the first of the longfaces as he drew level with Kutsi
Merc. "You'll have to get out of here and go back to your stinking island."
     Ave Mar, who had specially learned the language of  Powermania, flushed
with  rage  but, on catching  Kutsi's sidelong  glance  of warning, he  kept
quiet.
     But Kutsi Merc arched  his  hump as he bowed, meekly  lowering his head
and using a manner of speech not his own, but typical of the local dialect.
     "Perhaps the officer of the Blood Guard will be interested to know that
the insignificant  roundhead  whom he sees  before him  is only secretary to
this  distinguished traveller, the  clear-thinking Ave Mar, son of the Ruler
of Danjab."
     The longface, who was  wearing a beard  in imitation  of  Dictator  Yar
Jupi, glanced contemptuously at Kutsi.
     Ave Mar offered him his tokens.
     "The athletic  son  of Ruler Dobr Mar is  recognisable even without his
tokens," said  the officer, showing off his familiarity  with the old manner
of speech.  "As for  this contemptible  roundheaded  cripple,  he should  be
attached as if by a chain to his master while serving him, as is preordained
by nature." And the officer made for the other passengers.
     Kutsi Merc ran after  him, humbly begging the return of the tokens. The
officer threw them down; they  landed on the  deck  with a jingle and nearly
rolled overboard. Kutsi Merc bent  over to snatch them up and even went down
on his knees.
     The officer laughed coarsely.
     "That's  how  to welcome the land of  Superiors-in  the posture of  the
lizard from which you are not so distantly descended."
     "May happy days last for a long time here," replied Kutsi Merc humbly.

     The ocean-going ship sailed  into a harbour which was surrounded on all
sides by  enormous,  weirdly rectangular  buildings.  Among  them,  Ave  Mar
immediately  recognised  several  famous  temples which  had been  built  in
ancient  times  and  had towered  high over all the other buildings of  that
period. The city had risen since then and had blotted them from view.
     So this was what it was like. Pleasure City!
     Some  of the gigantic  blocks  were linked  by fantastical multi-tiered
street-bridges crossing at various levels.
     Ave thought  that  he was looking  at  a  forest  mound, which  in  his
homeland was built by little insects with many feet.
     This impression of the maritime city of  the Superiors was strengthened
even further when he and  Kutsi Merc were on dry land. They were pushed  and
jostled by crowds of hurrying Faetians. In addition to the steam-cars, there
were vehicles powered by  obsolete  internal  combustion  engines. Making an
appalling din  and poisoning the air, this medley  of heterogeneous vehicles
surged past  the  half-asphyxiated  Ave or thundered overhead on  the  crazy
bridges  between the massive artificial  canyons of the  buildings. Squeezed
into  a corner  of the tiny lift-cage by other  Faetians, Ave and Kutsi were
taken up  to the tiny  room set aside for them  in  the expensive Palace  of
Visitors.
     While Kutsi Merc unpacked, Ave stood  at  the lancet window and  looked
out on an alien world. He  could not see  any of  the old-time  romance  for
which  he  had  yearned  since childhood.  Everything here was  an  eyesore,
beginning with the  uniform of the coarse Blood Guards  and ending with  the
awkward angles of the cramped little room.
     "Don't torture your  eyes  with barbarian buildings,"  said Kutsi Merc.
"We'll be on the Great Shore tomorrow."
     A roundhead servant of  low stature appeared and asked whether the  new
arrivals would prefer vegetable or animal food with  blood  for dinner,  and
whether  they  wanted,  like all  travellers,  to  look  round  the  densely
populated quarters of  the  city,  and whether they had any other orders for
him.
     Kutsi  Merc  considered  it  necessary   to   display  the  traditional
curiosity,  so he and  Ave  did  not  allow themselves time for a  rest, but
trailed off into the famous roundhead quarters.
     Although  he  knew the slums  of his  native continent,  Ave had  never
imagined that Faetians could live in such filthy and overcrowded conditions.
It was only  possible to  breathe on  a street  when  it became a suspension
bridge. But where the street was hemmed in by buildings and ran between them
like a  tunnel, it became, as it were, part  of the living quarters. Not shy
of passers-by,  the  Faetians kept  their  doors  open,  got  on with  their
household chores, sat at the table with children born  before the roundheads
were banned from  having children, ate their simple  but acrid-smelling food
and went  to bed. The Faetesses poked their heads out of the open doors and,
shouting loudly,  conversed  with  the inhabitants on  the  second  or third
stories up. Here and there, only just above the heads of the passers-by, the
inmates' washing had been hung out to dry; most of them did not know whether
they would have to sweat at work on the next day as well.
     Ave very much  wanted to hold  his nose when, accompanied  by Kutsi, he
fled  from those evil-smelling  quarters, famed for their  openly  exhibited
poverty. The Power of Justice  had only existed for a hundred and three days
and it had not been able to help the residents...
     "So  what's the  answer to this?" wondered  Ave. "Is  it really in  the
monstrous  law  of  a Dictator  who  has forbidden  these families  to  have
children?"
     Was  it really to see all this that  he had dreamed of coming here from
across the ocean ever since childhood?
     But next day he saw the Great Shore and Mada.


     Chapter Three

        THE MASTERS

     Dictator Yar Jupi's palace was part of the Temple of Eternity, in which
worship had ceased after the Faetians  forgot their religion. Now the  Dread
Wall  separated  the  temple  from the  monastery  buildings  that had  been
converted for the Dictator's use. The soaring spire of black stone resembled
a  torpedo  with  a disintegration warhead.  The  ancient  architects  never
suspected that they were  anticipating the outlines of a future weapon. Even
less  could they have imagined that, in the event of  a disintegration  war,
the  cellars under  the  Temple  of Eternity would house the Central Control
Panel  of Defence  Automatons.  The machines could  unleash a  death-dealing
swarm of disintegration torpedoes against Danjab.
     A  session of  Peaceful Space  was now  being held  over these fearsome
machines in the  former shrine of the temple with its black columns  soaring
up into  the  sky.  Its chairman was Dm  Sat of Danjab, who  had in his time
discovered the disintegration of  matter  (By the  disintegration of matter,
the  Faetians meant  the  nuclear reactions  of fissionand  synthesis, as  a
result of which,  as is known,  a  deficiency of  mass is observed; that is,
matter diminishes; it disintegrates, releasing an enormous amount of energy)
and had  made  a  terrible  mistake  by  publishing  his  discovery  on both
continents simultaneously.  The great roundhead, as he was  called,  and the
planet's  first authority  on  matter,  had decided that he was  as great an
authority  on  life.  Believing  that  the  simultaneous   appearance  of  a
superpowerful weapon on both continents would create a "balance of fear", he
hoped  that  war  would  become impossible.  However,  the  tension  of  the
relations between the continents was growing. Urn Sat had only hit on one of
the causes: overpopulation and  hostility because of  the lack  of room. But
the  hostility  over  profits  was  far more  dangerous. Overpopulation  was
aggravating all  aspects of  the  struggle even further. The  proprietors on
both  continents, while suppressing dissatisfaction of the toilers by force,
were also threatening one another with force across the ocean. It seemed  to
them that they could,  at the expense of  their  competitors, not only boost
profits, but could pacify the malcontents  in their own country with a small
handout.
     The horrified  Um Sat  was  beginning to realise the inevitability of a
disintegration war and he considered himself responsible for it. That is why
he was now  trying to find a  solution for everything in the  exploration of
new space continents, dreaming about the partial resettlement of Faetians on
them and about universal reconciliation.
     Heavy responsibility, disillusion, care and fatigue had left their mark
on  the old Faetian's face. His high forehead under the dense shock  of hair
was furrowed by deep lines. The big, sad eyes were full of kindly wisdom and
understanding. But with it all went a weak chin covered by a greying beard.
     In spite of the Sat's tragic mistake, he  was  still respected for  his
tremendous  achievements in science and  for his unquestionable integrity of
purpose. Consequently, the sages of learning from both continents met him in
the hall with the greatest respect.
     But  at  that moment, within only a hundred  paces  of  the  Temple  of
Eternity, behind  the  wall  of  the  Lair, there was  another  world-famous
Faetian whom no one respected but all feared.


     Yar  Jupi  became Dictator  during  the  black  days when the  Power of
Justice was suppressed.
     Before his daughter was born, he was merely an  inconspicuous tradesman
who did business with the roundheads. To please his clients, he  took Mother
Lua  into service for Mada, who had lost her mother.  The nurse replaced the
child's real  mother at the  memorable time  when the fury of the  oppressed
burst  into   the  open.   The  uprising  shook  Powermania,  depriving  the
proprietors of power and possessions.
     Lying low in their burning hatred, they refused to reconcile themselves
to defeat. They  had the brutal  experience of struggle amongst  themselves.
They had  always fought to the death with the toilers and with one  another.
However, they were now ready to forget their own quarrels.
     There  were  proprietors  on  both  sides  of the ocean. But  since the
discovery and  settlement of the new continent of Danjab, the  Faetians  had
lived there without the ancient prejudices; there wasn't even any favourable
soil  on  which they  could flourish. The  result was  that, under  the  new
circumstances, both roundheads and longheads began enjoying equal rights and
opportunities to make others work for them. Be that as it may, it led to the
rapid growth of, if  not  a culture, at least a  technology. The products of
the  Gutturals, as its  inhabitants  began to style  themselves,  invariably
proved better  and  cheaper than those of  Powermania's  barbarians. And the
proprietors of  Danjab inundated the old continent  with their products.  In
Powermania,  crude and primitive means of manufacture still  prevailed.  The
proprietors of  that  continent found themselves under  threat  of ruin.  No
matter how much they oppressed their toilers,  the profits were slipping out
of their hands. They came to seethe with hatred for everything from  Danjab.
Only  a  defeat  in  the  struggle  with  the Justice  Movement  temporarily
relegated a reckoning with the overseas proprietors to the background.
     When  Yar  Jupi  proclaimed his  Doctrine of Hatred,  he had only heard
about the Council of Blood, not suspecting who the members  might  be. Once,
when summoned to a secret meeting  of the council in a cellar, he was shaken
to recognise,  under the  cowls  of  those present,  two  important workshop
proprietors and one big land proprietor.
     "Our choice has fallen on you, Yar Jupi," declared the land proprietor.
"Your Doctrine of Hatred could unite, for  nothing unites better than common
hatred. With its help, the Movement of Blood should suppress the Movement of
Justice. But do  not forget  that purity of blood,"  he added significantly,
"though  regarded  as  the