The body of Kutsi Merc was lying in a damp underground passage behind blank walls with a spiral ornament.
The casing of the artificial hump had been pierced and the air was entering it, slowly destroying the safety fuse.
No one on Faena, however, had an inkling of this danger on the day of the ceremonial farewell to the astronauts leaving for the planet Terr.
The expedition consisted of three Culturals and three Superiors, one of the latter being Mada Jupi.
For the toilers in the fields and workshops of Powermania, the day of the send-off was declared a public holiday so that the Faetians could go out on the road all the way as far as Cape Farewell, as the Dictator had named part of the Great Beach near the cosmodrome. This was the usual point of departure for all space probes, and also for the ships of the Superiors who were maintaining contact with Space Station Deimo. The proprietors hoped to gain considerable profits from the possible colonisation of the planets and were not parsimonious with their out lays.
Mada and Ave could not escape the feeling that they would soon find themselves being pursued. They were riding in the same steam-car as Um Sat The old scientist was pensive and sad.
The young members of the expedition kept either looking back over their shoulders or looking intently at the Faetians who flashed past, standing on either side of the road and throwing flowers under the wheels of the car. There were roundheads and longfaces among them. They stood closely packed side by side, as if there were no distinction between them. For many Faetians, a joint expedition of the two continents to a planet was a symbol of peace and inspired them with the hope that it might be possible not only to come to terms on Faena and avoid a war, so but to send part of the population to other planets.
Many Faetians had come out onto the road with their children.
The Faetian landworkers were conspicuous with their dark suntan. Those who toiled in the workshop buildings had earthy complexions. But particularly noticeable were the Faetians from the deep mines. The coal-dust had so ingrained itself into their pores that their skin seemed dark, as if they were of another race and were neither longfaces nor roundheads.
Mada had withdrawn wholly into herself, depressed by what was happening. Like a true Faetess, she evaluated everything through the images near to her. She hardly remembered her own mother, but her nanny was to her a symbol of everything that she was leaving behind on Faena. She felt troubled because happiness lay ahead of her, whereas here... She shut her eyes tight.
When she opened them again, she saw that the road had reached the ocean. She looked at Ave, and her expression spoke volumes.
Ave had been thinking all the time about the Faetians standing by the roadside. Tomorrow they would return to workshops filled with the noise of lathes and the reek of oil. They would take up their stations by moving belts conveying the frames of machines in the process of stage-by-stage assembly, and they would stay there with no hope of Justice, compulsorily and joylessly toiling to the end of their hopeless days.
Ave Mar knew that on his shoulders lay the responsibility for the outcome of the space flight and how much it meant to all these deprived people.
Millions of these Faetians were also dreaming of happiness and the right to have children, whatever shape their heads might be. The means of annihilation alone must no longer be taken from the civilized world. Faena could not exist like that!
Um Sat was thinking sadly about the same thing. He was reflecting that the laws governing life of the whole community of the Faetians must evidently be understood like the laws of nature. The most serious mistake, apart from the discovery and promulgation of the means of disintegrating matter, was that, having lived until old age, he did not understand those laws. Why, for example, were the Faetian toilers creating with their hands not only what was needed to all for life, but also that which was capable of cutting that life off? Why did these crowds now seeing them off tolerate the power of a maniac who had made war his goal in life? Yar Jupi had now conceived the idea of making a grand gesture, of sending out an expedition to look for new "space continents". But how would the settlers live out there? According to the former laws of Faena, taking injustice and the threat of wars into space? No, true wisdom was in seeking not only new planets to inhabit, for which even Yar Jupi was prepared, but new laws by which to live that would scare the daylight out of him. Only why had the half-crazed Dictator let his daughter go out into space so easily? It was no picnic, after all!..
As he compared one detail with another, the old sage of learning suddenly came to the frightening conclusion that the Dictator might be trying to save his daughter from an imminent disintegration war on Faena.
He looked in a different light at the crowds of Faetians who were seeing him off. Would he ever see them again?
Mada pressed Ave's hand and looked round eloquently. Ave understood her fears...
Her alarm was not unfounded... Much had indeed been discovered in the Dictator's palace.
Grom Alt, the brother of the dead Yar Alt, had stumbled on the trail. This was the Grom Alt who had escorted Um Sat to the Dictator.
The officer of the Blood Guard noticed a dark streak on the floor running from the Blood Door to Mada Jupi's chambers, to the underground passage. Grom Alt was of too humble a rank to use the "blood" passage. But he decided that at all costs he must check what that stain was. He scraped up a sample of the dried substance and hurried to the laboratory.
His hands shook when, in secret from the others so as not to share his discovery with anyone, he established the composition of the test, a method taught to Blood Guard officers while at school, where skilful use was made of foreign science.
He was so agitated that his hair became damp, although it was almost standing on end. He had established that the stain on the floor was blood!
He hesitated to report his discovery to the Dictator, especially since Mada had shown up and had seen her father. True, she had not been accompanied by her nanny as usual. If something had happened, she could have told the Dictator herself. But after his meeting with her, Yar Jupi had been aloofly solemn. He had proclaimed a historical decision that had left the whole palace and after that the whole continent dumbfounded, then delirious with joy. The whole leadership had choked with effusions in which they had pointed out to the ordinary people that the Wisest of the Wise was also the most Fearless of the Valiant, prepared even to risk his beloved daughter's life for the welfare of the Faetians, thinking of their distant future and also of universal progress and of peace between the continents.
The obsequious joy in the Dictator's palace impeded Grom Alt's investigation. Everyone he met could talk about nothing except the exploit of Yar Jupi and his daughter.
In such an atmosphere, it was positively dangerous to draw anyone's attention to a bloodstain that could cast a shadow on Mada, who had been pronounced heroine of the day. Grom Alt found it particularly suspicious that Mada had not left the Blood Door to her chambers open and that her nanny had still failed to show up.
He decided to consult his brother, even if it meant sharing the honour of the possible discovery with him. But Yar Alt had disappeared.
It could be that Yar Jupi had sent his trusted Supreme Officer on some mission, as often before.
Grom Alt decided to act at his own risk. While Mada, amid sobs and compliments, was being seen to the cosmodrome, Grom Alt, who had remained behind on duty, went to the girl's chambers. The Blood Door was locked, but not by automatic machines this time. All he needed was the skeleton key which he had been taught to use in the Blood Guard school. Grom Alt went cautiously into the pale-blue room.
He not only found the body of Mada's nanny lying on the couch, but that of his own brother.
A poisoned bullet!
Yar Alt's pistol was lying nearby. Such a weapon could only have been carried by the Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard.
Grom Alt examined the weapon. There were no bullets left in it. His brother was not the kind of Faetian to have had only one round left in the magazine and to have used it on himself. On whom had the others been used?
With mixed feelings of regret and disgust, Grom Alt looked at his brother's cold body. They had never been good friends in his lifetime. Yar Alt had forever oppressed his younger brother. And now there he was, lying dead at Grom Alt's feet, thereby giving him a foothold on the next rung of the career ladder.
Grom Alt was so pleased with his comparison of the corpse to a rung on the ladder that he could not withhold himself and set his foot on the body, but promptly jerked it away again and hurried out of the nauseating room into the garden, then straight to the Dictator.
It was not easy getting through to Yar Jupi, in spite of the shocking news that Grom Alt was bringing him.
The impartial secretary box would understand nothing. Feelings did not exist for it, and the security robots and the door automatic machines of the Dictator's study were controlled solely by that brainless box.
To tell the truth to the box would mean a refusal for sure, because the stupid machine would promptly record in its memory all the circumstances of the affair and send it for investigation to the officers of Criminal Investigation, who hated the officers of the Blood Guard. They would risk reporting the incident to the Dictator only after the findings of the Criminal Investigation officers who, of course, would squeeze Grom Alt out of the picture.
That was why Grom Alt decided to lie to the secretary box, inventing a version according to which he had a most important message for the Dictator; it had been given to him by Mada Jupi in person on the way to Cape Farewell. After all, she was his cousin!
"You may give me the gist of the beautiful Mada's words," jabbered the box, which was packed full with electronic circuits. "The Greatest of the Great will study it when he checks my daily entries."
"I have nothing to tell you, meritorious guardian of memory. I must deliver a certain object to the Greatest of the Great, the most Illustrious of the Illustrious. If you, as a guardian of memory, could take this object to the Greatest of the Great, I would be at peace."
The confounded box resisted for a long time, but gave way in the end.
The secretary box impartially reported to the Dictator that Grom Alt, officer of the Blood Guard, begged to be received without use of the screen.
The Dictator was very busy. He had held a conference of the higher military ranks who, of course, were not admitted to his presence but simply attended on the monitor screens in his office. On the eve of the disintegration war, no one had access to Yar Jupi. He feared his masters from the Blood Council perhaps more than his subordinates. The conference ended at last.
"Officer of the Blood Guard Grom Alt," creaked the secretary box, "you may pass through the door to genuflect before the most Illustrious of the Illustrious."
The agitated Grom Alt went into the Dictator's unprepossessing office, afraid to raise his head and look at the face of the man who had invented the Doctrine of Hatred. Like his brother, he aped the Dictator's external appearance in every way.
According to the ritual, Grom Alt genuflected and, staring at the floor, told in a trembling voice about the trail of blood leading into the beautiful Mada's chambers and about the bodies he had found in there.
"Despicable robot of the guard! What are you drivelling about?"
"May your wrath descend on the foul murderers who plotted evil against you and your incomparable daughter, and whose traces I was able to uncover. I grieve over my brother's fate and am happy that your daughter did not become a victim of the villainous conspiracy."
"Conspiracy?" roared the Dictator, and he quivered from head to foot.
He stood with clenched fists and glared with crazed eyes at the terrified officer, who did not know what was going to happen next.
Yar Jupi only reflected for a moment. The discovery of this over-zealous officer of the Blood Guard could upset all his calculations and force him to cancel the orders he had only just given to his military men.
Yar Jupi roared with laughter.
"So that's how it is, is it?" shouted the Dictator through his laughter. "You bring me news of the infinite grief of the Faetians who could not bear to part with my incomparable Mada?"
"I meant something altogether different"
"Brainless insect! Answer my questions!"
"I am in fear and trembling."
"Why did my Supreme Officer Yar Alt die?"
"He was poisoned by a bullet."
"Who had such bullets, apart from him?"
"No one."
"Then is it not clear to you, insect, that, enamoured of the beautiful Mada, the Supreme Officer committed suicide in her room as a mark of his hopeless yearning for her?"
"But the nanny's body..."
"Was she not attached to her mistress? Did not the low creature understand that with the departure of her mistress to another planet, she would become an ordinary roundhead, insignificant and despised, as is only right?"
"What? She took her own life?" Grom Alt was dumbfounded, remembering the wound in Lua's throat and shaking with fear at the thought that he had displeased the Dictator.
Yes, he certainly had displeased the Dictator. Yar Jupi was not at all disposed to ascertain why only two had been killed when at any moment hundreds of millions of Faetians could perish. The more so that this could hold up the space expedition that was meant to save Mada's life.
"However, this stripling from the Blood Guard will hardly keep his mouth shut," thought Yar Jupi.
The Dictator gently raised the terror-stricken officer off his knees.
"My good sentinel Grom Alt! You have every justification for replacing your suicide brother. Thank fate that true Faetians are the slaves of their feelings. If you should ever fall in love with a beautiful Faetess and she does not reciprocate your feelings, behave as did your elder brother. But allow me, as one who is proud of a daughter capable of inspiring such powerful emotions, to thank you for your faithful service and for bringing me news that has made my heart rejoice. I shall show you the treasure of my flower collection, which is unrivalled on Faena. These blooms are as beautiful as the Faetesses of our dreams. Savour their aroma."
Grom Alt obediently went to the niche where he could see the incredibly beautiful blossoms, dark-blue as the sky before evening and glittering with the gold spangles of new-lit stars.
"How do you like that perfume, my trusty sentinel?" asked Yar Jupi, turning away.
"I have never breathed anything more enchanting. I feel an uncommon lightness all over my body. I feel like flying."
"Perhaps you will indeed fly one day, as the incomparable Mada is flying at this moment. If she discovers a life-supporting planet, then many longfaces will fly there to turn new continents into lands of the Superiors."
"Those words must be engraved on eternal stone. Each thought in here is like a disintegration explosion; it flashes and it casts down."
"The scent of the flowers is undoubtedly calling forth your eloquence. Order yourself the tunic of a Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard."
A blissful Grom Alt, who had never expected such a turn of events, flew out of the Dictator's office as if on wings.
If the secretary box had somehow been able to fathom the feelings of living Faetians, it would have noticed Grom Alt's unusual state of mind. But the box was only a machine and merely noted how much time the visitor had spent with the Dictator. Very little...
And it took very little time for Grom Alt to feel ill. He collapsed in the Blood Guard barracks and died in dreadful agony.
In the meantime, the automatic secretary began compiling a report on the state of the armed forces after the preparations announced by the Dictator for a disintegration war. But Yar Jupi switched off the power supply to the pestilential box in a fury. He had been watching on the screen the last moments of the expedition's lift-off for Terr, mentally seeing off his daughter. With his whole being he suffered the parting with her and squeezed his temples between the palms of his hands until it hurt.
He had seen Mada, with a strange look on her face, run her eyes round the cosmodrome before she entered the lift-cage, her gaze resting on the ocean with its white bands of foam on the crests of the waves. She was followed by a Faetian, evidently one from the other continent.
For a moment, Yar Jupi was troubled at seeing a curly-haired half-breed so close to his daughter, but then he remembered that she would at least stay alive. He sighed heavily. He had a feeling that he had stepped on a steep and slippery surface. He could not keep his footing. And below him yawned an abyss.
Ave Mar and Mada were looking through the barred lift-cage. The ocean was expanding and the horizon seemed to be lifting up the clouds. Ave turned round and saw on the opposite side another ocean, a living one of massed Faetian heads with their faces upturned to the rocket. As if to symbolise Faena's overpopulation, they were jammed incredibly close together. A sudden spasm of yearning clutched at Ave's throat. Would he ever come back again? But he looked at Mada. They had chosen this course themselves, and let it not be only the course of their own happiness. Ave still had little understanding of the true forces driving Faena into war. He only wished with all his heart that the mysterious planet Terr would prove suitable for settlement by Faetians and that the danger of a disintegration war would be over and done with forever. Ave again remembered Kutsi Merc, who had brought him here, brought him and Mada together and had, in fact, given his life for their happiness. May his bones rest in peace...
Kutsi Merc's bullet-riddled hump had not been taken to its goal, but the delayed-action fuse, decaying under the action of the air, was measuring out the last moments of peace on the planet Faena.
End of Part One