Sheltering in the deep abandoned mine-shaft, Kutsi Merc had survived the disintegration blast. The thunder above had long since died away.
It was damp underfoot. The raindrops were falling from above as if counting the moments. It seemed to Kutsi that they were measuring out infinite time. He sat there without strength or thoughts, dozing or in a faint. Only hunger made him rise to his feet. But he was afraid to see what awaited him above; he was afraid even to imagine it.
The raindrops were falling noisily, the only sounds to indicate that the world still existed. The world? What world? Dead puddles and dead raindrops?
His ravenous hunger drove Kutsi up the slippery metal rungs. Some of them wobbled. Kutsi could fall to the bottom of the well. And it would all be over. But the metal rungs held. There was a little blue circle high up above. Strange! The Nepts' cabin had been built directly over the mine-shaft.
The sky! With stars in it! Was it really night?
Kutsi climbed on upwards. The circle above him was growing bigger and brighter, and the stars were gradually disappearing. But certainly not because day was breaking. It was simply the effect of a darkened chimney, when stars are visible from the bottom in the daytime. The circle overhead was growing bigger while they were disappearing. Kutsi climbed out on to the surface.
Sol was at its zenith. The Nepts' cabin no longer existed. It had evidently been blown away when the stones were falling on to his shoulders.
The Faetian looked round and was dumbfounded. Not only had the Nepts' cabin disappeared, not a single roundhead shack was left standing. Everything around had been turned into an enormous refuse tip of garbage, pathetic kitchen utensils, smashed furniture and rubble. A jagged wall rose at an angle in the distance.
Kutsi made his way over to it. And immediately stumbled on the first corpses. The Faetians had been killed by the windstorm that had followed the disintegration explosion. Many were buried under the wreckage of their shacks, many had been carried through the air and dashed against any solid object in their way.
That was what had happened to the old Nept couple. Kutsi recognized their mangled bodies by their clothes.
A chill ran up and down Kutsi's spine. He had heard plenty about the disintegration weapon, but had never imagined that it would look like this after an explosion.
The wall he had reached proved to be part of some huge workshops in a suburb of Pleasure City. The building had collapsed, burying machines and the Faetians who worked in it. In its place towered an ugly pile of rubble.
Had no one survived at all?
Kutsi Merc's two hearts were thudding painfully in his breast and his temples throbbed accordingly. Why had the wounded one recovered?
Himself not knowing why, perhaps in the hope of meeting at least one living Faetian, Kutsi began wandering round Pleasure City.
His hunger, dulled by the initial horror, made itself felt again. Kutsi's mind was in shock, and instinct was forcing him to look for something edible in the mass of rubble.
Two mountainous ramparts rose like grey barkhans on either side of what had been a street. In one place, under the fused stones, he thought he saw food containers. He began digging into the pile and came upon a protruding hand. He could not force himself to dig any further and went on between the dunes of ash-covered rubble.
He had the feeling that he was wandering along an enormous dump of builders' rubble.
Kutsi had never thought that the devastation could be so complete. It was even impossible to make out the shapes of former buildings. There could be no thought of finding something to eat in this pile of rubble.
Kutsi was suffering the torments of hunger. And this combination of horror with the pangs of hunger was unnatural. He was disgusting even to himself.
However, a more powerful emotion was beginning to get the better of Kutsi.
Who was to blame for what had been done? Who had made a war of disintegration the purpose of his doctrine? Who had turned the continent into such a wilderness strewn with ashes?
Kutsi was overcome by a frenzied hatred of Dictator Yar Jupi; it flooded his whole being, it overshadowed everything that he had known, even the stipulations which the Great Circle of the proprietors had made about unleashing a disintegration war and which he had once reported to Dobr Mar. Kutsi Merc had failed to carry out his mission! The automatic systems console was intact. Yar Jupi had begun the disintegration war first!
When he climbed up the cone of rubble, Kutsi saw the ocean. Its shore was disfigured by a gigantic crater, now flooded with sea water. A torpedo had evidently exploded in the port. The enormous crater was ringed by a rampart that had covered part of the ruins. Clouds of sand and ooze had been thrown up from the seabed into the air during the explosion and had then fallen as dry ash onto the ruins.
Hatred, horror and the hopelessness of his position drove Kutsi further on. The results of a shock wave are freakish. In one place, he stumbled on the cross-section of a rocky hill with window openings and shapeless patches. When he went closer, Kutsi saw a pile of scrap iron driven into a wall.
In front of him he saw the wreckage of a steamcar that had been passing that way at the time of the explosion.
Nearby, on the fused stone, shone patches vaguely suggestive of Faetians.
Kutsi shuddered: "The white shadows of passers-by!" The pedestrians themselves had been vapourised by the incredible heat, but their shadows had been imprinted by the exploding star right there on the wall where the outlines, the mangled images of those who not long ago had been living human beings now showed up as lighter, less fused areas on the wall...
Kutsi could not bear it any longer. He ran back. His foot struck a stone that rolled over the slag of the roadway. A smashed jar of something edible! He picked it up. It proved to be carbon inside. The unprecedented heat had coked the contents, converting it into a black, coagulated mass.
Kutsi wanted to get to the central quarters of the city. But he already knew what he was going to see there: shadows on the walls, if the stones had not been piled into shapeless heaps, and endless ramparts of rubble...
Then Kutsi made a decision. What he had been through had clouded his mind. Not a single Faetian in possession of his faculties would have decided on the crazy plan that hatched out in Kutsi's inflamed brain.
Kutsi knew that he was doomed: the deadly radiation had long since penetrated his body. It would soon begin to make itself felt. There was very little time left. He had no hope of survival whatever! Nor had he any desire to live among the dead.
However, he considered himself under obligation to do his last duty.
With his characteristic determination, he went back across the heaps of rubble to the Great Shore where, not so long ago, a sea wave had brought Ave and Mada together.
The further away he was from the site of the explosion, the more hope there was of finding something to eat. A house lizard with charred skin was lying under a wall just like the bodies of the Nepts. The affectionate, quick-moving, nimble lizard had, of course, been a general favourite of the dead couple.
Kutsi laughed bitterly. The Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard had met him on the ship and had called him a carrion-eater. Had it occurred to the man that he would prove to be right?
Only at night did Kutsi reach the Temple of Eternity, or rather the mountain of stones lying where it had once stood. If his "hump" had been the cause of the explosion, then it might be possible to find a way into the underground by way of the crater.
Kutsi was certain that the electric power system had been put out of action and that the automatic doors would not be working.
He proved right in one respect and wrong in the other.
Only in the morning did he manage to find the way into the deep corridor where the explosion had occurred. The gallery was less cluttered with stones than everything else around, since the gases had shot out of it as from a gun-barrel.
Kutsi's frenzied will-power helped him to dig out the entrance into the underground where he had been "killed" by Yar Alt.
His old self again, Kutsi made his way like a spy along the walls, lighting his path with a pocket torch. But suddenly a bright light came on of its own accord. Kutsi Merc was overjoyed at this, but he was also frightened by it. If the supply to the underground rooms was still working, he would not be able to get through the closed walls. Yar Jupi was still alive. He was still sending disintegration torpedoes against Danjab. Kutsi Merc had no right to retreat.
A blank wall rose up in front of him. When Kutsi had crawled outside from there, the walls had been divided, which meant that this must be another route leading to the Dictator's underground Lair.
Kutsi Merc tried in vain to separate the walls, driving into a chink a piece of metal he had picked out on the surface.
Beads of cold sweat started up on his brow. He could not back out, he simply could not do it! He fixed a glare full of hatred at the spiral ornament on the accursed wall.
The wall divided.
Kutsi was well versed in the technology of automatic machines that could memorise the brain biocurrents. He instantly realized that they had been programmed to a particularly strong character trait of the chosen Faetians. For Yar Jupi himself, whom all automatic machines had, of course, to obey, the predominant characteristic was hatred. It was answered by the "blood doors", which were also tuned to Mada's kindly nature and that of her nanny. But Kutsi's hatred now was evidently not inferior to that of the Dictator himself. And so the automatic machines of the Lair went into action.
Kutsi ran along the illuminated corridor. Each time the wall barred his way, Kutsi's glare of hatred opened it.
After a steep downward slope, the corridor made a turn, emerging into a spacious apartment reminiscent of a palace hall with a vaulted ceiling. There was no furniture in it except for a huge cupboard with shining vertical slits.
Two enormous robots with cubic heads and articulated tentacles came rushing straight at him.
Kutsi guessed that he must have reached his goal. The Dictator's bunker!
Hatred made Kutsi Merc invincible. He rushed at the robots, ordering them to follow him. And the robots obeyed, programmed to respond to the Dictator's principal emotion.
Kutsi Merc stopped before the secretary-box, not admitting to himself that it might refuse to obey him.
"Open the study door!" he commanded, fixing his gaze on the machine's glowing slits.
The machinery of the Faetians was so sophisticated that it detected their moods. This height of development had its vulnerable side.
The secretary-box, manufactured in Dan-jab, was simply a machine always obedient to the will of its owner, the Dictator of Powermania. It now recognized this will in Kutsi and obeyed it.
The door to Yar Jupi's study opened. Yar Jupi jumped up from the table and stared in terror at the burly stranger with a wrestler's neck and a sneer on his face.
"Who are you?" shouted the Dictator, shaking from head to foot.
"Your judge," replied Kutsi coldly, advancing on him.
If Yar Jupi had not been in such a panic fear of living Faetians and had not kept them at a distance, Kutsi's plan would not have worked. But this time Kutsi was face to face with the Dictator in person.
"Robots! Security robots!" yelled Yar Jupi in a voice hoarse with terror.
The robots ran in, ready for action.
"Tie his hands together!" It was not Yar Jupi, but Kutsi who gave the order in a voice full of hatred.
Yar Jupi raged, screamed and ordered the robots to obey him, but his brain was radiating terror, not the hatred so familiar to the robots.
The robots unthinkingly bound the Dictator's hands.
"You are the greatest criminal of all time!" announced Kutsi Merc, standing before the helpless Dictator. He considered himself the only one who had survived to act on behalf of all the victims. "I bear within me the hatred of all the victims of your criminal doctrine, whose goal you made destruction and whose meaning was hatred. But there is a hatred greater than yours. I bring that hatred down on you in the name of the history of Reason!"
"I pray you for mercy," whined the Dictator. "Not many are left alive on Faena. I shall work humbly, like the last roundhead; I shall acknowledge the Doctrine of Justice, I shall grow flowers. Just look at the beauty I have raised. Let us go to the niche, let us savour the fragrance of those blossoms together."
"Silence. I shall not let you breathe the scent of your own flowers. Prepare yourself for the most shameful execution of all. I am going to switch on all the monitor screens and before the eyes of your fellows I am going to hang you!"
Kutsi Merc tore down the curtains covering the screens. The monitors lit up.
The terrified military leaders and members of the Blood Council watched helplessly from them.
Kutsi deftly pulled a cord out of the curtains, deftly tied a noose, jumped onto the desk and attached the cord to the chandelier hook. The noose dangled directly under the lamps. The table had to be moved aside.
Then Kutsi stood Yar Jupi, who was shaking with terror, on the Dictator's chair as if he were no more than a will-less puppet.
The robots moved away, watching the proceedings impassively. Kutsi noticed that on several screens the military leaders had covered their eyes with their hands, while on the others, the Faetians, with their cowls thrown back, were watching the progress of the execution with malignant glee.
"In the name of History," announced Kutsi Merc, and he kicked the chair from under the Dictator's feet.
Dobr Mar only came round from time to time, half-recumbent in the Ruler's chair and in a far from comfortable position.
All the screens in the bunker were dead. The lamps of the emergency lighting glowed dully.
The military leaders and the anguished Sister of Health were still fussing over the Ruler. Her name was, Vera Fae. All her family had perished up above: father, mother, husband, three daughters-all except her son, who had flown to Terr with a space expedition. Vera Fae was in despair. She could find strength only in attending to the sick Ruler.
Dobr Mar had lost the power of speech. His tongue, right hand and right leg were paralysed. He could only communicate with his eyes. Vera Fae alone could understand him.
Haggard, her hair turned white in the last few hours, with tear-stained eyes, she had not lost the gentle touch and warm voice of the doctor-all that the Ruler could respond to.
There was no one to take over from him. The "Ruler's friend", who was supposed to do so according to the law, had been killed up above, like millions of other Faetians.
The military leaders announced through Vera Fae that the reserve torpedoes had been expended. But barbarians' torpedoes were still showering down on their own continent, leaving a scene of total devastation.
The Ruler made an attempt to move. The Sister of Health looked into his eyes, trying to read his thoughts.
The chief of the disintegration weapons came up. He had been entrusted with that terrible means of aggression because of his known cowardice and reluctance to make his own decisions. Even this time he, too, wanted at all costs the Ruler's written consent to the detonation of the last, superpowerful underwater disintegration device which had been delivered under Kutsi Merc's supervision to the Great Shore, almost to the very place where Ave and Mada had once been surf-riding.
Dobr Mar could not understand the showily overdressed general who, his voice rising to a falsetto, tried to convince the Sister of Health by saying, "The destruction of the Dictator's underground Lair is our only salvation. Such is the will of the Great Circle."
Dobr Mar wearily closed his eyes.
"He agrees! He agrees!" said the hunchbacked general delightedly.
But Dobr Mar opened his eyes again and, in an effort to say something, stared at his desk.
Vera Fae took some inscribed tablets off it and held them in front of his eyes.
On seeing one of them, Dobr Mar looked down.
Vera Fae showed the tablet to the general.
"I know that!" he screeched like a cockerel. "When he invented the disintegration weapon, the honoured Elder Um Sat wanted to restrict its use and frightened the Faetians with the apparent prospect of all the planet's oceans being blown up."
Dobr Mar closed his eyes.
"Does Ruler Dobr Mar agree?" persisted the general. "Can the Sister of Health sign on his behalf a document authorising the detonation of the underwater disintegration device?"
"How can I do that if the Ruler himself has reminded us of the great Elder's warning?"
"A naive fabrication! As if all the waters of the oceans, in the event of a superpowerful explosion, would immediately disintegrate, releasing their energy like a supernova. And as if our whole planet would be turned into a tiny supernova."
"Don't you find that terrifying?" asked the Sister of Health.
"What could be more terrifying than what's already happened? The Dictator of Powermania must be stopped at all costs. An underwater explosion by the Great Shore will start an earthquake; it will destroy his bunker down there. The oceanic tidal wave will rise to the heavens, crash down on the Lair and flood it. If the Sister of Health can convince the Ruler, he will agree. His written order is needed for the explosion. He alone is responsible for everything."
The Sister of Health looked into the dim eyes of the sick man. He closed them.
"He agrees, at last he agrees!" howled the general, seizing the Ruler's lifeless hand and applying it to the plate. "Explode it!" shouted the general in a thin voice and, his leg dragging, he ran out of the study, plate in hand.
Dobr Mar watched him go with a frightened look. He wanted to say something, but was unable to.
The Sister of Health came to her senses and tried to stop the general, but the Ruler felt worse and she had to help him, wiping his face that was twisted in a grimace and was covered with beads of sweat.
The general returned. The order had been passed on. The explosion would take place...
"I take no responsibility for anything!" he shouted.