14.

By morning Maxim had maneuvered the self-propelled tank onto the road and turned its nose southward. He could have kept going. Instead, he climbed out of the control compartment, jumped down to the broken pavement, sat down at the edge of the road, and wiped his dirty hands in the grass. Beside him the rusty monster rumbled peacefully, pointing its rocket's sharp tip into the murky sky.

Although he had worked through the night, he wasn't tired. The natives had built well: the tank was in pretty good shape. It wasn't mined, and he was surprised to find manual controls. If anyone were blown up in such a tank, it would be due either to a worn-out reactor or its driver's technical incompetence. True, the reactor was functioning at only twenty percent of capacity, and its chassis was rather battered, but Maxim was satisfied. It exceeded all his expectations.

It was almost six in the morning and quite light. It was the hour when the convicts were drawn up into columns, fed hastily, and driven out to work. Surely his absence had been noticed by now, and most likely he was already considered a fugitive and condemned to death. Or perhaps Zef had invented some excuse -- like a sprained ankle or a bad wound.

The forest had grown still. The "dogs," who had been calling out to each other through the night, had quieted down and had probably returned to their underground world. They were probably rubbing their paws together gleefully, recalling how they had frightened those two-legged creatures the preceding day. These dogs would have to be investigated, but he must leave them behind for the time being. He wondered if they were immune to radiation. Strange creatures.

During the night, while he was working on the engine, two of them observed him quietly from the bushes. Then a third arrived and climbed into a tree, to see better. Leaning out of the hatch, he waved to it; and, for kicks, he reproduced, as closely as possible, the four-syllable word the chorus had chanted yesterday. The creature in the tree became furious; its eyes glittered, its wool bristled, and it began to scream guttural insults. The two in the bushes were evidently shocked by this outburst; they rushed off and never returned. The creature cursing in the tree stayed for a long time, unable to calm down. It hissed, spat, made threatening gestures, as if it were about to attack, and bared its white fangs. It was nearly morning when it finally departed, convinced that Mac had no intention of accepting its challenge to do honorable battle. They were hardly intelligent in a human sense, but they were interesting creatures. Most likely they had some sort of social organization. After all, they had driven a military garrison, commanded by the duke, from the Fortress. The information about them was very meager, only rumors and legends... Oh, how he'd like to soak in a nice hot tub right now. His skin was burning; the reactor leaked. If Zef and Vepr agreed to join him, he'd have to shield the reactor with three or four plates -- strip the armor from the sides.

A distant thud echoed through the forest: the sappers had begun their working day. How utterly senseless. Another thud. A machine gun began to clatter, continued for a long time, and then was still. It was a clear day and quite bright. The cloudless ski was a luminous milky white. The concrete on the road glittered with dew, but the ground around the tank was dry: its armor radialed an unhealthy heat.

Suddenly Zef and Vepr emerged from the underbrush onto the road. When they spotted the tank they ran faster. Maxim rose to meet them.

"You're alive." Zef greeted him. "I'm not surprised. But I brought you some bread. Eat up, fast!" "Thanks." Maxim took the thick slice of bread.

Leaning on his mine detector, Vepr stood there watching him.

"Get it down fast, Mac, and take off!" said Zef. "They've come for you back there."

"Who?" Maxim stopped chewing.

"We don't know the details. Some idiot with buttons from head to toe. He was shouting at the top of his lungs. Wanted to know why you weren't there. And I was almost shot. So I stared at him hard and reported that you were killed in a mine field and your body was not found."

Zef walked around the tank. "What lousy luck." He sat down and rolled a cigarette.

"That's strange," said Maxim, biting off a piece of bread. "Why? For further interrogation?"

"Could it be Fank?" asked Vepr in a low voice.

"Fank? Medium height, square face, scaly skin?"

"Not likely!" said Zef. "This was a big lanky fellow covered with pimples. A real imbecile -- the Legion."

"That's not Fank."

"Maybe on Fank's orders?" asked Vepr.

Maxim shrugged his shoulders and stuffed the last crust of bread into his mouth.

"I don't know," he said. "I used to think that Fank was connected somehow to the underground, but now I don't know what to think."

"I think you'd better get out of here," said Vepr. "Although, to tell the truth, I don't know what's worse, the mutants or that Legion bureaucrat."

"All right, let him go," said Zef. "He wouldn't work for you as a messenger anyway. And this way, at least he'll bring back some information -- if he survives."

"I suppose you aren't coming with me."

Vepr shook his head. "No. I wish you luck."

"Get rid of the rocket," suggested Zef. "Or you'll blow yourself up. Now, here's the situation. There are two more outposts ahead of you. You can slip past them easily. They face south. Farther on it gets worse. The radiation is terrible, nothing to eat, mutants. And still farther -- sand and no water."

"Thanks," said Maxim. "Good-bye."

He jumped onto the tread, flung open the hatch, and climbed into the hot semidarkness. He was about to pull the levers when he remembered that he had one more question. He put his head out.

"Why is the real purpose of the towers kept from the rank-and-file underground?"

Zef frowned and spat, and Vepr replied sadly: "Because most of the staff hope to seize power someday and use the towers in the same way, but in their own interests."

For several seconds they looked each other straight in the eye, Zef turned away and carefully glued a cigarette with his tongue. "I hope you make it," said Maxim, turning to the levers.

Rumbling and clanging, its treads crunching, the tank began to roll forward.

Driving the tank was difficult. There was no seat for the driver, and the pile of branches and grass that Maxim had arranged at night fell apart very quickly. Visibility was terrible, and the tank wouldn't pick up speed. At twenty miles an hour, something in the engine began to rumble and sputter, and it was burning oil. But the tank's ability to negotiate any terrain was still excellent. Road or no road -- it didn't matter: it tore calmly through bushes, rolled over shallow ruts, and crushed fallen trees. It ignored saplings growing through the shattered pavement, and it snorted with pleasure as it crossed over a deep hole filled with black water. It held its course beautifully, but turning it was difficult.

Since the road was quite straight and it was dirty and stuffy in the compartment, Maxim finally set the manual gas lever, climbed out, and settled himself comfortably on the edge of the hatch, beneath the rocket's latticed mount. The tank forged ahead as if this were the route it had originally been programmed for. There was something smug and simple about its behavior, and Maxim, who loved machines, patted its armor affectionately.

Ah, life could be pleasant! To the right and left the forest slipped away, the engine rumbled, the radiation above was negligible, and the comparatively clean breeze felt good on his hot skin. Maxim raised his head and glanced at the rocket's swaying nose. He must get rid of it: it was excess weight. No, it wouldn't explode -- it had been inoperative for a long time: he had checked it out last night. But it weighed some ten tons and there was no point in dragging it along.

As the tank crawled forward, Maxim climbed along the rocket mount to look for a release device. He found it, but it was badly rusted, and he had to work on it for some time. While he was busy, the tank turned off the road twice, howling indignantly and knocking down trees. Each time Maxim had to rush back to the controls, calm down the iron fool, and maneuver it back onto the road. Finally the release device was repaired, and the rocket reeled heavily, crashed to the pavement, and rolled ponderously into the drainage ditch. The tank moved more easily. At that moment, Maxim spotted the first outpost.

At the edge of the forest stood two large tents and a van. Smoke curled above a field kitchen. Two legionnaires, stripped to the waist, were washing -- one was pouring water over the other from a mess tin. A sentry in a black cape stood in the middle of the road and looked at the tank. On the right were two columns joined by a crossbar; something long and white, almost touching the ground, hung from it. Maxim dropped down into the compartment so his checkered prison uniform would not be visible and thrust his head through the hatch. The sentry gaped at the tank, withdrew to the shoulder, and looked around absentmindedly at the van. The half-naked legionnaires stopped washing and stared at the tank. Several more men, attracted by the tank's rumbling, came running from the tents and van. One wore an officer's uniform. They were surprised but not alarmed. The officer pointed to the tank, made a remark, and everyone laughed. When Maxim reached the sentry, the sentry shouted something that was drowned out by the engine, and Maxim shouted in reply: "Everything's in order. Stay where you are!"

The sentry couldn't make out his words either, but the expression on his face indicated that he was satisfied. Waving the tank on, he returned to his position in the middle of the road. Everything had turned out all right.

Turning his head, Maxim saw at close range what was swinging from the crossbar. He glanced at it for a split second, sat down quickly, frowned, and grabbed the controls. "Oh, God, I shouldn't have looked. What the hell possessed me to turn my head! I should have kept going and never would have known anything." He forced himself to open his eyes. "Damn it, I have to face it! I have to get used to it. Now that I've undertaken this mission, I don't have the right to look away. It must have been a mutant; even death couldn't disfigure a person so terribly. Life itself can. It will do it to me, too. I can't hide from it: must get used to it. Ahead of me may be hundreds of miles of roads covered with gallows."

When he thrust his head through the hatch again and looked back, neither the outpost nor its lone gallows by the road wen visible. If only he could go home right now! He'd keep going in this tank, and, at the end of his journey, there it would be -- home. His parents and friends. He'd wake up in the morning, wash, and, at breakfast, describe his nightmare about an inhabited island. He tried to picture Earth, but he couldn't: it was almost beyond his imagination to conceive of a place in the universe with clean, cheerful cities, billions of good, intelligent people, and mutual trust everywhere. "Well, you were looking for a job," he thought, "and you got it all right. A rough job, a dirty job, bat I doubt that you'll ever find one more important."

Ahead of him, on the other side of the road, appeared some sort of vehicle, crawling slowly southward. It was a small caterpillar tractor, pulling a trailer piled with metal trusswork. In its open cab sat a man in a prison uniform smoking a pipe. He glanced indifferently at Maxim and the tank and then turned away. "I wonder what kind of framework that is," thought Maxim. "It certainly looks familiar." He suddenly realized that it was a section of a tower. "I ought to shove the works into a ditch and roll over it a few times." He looked around; the expression on his face evidently had intimidated the tractor's driver. The driver braked suddenly, getting ready to jump out and run. Maxim turned away.

About ten minutes later he spotted the second outpost. It was the advance outpost of a vast army of slaves in prison uniforms (although maybe these slaves were, in a sense, the freest people in the country). There were two modern houses with shiny zinc roofs. A squat gray guardhouse with gunports like black slits rested on a small man-made hill. The first sections of the tower were already rising above it; around the hill stood cranes and tractors, and steel girders lay scattered about. For several hundred yards to the right and left of the road, the forest had been destroyed, and men in checkered clothing pottered about here and there along the clearings. A long low barracks was visible behind the cottages. A gray rag was drying on a clothesline in front of it. A short distance away, next to the road, stood a wooden tower with a platform; a sentry in a gray uniform paced along the platform, where a machine gun rested on a tripod. More soldiers were gathered beneath the platform; their faces showed the strain of coping with boredom and insects. All were smoking.

"I'll probably get through here, too, without any fuss," thought Maxim. "This is the end of the world, and they don't give a damn about anything." He was wrong. The soldiers stopped waving away the insects and stared at the tank. One of them, a gaunt fellow who looked very familiar, straightened his helmet, walked out to the middle of the road, and raised his hand. "You're wasting your time, buddy," thought Maxim. "I've made up my mind to get through here, and nothing's going to stop me." He slid down toward the controls, made himself more comfortable, and put his foot on the accelerator. The soldier continued to stand in the road with his hand raised. "Now I'll give it the gas," thought Maxim. "Let out a good, loud roar and scare him out of the way. If he doesn't move -- well, war is war."

Suddenly he recognized the soldier. It was Guy. Thin, hollow-cheeked, in baggy army fatigues.

"Oh, my God," mumbled Maxim.

He slid his foot off the accelerator and switched off the ignition. The tank slowed down and stopped. Guy dropped his hand and walked toward him slowly. Maxim began to laugh: everything had turned out well after all. He turned on the ignition again and steadied himself.

"Hey," shouted Guy, tapping the armor with his gun butt. "Who are you?"

Maxim did not respond.

"Is anyone in there?" A note of doubt had crept into Guy's voice.

His hobnailed boots clanked along the armor, the hatch opened from the left, and Guy thrust his head into the compartment. When he saw Maxim, his mouth dropped open. Maxim grabbed him by his fatigues, pulled him inside, pushed him down on the branches beneath his feet, and stepped on the accelerator. The tank roared and leaped forward. "I'll ruin the engine," thought Maxim. Guy twisted and turned; his helmet had ridden down over his face; he could see nothing and kicked blindly, trying to pull out his gun from under him. Suddenly the thunder and clatter of guns filled the compartment: machine-gun fire was hitting the real of the tank. It was safe inside, but most unpleasant, and Maxim watched impatiently as the forest's walls advanced toward them. Closer and closer they came. At last, the first bushes. A checkered figure recoiled from the road. Now he was surrounded by forest; the clatter of bullets against the armor had ceased, and the road ahead was clear for hundreds of miles.

Finally, Guy managed to pull out the gun; at the same time, Maxim tore off Guy's helmet and saw his sweaty, snarling face. He laughed when the rage, terror, and thirst to kill dissolved first into bewilderment, then amazement, and finally joy. Guy's lips moved, forming "massaraksh!"

Maxim left the controls and embraced him. Holding him by the shoulder, he said: "Guy, buddy, am I glad to see you!"

It was impossible to hear through the noise of the engine. Maxim looked through the peephole. The road ahead was straight, so he set the manual accelerator again, climbed out of the compartment, and pulled Guy after him.

"Massaraksh!" said the bedraggled Guy. "It's you again!"

"Am I glad to see you!" repeated Maxim.

"What's this all about?" shouted Guy. His initial joy had already subsided, and he looked around him anxiously. "Where an you going? Why?"

"To the South," said Maxim. "I've had enough of your hospitable country!"

"Escape?"

"Yes!"

"You're crazy. They spared your life."

"Who spared my life? It's my life! It belongs to me!"

It was difficult to talk; they had to shout over the engine. Somehow the conversation deteriorated into a heated exchange. Maxim leaped through the hatch and slowed down the engine. The tank moved more slowly, but the roaring and clanging lessened. When Maxim climbed back, Guy was frowning, and his face was set in a determined expression.

"It's my duty to take you back," he announced.

"And it's my duty to drag you away from here," replied Maxim.

"I don't understand. You're completely out of your mind. It's impossible to escape. You must return. Massaraksh, I can't take you back. You'll be shot. And in the South, you'll be eaten by those cannibals. Damn you and your crazy ideas!"

"Hold on, Guy, don't shout. Give me a chance to explain."

"I don't want to hear anything. Stop the tank!"

"Now, wait a minute," persisted Maxim. "Let me talk!"

Guy was unrelenting. He demanded that the illegally seized tank be stopped immediately and returned. The engine's roar drowned out a string of curses. The situation, massaraksh, was horrendous. It was hopeless, massaraksh! Ahead, massaraksh, waited certain death. To go back, massaraksh, would lead to the same. Maxim was a blockhead and a lunatic, but this escapade would be his last.

Maxim deliberately refrained from interrupting Guy's tirade. He realized that the range of the last tower's radiation field ended somewhere in this area, had perhaps ended: the last outpost was supposedly located at the outer limit of the most distant radiation field. Let the poor devil get it off his chest; talk was cheap on the inhabited island. "Curse all you want to," he thought to himself, "but I'll drag you out of here anyway. This country is no place for you. We must begin with someone, and you're the first. I don't want you to be a puppet, even if you enjoy it."

When Guy had finished cursing out Maxim, he jumped through the hatch and tinkered with the controls, trying to stop the tank. Unsuccessful, he climbed out again, wearing his helmet. He was silent and determined. Obviously he intended to jump off and return to his post. He was furious. Maxim caught him by his pants, pulled him back, and began to explain the situation.

He spoke for over an hour, pausing occasionally to turn the tank. At first Guy tried to interrupt, plugged his ears, and attempted to jump off the moving vehicle. But Maxim persisted, talking on and on, repeating the same thing over and over again, explaining, persuading, dissuading. Finally, Guy began to pay attention. He grew pensive, upset, ran both hands under his helmet and scratched his head; then he took the offensive and began to quiz Maxim. Where, he wanted to know, did he get all his facts, and who could prove that they weren't a pack of lies? Maxim kept hammering away with facts, and when he had exhausted his supply, he swore that he had been telling the truth. When Guy still failed to respond, he called him a blockhead, puppet, and robot. Meanwhile the tank continued to roll southward, deeper and deeper into the land of mutants.

"Well, all right. We'll check it out right now." Maxim was seething. "According to my calculations, we left the radiation field quite a while ago, and it's now about ten minutes before ten. What do all of you do at ten o'clock?"

"At ten o'clock -- formation."

"Exactly. And you form up into even ranks and yell your lungs out about being ready to shed blood for your cause. Remember?"

"And it comes straight from our hearts," said Guy.

"No, it's hammered into your empty skulls. Never mind, we'll find out very soon where it comes from. What time is it?"

"Seven minutes before ten," replied Guy dejectedly.

"Well?"

Guy looked at his watch and sang in a faltering voice: "Forward, legionnaires, men of iron..."

Maxim gave him a mocking look. Guy became confused and mixed up the words.

"Stop staring at me," he said angrily. "You're upsetting me. Besides, it's hard to sing well out of formation."

"Don't give me that stuff. You used to do just as well outside of formation. It was frightening to watch you and Uncle Kaan. You'd be bellowing 'Men of Iron,' and Unc would be drawling 'Glory to the Creators.' And Rada, too. So, Guy, what has suddenly happened to your intense desire to burn and slaughter for the glory of the Creators?"

"Don't you dare talk that way about the Creators! If what you say is true, it means only that the Creators were duped."

"Who duped them?"

"Well... there are many people who..."

"So the Creators are not all-powerful?"

"I don't want to discuss the subject," declared Guy. His face grew even more gaunt, his eyes lost their luster, his lower lip dropped.

His markedly changed appearance reminded Maxim of two prisoners on the train en route to the penal colony. They were addicts, unfortunate people addicted to very powerful narcotics. Deprived of their poison, they could neither eat nor sleep and would sit for days at a time like Guy, eyes dull, lower lip drooping.

"What's wrong, Guy? Are you in pain?"

"No," replied Guy dejectedly.

"Why are you so sulky?"

"Oh, I don't know." Guy tugged at his collar. "I feel sort of lousy. Maybe I'll lie down."

He climbed through the hatch and lay down on the branches with his knees drawn up. "So that's how it is," thought Maxim. "It's not as simple as I thought." He grew uneasy. "We moved out of the field's range almost two hours ago, so Guy did not receive his usual radiation dose. He's been living inside that field all his life. Maybe he needs it. Suppose he gets sick?" He looked through the hatch at the pale face and grew increasingly fearful. Finally, unable to restrain himself any longer, he jumped into the compartment, turned off the engine, dragged Guy outside, and laid him on the grass by the side of the road.

Guy muttered and twitched in his sleep. Then he began to shiver; he hunched himself up, as if trying to warm his body. Maxim placed Guy's head on his knees, pressed his fingers to his temples, and tried to concentrate. He hadn't performed psychomassage for a long time, but he knew that everything except the patient must be excluded from one's consciousness. He must assimilate the patient into his own healthy system. For ten or fifteen minutes he maintained the same position, and when he returned to his normal state of consciousness, he saw that Guy had improved. His color had improved, his breathing was regular, and his shivering had ceased. Maxim made a pillow out of grass and sat next to him for a while, chasing away the insects. Suddenly he remembered the long journey ahead of them and the leaky reactor. That was dangerous for Guy; he must figure something out. He rose and returned to the tank.

It took him some time to remove several sheets of armor plating, held fast by rusted rivets, from the side of the tank; then he fastened the sheets to a ceramic shield that separated the reactor and engine from the control compartment. As he was about to attach the last sheet, he sensed the approach of a stranger. He thrust his head through the hatch cautiously. A cold shiver ran through him.

On the road, about ten paces from the tank, stood three figures. Maxim did not realize immediately that they were humans. True, they wore clothing, and two of them were holding a pole across their shoulders, from which dangled the bloody head of a small hoofed animal, like a deer. And a huge rifle of unfamiliar make was slung across the pigeon breast of the third figure. "Mutants. These are the mutants." All the tales and legends he had heard suddenly came to mind and appeared quite plausible: cannibals, savages, animals. Clenching his teeth, he jumped onto the armor plating and rose to his full height. The figure holding the rifle shuffled his short bowed legs comically, without moving from the spot. He raised his hand with its two long multijointed fingers, hissed loudly, and then said in a scratchy voice: "Do you want to eat?"

Maxim relaxed. "Yes."

"You won't shoot?"

"No," Maxim smiled. "I promise."