Android Karenina, Page 7

  “They’ve got one,” said Vronsky with evident enjoyment. He and Oblonsky watched as the 77 held the wriggling, roach-like koschei aloft. The fat peasant recoiled in horror from the twitching little bug-machine, its armor-plated back lined with quivering antennae, that had been playing stowaway in his shirtfront, while the fearsome 77 held the tiny thing carefully by the tip of its tail, carried it to a rubbish bin, and flicked it inside. While Vronsky and Oblonsky watched approvingly, a second 77 tossed a miniature I-bomb in after it, and slammed down the lid.

  With one motion, everyone in the station covered their ears, and Small Stiva and Lupo dampened their auditory sensors. A moment later came the deafening explosion, followed by silence, as the station filled with heavy, acrid smoke. A child burst into tears and was comforted by the heavy mechanical arms of a II/Governess/646.

  “Good show.” Oblonsky clapped, waving appreciatively at the 77s. “That will teach UnConSciya to trifle with the power of the Ministry. Nothing sneaks past us.”

  Vronsky shook his head and sighed. “Yes, yes. Though the Grav will be delayed, and Mother will be agitated.”

  “Of course,” Stepan Arkadyich agreed. “This is the price we pay for happiness,” he added, parroting one of the popular slogans which together comprised his political opinions.

  “By the way, did you make the acquaintance of my friend Levin?” asked Stepan Arkadyich of Count Vronsky, as the station’s normal hum of activity resumed and they waited at the platform’s edge for the Grav to arrive.

  “Yes; but he left rather early.”

  “He’s a capital fellow,” pursued Oblonsky. “Isn’t he?”

  “I don’t know why it is,” responded Vronsky, “in all Moscow people-present company of course excepted,” he put in jestingly, “there’s something uncompromising. They are all on the defensive, lose their tempers, as though they all want to make one feel something…”

  “Yes, that’s true, it is so,” said Stepan Arkadyich, laughing good-humoredly.

  “Are the tracks cleared? Will the Grav soon be in?” Vronsky asked a II/Station Agent/L26, when the last of the 77s had marched away.

  “Grav has signaled,” answered the Class II, a green light glowing affirmatively in the dead center of his faceplate.

  The approach of the magnificent Moscow-St. Petersburg High-Speed Antigravitational Massive Transport, was more and more evident by the preparatory bustle in the station, the rush of II/Porter/7e62s, the movement of II/Policeman/R47s, and people meeting the train. Through the frosty vapor could be seen II/GravWorker/X99s in their impregnable groznium outer-sheaths and soft, felt-lined roller wheels crossing the magnetized rails of the curving line.

  “No,” said Stepan Arkadyich, who felt a great inclination to tell Vronsky of Levin’s intentions in regard to Kitty. “No, you’ve not got a true impression of Levin. He’s a very nervous man, and is sometimes out of humor, it’s true, and his Class III is an odd duck indeed, but then he is often very nice. He has such a true, honest nature, and a heart of gold. But yesterday there were special reasons,” pursued Stepan Arkadyich, with a meaningful smile, totally oblivious of the genuine sympathy he had felt the day before for his friend, and feeling the same sympathy now, only for Vronsky. “Yes, there were reasons why he could not help being either particularly happy or particularly unhappy.”

  Vronsky stood still and asked directly: “How so? Do you mean he made your belle-soeur an offer yesterday?”

  This moment of exchanged confidences was interrupted by Lupo, who sat back on his haunches, flattened his ears against his head, and howled. Vronsky looked down at his beloved-companion inquiringly, but in the next moment the rest heard what Lupo had sensed: The gentle pulse of the Grav shooshing forward could be both heard and felt reverberating along the magnet bed.

  “Maybe,” said Stepan Arkadyich. “I fancied something of the sort yesterday. Yes, if he went away early, and was out of humor too, it must mean it… He’s been so long in love, and I’m very sorry for him.”

  “So that’s it! I should imagine, though, she might reckon on a better match,” said Vronsky, “though I don’t know him, of course,” he added. “Yes, that is a hateful position! That’s why most fellows prefer to have to do with II/Klara/X14s. If you don’t succeed with them it only proves that you’ve not enough cash, but in this case one’s dignity’s at stake. But here’s the Grav.”

  Now the platform was quivering, and with visible lines of electric force quivering above the magnet bed, the great hovering massive transport eased magnificently forward into the station, the stern figure of the II/Engineer/L42 covered with frost. Behind the tender, setting the platform more and more slowly swaying, came the luggage van with a dog whining in it. At last the passenger carriages whooshed in, de-oscillating for a full three minutes after the circuits were switched off and the Grav came to a standstill.

  A II/GravGuard/FF9 appeared, emitted a high whistle from a slanting slot in his groznium torso, and after him one by one the impatient passengers began to get down: an officer of the Border Regiments, holding himself erect in his silver uniform, and looking severely about him; a nimble little merchant with a Class II suitcase tucked under his arm, smiling gaily; a whistling peasant with a sack over his shoulder.

  Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the passengers, totally oblivious of his mother. What he had just heard about Kitty excited and delighted him. Unconsciously he swelled his chest, and his eyes flashed. He stooped to run his hand through Lupo’s bristling metallic fur. He drew himself erect and stood with his hand on the handle of the hot-whip that curled along his thigh. He felt himself a conqueror.

  “Countess Vronskaya is in that compartment,” said the Border Officer, going up to Vronsky.

  The officer’s words roused him, and forced him to think of his mother and his approaching meeting with her.

  CHAPTER 15

  VRONSKY FOLLOWED HIS FELLOW officer to the carriage, and at the door of the compartment he stopped short to make room for a lady getting out, followed by a tall, elegant Class III.

  As the woman and her beloved-companion stepped from the carriage, Lupo, uncharacteristically, narrowed his eyes to slits and growled in the back of his throat. Alexei Kirillovich, horrified at the implied insult, gestured sharply to his Class III for silence and then stood back from the door of the compartment to allow the woman and her android to pass. But for a long moment they simply stood in this tableau at the door of the carriage: Vronsky with his head bowed, Lupo back on his haunches, the stranger and her striking robot standing regally in the doorway.

  With the insight of a man of the world, it was clear to Vronsky that this woman belonged to the best society. When at last the tableau broke, and she and her Class III exited, and Vronsky was finally getting into the carriage, he felt he must glance at her once more; not because she was very beautiful, not on account of the elegance and modest grace which were apparent in her whole figure, but because in the expression of her charming face, as she passed close by him, there was something peculiarly caressing and soft. As he looked round, she too turned her head. Her shining gray eyes, which looked dark from the thick lashes, rested with friendly attention on his face, as though she were recognizing him, and then promptly turned away to the passing crowd, as though seeking someone. In that brief look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed eagerness that played over her face, and flitted between the brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips. It was as though her nature were so brimming over with something that, against her will, it showed itself now in the flash of her eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in the faintly perceptible smile. The android, walking a half step behind the woman, glowed a deep and regal indigo, allowing no expression, only accenting all that was remarkable about her mistress as she traveled at her side.

  SHE SHROUDED THE LIGHT IN HER EYES, BUT IT SHONE AGAINST HER WILL; THE ANDROID, WALKING BEHIND, GLOWED
A REGAL INDIGO

  Vronsky stepped into the carriage. His mother, a dried-up old lady with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up her eyes, scanning her son, and smiled slightly with her thin lips. Getting up from the seat and handing her robot a bag, she gave her little wrinkled hand to her son to kiss, and lifting his head from her hand, kissed him on the cheek.

  “You got my communiqué? Quite well? Thank God.”

  “You had a good journey?” said her son, sitting down beside her, and involuntarily listening to a woman’s voice outside the door. He knew it was the voice of the lady he had met at the door.

  In the next moment, the mysterious woman and her robot appeared again in the door of the Grav. “Could you see if Stepan Arkadyich Oblonsky is here, and send him to me?” she said politely to a II/Porter/7e62, who scuttled off obligingly. Vronsky understood now that this was Madame Karenina, and this her Class III, Android Karenina.

  “Your brother is here,” he said, standing up. “Excuse me, I did not know you, and, indeed, our acquaintance was so slight,” said Vronsky, bowing, “that no doubt you do not remember me.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, “I should have known you because your mother and I have been talking, I think, of nothing but you all the way.” As she spoke she let the eagerness that would insist on coming out show itself in her smile. “And still no sign of my brother.”

  “Do call him, Alexei,” said the old countess. Vronsky stepped out onto the platform, and shouted, “Oblonsky! Here!” Lupo let out a corresponding howl, long and low.

  Madame Karenina, meanwhile, did not wait for her brother, but catching sight of him she stepped out with her light, resolute step. And as soon as her brother had reached her, with a gesture that struck Vronsky by its decision and its grace, she flung her left arm around his neck, drew him rapidly to her, and kissed him warmly. Vronsky gazed, never taking his eyes from her, and smiled; he could not have said why. But recollecting that his mother was waiting for him, he went back again into the carriage.

  “She’s very sweet, isn’t she?” said the countess of Madame Karenina. “Her husband put her with me, and I was delighted to have her.” Madame Karenina entered the carriage again to say good-bye to the countess.

  “Well, Countess, you have met your son, and I my brother,” she said. “And all my gossip is exhausted. I should have nothing more to tell you.”

  “Oh, no,” said the countess, taking her hand. “I could go all around the world with you and never be dull. You are one of those delightful women in whose company it’s sweet to be silent as well as to talk. Now please don’t fret over your son; you can’t expect never to be parted.”

  Madame Karenina stood quite still, holding herself very erect, and her eyes were smiling. Vronsky noted with interest how his mother’s beloved-companion, a wiry gray machine-woman called Tunisia, looked distractedly about the carriage during this exchange, while Android Karenina’s careful and attentive posture mimicked that of her mistress precisely.

  “Anna Arkadyevna,” the countess was saying to him in explanation, “has a little boy eight years old, I believe, and she has never been parted from him before, and she keeps fretting over leaving him.”

  “Yes, the Countess and I have been talking all the time, I of my son and she of hers,” said Madame Karenina, and again a smile lighted up her face, a caressing smile intended for him.

  “I am afraid that you must have been dreadfully bored,” he said, promptly catching the ball of coquetry she had flung him. He thrust one leg forward in an offhandedly dashing pose, displaying the hot-whip that flickered in its transparent sheath along the outer curve of his leg. But apparently she did not care to pursue the conversation in that strain, and she turned to the old countess.

  “Thank you so much. The time has passed so quickly. Good-bye, Countess.”

  “Good-bye, my love,” answered the countess. “Let me kiss your pretty face. I speak plainly, at my age, and I tell you simply that I’ve lost my heart to you.”

  Clichéd as the phrase was, Madame Karenina obviously believed it and was delighted by it. She flushed, bent down slightly, and put her cheek to the countess’s lips, drew herself up again, and with the same smile fluttering between her lips and her eyes, she gave her hand to Vronsky. He pressed the little hand she gave him, and was delighted, as though at something special, by the energetic squeeze with which she freely and vigorously shook his hand.

  Just as she did, a great BOOM echoed through the Grav station. All present silenced their conversation and paused in their activity-even the industrious II/Porter/7e62s stopped short on their stubby legs and wheeled in small circles, aural sensors pulsing. This BOOM, despite its tremendous power, came from no evident source; it was as if a crack had opened in the sky, through which had come the sound of God pounding his fist upon a table. And though others would later deny it, even scoff at the notion, many present later swore that the sky, at the moment of the blast, flickered an uncanny shade of blackish purple.

  Vronsky hastened to calm his mother, patting her hand and saying soothingly, “Koschei, Madame. The 77s captured one and detonated it in the station. Likely this was another.” Vronsky was aware, of course, that this was a well-meaning but preposterous falsehood: the BOOM had sounded nothing like that of the koschei being junkered in the rubbish bin-indeed it sounded like no explosion he had heard in his life, and he had heard many.

  Anna Karenina, meanwhile, stared uneasily up at the sky, feeling the reverberations of the BOOM to the pit of her stomach. Only when Android Karenina placed a gentle, reassuring hand at the small of her back could Anna shake off the unpleasant sensation. She then exited with the rapid step which bore her rather fully developed figure with such strange lightness.

  “Very charming,” said the countess.

  That was just what her son was thinking. Vronsky’s eyes followed her till her graceful figure was out of sight, and then the smile remained on his face. Vronsky saw out of the window how this remarkable woman went up to her brother, put her arm in his, and began telling him something eagerly, obviously something that had nothing to do with him, Vronsky, and at that he felt annoyed.

  “Well, Mamma, are you perfectly well?” he said, and gave his mother his arm. But just as they were getting out of the carriage, a small fleet of Class II/StationMaster/44s buzzed officiously past, their alarm lights flashing an urgent red. Obviously something unusual had happened. The crowd who had left the Grav were running back again.

  A cold feeling crept over Vronsky, as he caught a whiff of some terrible burning rising off the tracks.

  “What?… What?… Where?… Burned?… Crushed! was heard among the crowd. Stepan Arkadyich, with his sister on his arm, turned back. They too looked scared, and stopped at the carriage door to avoid the crowd. Vronsky interposed himself between Madame Karenina and the platform edge, instinctively desiring to block from her vision whatever gruesome scene lay on the magnet bed below.

  It was a battered corpse, evidently first fallen on the magnet bed then crushed by the rushing force of the oncoming Grav. The rumor making its way rapidly through the agitated crowd said the dead man had been a stowaway, riding the Grav without a ticket, when he was discovered by a troop of 77s. The heavy-booted machine-men had brought the anonymous rider to their Caretaker, who had demanded his name and occupation. The stowaway had refused to answer and the gold-uniformed Caretaker had dutifully declared him a Janus, a hateful enemy of Mother Russia, and ordered him thrown in front of an arriving Grav.

  But Vronsky, who knew that such stories were often mere concoctions to shield the public from some unpalatable truth, retained an agitated feeling about this accident. He averted his eyes from the wrapped, smoldering corpse as the 77s with their strong pipe-like arms tossed it unceremoniously into the back of a carriage.

  Before Vronsky and Oblonsky came back, the ladies had heard the tale from other onlookers. Oblonsky was evidently upset. He frowned and seemed ready to cry.

  “Ah, how awful! Ah, Anna, if yo
u had seen it! Ah, how awful!” he said.

  Madame Karenina walked with her brother, Small Stiva and Android Karenina walking a few paces behind. Anna was lost in thought: twice in the last half hour, a disturbing feeling had passed through her, a penumbra of creeping dread radiating from some unknown origin. This feeling had first occurred when the station rattled with that reverberating BOOM and again when she glanced at the platform edge-and seen, despite Count Vronsky’s efforts to block her view, the hooded corpse lifted without ceremony from the magnet bed.

  Madame Karenina seated herself in his carriage, and Stepan Arkadyich saw with surprise that her lips were quivering, and she was with difficulty restraining her tears.

  “What is it, Anna?” he asked, when they had driven a few hundred yards.

  “This death, it touches me somehow,” she said. “I cannot understand it.”

  “What nonsense!” said Stepan Arkadyich, his genial nature reasserting itself against the mess and unpleasantness of death. “Our 77s have discovered a traitor, and acted swiftly and appropriately! Bravo, and praise God for our tireless protectors! You’ve come, that’s the chief thing. You can’t conceive how I’m resting my hopes on you.”

  “Have you known Vronsky long?” she asked, trying to match her brother’s easy calm. She glanced at Android Karenina, who bathed her in reassuring silence and a gentle lavender glow. Unusual for a Class III robot, Android Karenina never spoke, only buttressed by her constant reassuring presence Anna’s natural feeling of dignity and reserve.

  “Yes,” Stiva answered cheerily. “You know we’re hoping he will marry Kitty.”