Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - The Snail on the Slope

Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. The snail on the slope

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Origin: "Ulitka na sklone"

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Chapter One

From this height, the forest was like foam, luxuriant and blotchy, a

gigantic world--encompassing porous sponge, like an animal waiting in

concealment, now fallen asleep and overgrown with rough moss. A formless

mask hiding a face, as yet revealed to none.

Pepper shook off his sandals and sat down with his bare legs dangling

over the precipice. It seemed to him that his heels at once became damp, as

if he had actually immersed them in the warm lilac fog that lay banked up in

the shadows under the cliff. He fished out the pebbles he had collected from

his pocket and laid them out neatly beside him. He then selected the

smallest and gently tossed it down into the living and silent, slumbering,

all-enveloping indifference, and the white spark was extinguished, and

nothing happened--no branch trembled, no eye half-opened to glance up.

If he were to throw a pebble every one and a half minutes, and if what

the one-legged cook, nicknamed Pansy, said was true and what Madame Bardot,

head of the Assistance to the Local Population Group, reckoned, if what

driver Acey whispered to the unknown man from the Engineering Penetration

Group was untrue, and if human intuition was worth anything at all, and if

wishes came true once in a lifetime, then at the seventh stone, the bushes

behind him would part with a crash, and the director would step out onto the

soft crushed grass of the dew-gray clearing. He would be stripped to the

waist in his gray garbardines with the lilac braid, breathing heavily, sleek

and glossy, yellow-pink and shaggy, looking nowhere in particular, neither

at the forest beneath him nor at the sky above him, bending down to bury his

arms in the grass, then unbending to raise a breeze with his broad palms,

each time the mighty fold on his belly bulging out over his trousers, while

air, saturated with carbon dioxide and nicotine, would burst out of his open

mouth with a whistling gurgle.

The bushes behind parted with a crash. Pepper looked around cautiously,

but it wasn't the director, it was someone he knew, Claudius-Octavian

Haus-botcher from the Eradication Group. He approached without haste and

halted two paces away, looking Pepper up and down with his piercing dark

eyes. He knew something or suspected something, something very important,

and this knowledge or suspicion had frozen his long face, the stony face of

a man who had brought here to the precipice a strange, alarming piece of

news. No one in the whole world knew what this news was, but it was already

clear that everything had altered decisively; what had gone before was no

longer significant and now, at last, everyone would be required to

contribute all he was capable of.

"And whose might these shoes be?" said he, glancing about him.

"They're not shoes, they're sandals," said Pepper. "Indeed?"

Hausbotcher sneered and withdrew a large notepad from his pocket. "Sandals?

Ver-ry good. But whose sandals are they?"

He edged toward the brink, peeped cautiously down and stepped back

smartly.

"Man sits by the precipice," he said, "next to him, sandals. The

question inevitably raises itself: whose sandals are they and where is their

owner?" "They're my sandals," said Pepper. "Yours?" Hausbotcher looked

doubtfully at the large notepad. "You're sitting barefooted, then? Why?"

"Barefoot because I've no choice," explained Pepper. "Yesterday I

dropped my right shoe and decided from now on, I'll always sit barefoot." He

bent down and looked between his splayed knees. "There she lies. I can just

drop this pebble in. . "

Hausbotcher adroitly seized him by the arm and appropriated the pebble.

"It is indeed just a pebble," he said. "That, however, makes no

difference as yet. Pepper, it's incomprehensible why you're lying to me. You

can't possibly see the shoe from here--even if it's there, and whether it is

or not is another question, which will be gone into later--and if you can't

see the shoe, ergo you can't hit it with a stone, even if you possessed the

necessary accuracy and actually did wish to do that and only that. I mean

hitting. . . . But we'll sort all that out presently." He hitched up his

trousers and squatted down on his haunches.

"So you were here yesterday as well," he said. "Why? For what reason

have you come a second time to the precipice, where the other Directorate

personnel, not to mention temporary staff, only come to obey the call of

nature?"

Pepper slumped. This is just plain ignorance, he thought. No, no, it's

not a challenge, nor is it spite, no need to take it seriously. It's just

ignorance. No need to take ignorance seriously. Ignorance excretes itself on

the forest. Ignorance always excretes itself over something.

"You like sitting here, seemingly," Hausbotcher went on insinuatingly.

"You like the forest a lot, seemingly. You love it, don't you? Answer me!"

"Don't you?" asked Pepper.

"Don't you forget yourself," he said aggrieved and nipped open his

notepad. "As you very well know, I belong to the Eradication Group and

therefore your question, or rather your counterquestion is entirely devoid

of meaning. You understand perfectly well that my attitude to the forest is

defined by my professional duty; what defines your attitude to it is not

clear to me. That's bad, Pepper, you need to think about that. I'm advising

you for your own good, not for mine. You mustn't be so unintelligible. Sits

on the edge of the cliff in bare feet, throwing pebbles. . . . Why, one

asks? In your place I'd tell me everything straight out. Get everything

sorted out. Who knows, there could be extenuating circumstances. Nothing's

threatening you anyway. Is it, Pepper?"

"No," said Pepper, "that is, of course, yes." "There you are.

Simplicity disappears at once and never comes back. Whose hand? we ask.

Whither the cast? Or, perhaps, to whom? Or, as it may be, at whom? And why?

And how is it you can sit on the edge of the cliff? Is it inborn or have you

done special training? I, for example, am unable to sit on the edge of the

cliff, and I can't bear to think why I might train for such a thing. I get

dizzy at the thought. That's only natural. Nobody needs to sit on the cliff

edge. Especially if he doesn't have a permit to enter the forest. Show me

your permit, if you please, Pepper." "I haven't got one." "So. Not got. Why

is that?"

"I don't know. . . . They won't give me one, that's all."

"That's right, not given out. This we know. And why don't they give you

one? I've got one, he's got one, they've got one, plenty of people have

them, but for some reason you don't get one."

Pepper stole a cautious glance at him. Hausbotcher's long emaciated

nose was sniffing, his eyes constantly blinking.

"Probably it's because I'm an outsider," suggested Pepper. "Probably

that's why."

"I'm not the only one taking an interest in you, you know," Hausbotcher

confided. "If it were only me! People a bit higher up than me are taking an

interest. Listen, Pepper, could you come away from the edge, so we can carry

on. I get dizzy looking at you."

Pepper got up and began leaping about on one leg as he fastened his

sandal.

"Oh dear, please come away from the edge!" cried Hausbotcher in agony,

waving his notepad at Pepper.

"You'll be the death of me someday with your antics."

"That's it," said Pepper, stamping his foot. "I shan't do it again.

Let's go, shall we?"

"Let's go," said Hausbotcher. "I assert, however, that you haven't

answered a single one of my questions. You pain me, Pepper. Is this any way

to go on?" He looked at the bulky notepad and placed it under his armpit

with a shrug. "It's very odd, definitely no impressions, let alone

information."

"All right, what should I answer?" said Pepper. "I just wanted to have

a talk with the director here."

Hausbotcher froze, as if trapped in the bushes. "So that's how you go

about it." His voice was altered.

"Go about what? There's no going about. . . ."

"No, no," whispered Hausbotcher, gazing about him, "just keep silent.

No need for any words. I realize now. You were right."

"What've you realized? What was I right in?"

"No, no, I haven't understood anything. I haven't understood, period.

You may rest absolutely assured. Haven't understood a thing. I wasn't even

here, I didn't see you."

They passed by the little bench, climbed the crumbling steps, turned

into an alley strewn with red sand, and entered the grounds of the

Directorate.

"Total clarity can exist only on a certain level," Hausbotcher was

saying. "And everybody should know what he can lay claim to. I claimed

certainty on my level, that was my right and I exercised it fully. Where

rights end, obligations begin. . . ."

They passed the ten flat cottages with tulle curtains at the windows,

passed the garage, cut across the sports ground, and went by dumps and the

hostel, in whose doorway stood a deathly-pale warden with motionless

pop-eyes, and by the long fencing beyond which could be heard the snarling

of engines. They kept quickening their pace and as there was little time

left, they began to run. But all the same, they burst into the canteen too

late, all the seats were taken. Only at the duty table in the far corner

were there two places, the third being occupied by driver Acey, and driver

Acey, observing them shuffling in indecision on the threshold, waved his

fork at them, inviting them over.

Everybody was drinking yogurt and Pepper took the same, so that they

had six bottles on the crusted tablecloth, and when Pepper moved his legs a

bit under the table, making himself more comfortable on the backless chair,

there was a clink of glass and an empty brandy bottle rolled out between the

little tables. Driver Acey swiftly grabbed it and thrust it back under the

table; more glass clinked.

"Careful with your feet," he said.

"I couldn't help it," said Pepper. "I didn't know."

"Did I know?" responded Acey. "There's four of them under there. Prove

your innocence later if you can."

"Well I, for instance, don't drink at all," said Haus-botcher with

dignity.

"We know how you don't drink," said Acey. "That's how we all don't

drink."

"But I have liver trouble!" Hausbotcher was growing uneasy. "Look,

here's the certificate." He pulled a crumpled exercise-book page out from

somewhere; it had a triangular stamp. He shoved it under Pepper's nose. It

was indeed a certificate written in an illegible medical hand. Pepper could

only make out one word "antabus." "I've got last year's and the year before

that as well, only they're in the safe."

Driver Acey didn't look at the paper. He drained a full glass of

yogurt, sniffed the joint of his index finger, and asked in a tearful voice:

"Well, what else is there in the forest? Trees." He wiped his eyes with

his sleeve. "But they don't stand still: jump. Got it?"

"Well?" asked Pepper eagerly, "what was that-- jump?"

"Like this. It stands still. A tree, right? Then it starts hunching and

bending, then whoosh! There's a noise, crashing, I don't know what all. Ten

yards. Smashed my cab. There it is standing again." "Why?" asked Pepper.

" 'Cos it's called a jumping tree," explained Acey pouring himself more

yogurt.

"Yesterday, a consignment of new electric saws arrived," announced

Hausbotcher, licking his lips. "Phenomenal productivity. I would go so far

as to say that they weren't electrosaws but saw-combines. Our saw-combines

of eradication."

All around they were drinking yogurt out of cut glasses, tin mugs,

little coffee cups, paper cones, straight out of the bottle. Everybody's

legs were stuck , under their chairs. And everyone probably could show his

certificate of liver, stomach, small intestine trouble. For this year and

for the last several.

"Then the manager calls me in," Acey went on, raising his voice, "and

he asks why my cab's stove in. 'Again,' he says, 'sod, giving people lifts?'

Now you, Mr. Pepper, play chess with him, you might put in a little word for

me. He respects you, he often talks of you, 'Pepper,' he says, 'he's a

character! I won't give a vehicle for Pepper and don't ask. We can't let a

man like that go. Understand, all you zombies, we couldn't carry on without

him!' Put in a word, eh?"

"All right," Pepper brought out in a low voice, "I'll try."

"I can speak with the manager," said Hausbotcher. "We served together.

I was a captain and he was my lieutenant. He greets me to this day, bringing

his hand to his headgear."

"Then there's the mermaids," said Acey, weighing his glass of yogurt.

"In big clear lakes. They lie there, get it? Nothing on."

"Your yogurt's putting ideas into your head," said Hausbotcher.

"I haven't seen them myself," rejoined Acey. "But the water from those

lakes isn't fit to drink."

"You haven't seen them because they don't exist," said Hausbotcher.

"Mermaids, that's mysticism."

"You're another mysticism," said Acey, wiping his eye with a sleeve.

"Wait a bit," said Pepper, "wait a bit. Acey, you say they're lying ...

is that all? They can't just lie and that's all."

"Maybe they live underwater and float up onto the surface, just like we

go out onto the balcony to escape from smoke-filled rooms on moonlit nights

and, eyes closed, bare our face to the chill, then they can just lie. Just

lie and that's all. Rest. And talk lazily and smile at each other. . . ."

"Don't argue with me," said Acey, looking obstinately at Hausbotcher.

"Have you ever been in the forest? Never been in there once, have you, to

hell."

"Silly if I did," said Hausbotcher. "What would I be doing there in

your forest? I've got a permit into your forest. And you, Acey, haven't got

one at all. Show me, if you please, your permit, Acey."

"I didn't see the mermaids myself," repeated Acey, turning to Pepper,

"but I entirely believe in them. Because the boys have told me. So did

Kandid even, and he was the one who knew everything about the forest. He

used to go into that forest like a man to his woman, put his finger on

anything. He perished there in his forest."

"If he did," said Hausbotcher significantly.

"What do you mean 'if'? Man flies off in his helicopter, three years no

sight or sound. His obituary was in the paper, we held the wake, what more

d'you want? Kandid crashed, that's for sure."

"We don't know enough," said Hausbotcher, "to assert anything with

complete certainty."

Acey spat and went to the counter to order another bottle of yogurt. At

this, Hausbotcher leaned over and whispered in Pepper's ear, his eyes

darting:

"Bear in mind that touching Kandid there was a sealed directive. ... I

consider it right for me to inform you, because you are a person from

outside."

"What directive?"

"To regard him as alive," said Hausbotcher in a hollow whisper and

moved away. "Nice, fresh yogurt today," he announced loudly.

Noise increased in the canteen. Those who had already breakfasted were

getting up, scraping chairs, and making for the exit, lighting up and

throwing match-sticks on the floor. Hausbotcher surveyed them malevolently

and said to everyone as they passed: "Strange behavior, gentlemen, you can

surely see we're having a discussion."

When Acey returned with his bottle, Pepper spoke to him.

"The manager didn't really say he wouldn't provide me with a vehicle,

did he? He was just joking, wasn't that it?"

"Why should he? He likes you, Mister Pepper, bored without you and it's

just not worth his while to let you go. ... Well if he lets you, what's in

it for him? No joking."

Pepper bit his lip.

"How the devil can I get away? There's nothing more for me to do here.

My visa's running out, and anyway I just want to get away."

"Anyhow," said Acey, "if you get three reprimands, they'll sling you

out in two shakes. You'll get a special bus, they'll get a driver up in the

middle of the night, you won't get time to collect your bits of things. . .

. Here the boys work it this way. First warning, a reduction in rank;

second, you're sent to the forest to expiate your sins. Third reprimand,

thank you and good night. If I wanted the sack, for example, I'd drink half

a jar and sock this guy in the jaw," he indicated Hausbotcher. "They'd take

away my privileges and transfer me to the crap-wagon. Then what do I do?

Drink another half-jar and give him another one--got it? They'd take me off

the crap-wagon and send me out to the biostation to catch some old microbes.

But I don't go. I drink another half-jar and give it to him across the chops

for the third time. Well that's the end of it. Sacked for hooligan conduct

and deported in twenty-four hours."

Hausbotcher waved a threatening finger at Acey.

"Misinformation, misinformation, Ace. In the first place, at least a

month must elapse between the actions, otherwise all the misdemeanors will

be regarded as one and the transgressor will simply be put in jail without

any further steps being taken within the Directorate. Secondly, following

the second misdemeanor, they send the convicted man to the forest at once

under guard, so that he will be deprived of any opportunity to carry out a

third offense at his own discretion. Don't pay any attention to him, Pepper,

he knows nothing about these matters."

Acey took a mouthful of yogurt, frowned, and wheezed out a confession.

"True, enough. I really . . . well. I'm sorry, Mister Pepper."

"Doesn't matter, what the. . . ." said Pepper sadly. "I still can't hit

a man in the face whichever way you put it."

"It doesn't have to be the . . . jaw," said Acey. "You can make it the

... the behind. Or just rip his suit." "No, I can't do it," said Pepper.

"Too bad, then," said Acey. "That's your trouble, Mister Pepper. Here's what

we'll do. Tomorrow morning around sevenish, come around to the garage, get

in my truck, and wait. I'll take you." "You will?" Pepper was overjoyed.

"Well I've got to take a load of scrap metal to the mainland. We'll go

together."

Somebody suddenly gave a terrible shout in the corner. "What do you

think you're doing? You've spilled my soup!"

"A man ought to be simple and straightforward," said Hausbotcher. "I

don't understand, Pepper, why you want to get away from here. Nobody wants

to leave,just you."

"I'm always like that," said Pepper. "I always do the opposite. Anyway,

why should a man always be simple and straightforward?"

"A man ought to be teetotal," announced Acey, sniffing the joint of his

index finger, "what d'you think, eh?"

"I don't drink," said Hausbotcher. "And I don't drink for a very simple

reason, one that anyone can understand. I have a liver complaint. You can't

catch me out, Ace."

"What gets me about the forest," said Acey, "is the swamps. They're

hot, get me? It turns me around. I just can't get used to it. You plop in

somewhere . . . then you're off the brushwood road. There I am in my cab,

can't climb out. Just like hot cabbage soup. There's steam coming off it and

it smells of cabbage soup--I tried a mouthful once, but it's no good, not

enough salt or something . . . no, the forest is no place for a man. What

more do they want to know about it? They drive their machines on and on into

it, like a hole in the ice--and they still write if off, and down they go,

and they still. ..

"Green odorous abundance. Abundance of colors, abundance of smells.

Abundance of life. And all of it alien. Somehow familiar, a resemblance

somewhere, but profoundly alien. The hardest part was to accept it as alien

and familiar at one and the same time, derived from our world, flesh of our

flesh--but broken away, not wishing to know us. An apeman might think the

same way about us, his descendants, grieving and fearful . . ."

"When the order comes out," proclaimed Hausbotcher, "we shall move some

real stuff in there, not your lousy bulldozers and landrovers--in two months

will turn it all into ... er ... a concrete platform, dry and level."

"You will turn it," said Acey. "If you don't cop one in the jaw, you'll

turn your own father into a concrete platform. For straighforwardness sake."

The siren started up thickly. The glass in the windows rattled and

above the door a massive bell hammered out, lamps flickered on the walls,

while above the counter a large sign lit up: "Get up and leave!" Hausbotcher

rose hastily, adjusted his watch and without a word went off at a run.

"Well, I'm off," said Pepper. "Work to be done."

"Time to go," agreed Acey. "Time's up."

He divested himself of his quilted jacket, rolled it up neatly, and

moved the chairs so as to lie down, using the jacket as a pillow.

"Tomorrow at seven, then?" said Pepper.

"What?" asked Acey in a drowsy voice.

"I'll be here tomorrow at seven."

"What d'you say?" Acey asked, tossing about on the chairs. "Place is

going to the dogs, bastards," he mumbled. "How many times have I told them

to get a sofa in here. . . ."

"To the garage," said Pepper. "Your truck."

"Ah-h. . . . Well, to do that thing, we'll see. It's not that easy."

He tucked up his legs, stuck his palms under his armpits, and started

snuffling. His arms were heavy and a tattoo could be glimpsed under the

hair. "What destroys us" was written there, also, "Ever onward." Pepper made

for the exit.

He crossed an enormous puddle in the backyard on a board, skirted a

mound of empty jam-jars, crept through a hole in the fence, and entered the

Directorate building via the service entrance. It was cold and dark in the

corridors, which reeked of tobacco, dust, and old papers. There wasn't a

soul anyway, no sound could be heard from behind the leatherette doors.

Pepper went up to the second floor by way of a narrow staircase without a

handrail, clinging to the dilapidated wall. He went up to a door above which

a sign flickered on and off. "Wash your hands before work." A large black

letter M showed up on the door. Pepper thrust at the door and experienced a

slight shock on discovering it was his own office. That is, of course, it

wasn't his office; it was Kirn's, chief of Science Security, but Pepper had

put a table in there and now it stood sideways near the door by the tiled

wall; half the table was, as usual, taken up with a mothballed Mercedes.

Kirn's table stood by the large, well-cleaned window; he was already at

work, sitting hunched-up and consulting a slide rule.

"I wanted to wash my hands," said Pepper, at a loss.

"Wash away, wash away," Kim nodded. "There's the washbasin. It's going

to be very convenient. Now everybody will be coming to see us."

Pepper went over to the basin and began washing his hands. He washed

them in hot and cold water, two kinds of soap, and special grease-absorbent

paste, rubbed them with a bast whisp and brushes of varying degrees of

stiffness. After that he switched the electric dryer on and for some time

held his moist pink hands in the howling stream of warm air.

"They announced at four that they were transferring us to the second

floor," said Kim. "Whereabouts were you? With Alevtina?"

"No, I was at the cliff-edge," said Pepper, seating himself at his

table.

The door opened wide and Proconsul entered the room with a rush, waved

his briefcase in greeting, and disappeared behind the curtain. The door of

his study creaked and the bolt shot home. Pepper took the sheet off the

Mercedes, sat without moving, then went over to the window and flung it

open.

The forest wasn't visible from here, but it was there. It always was

there, though it could only be seen from the cliff. Anywhere else in the

Directorate something was in the way. In the way were the cream structures

of the mechanical workshops and the four-story garage for staff cars. In the

way were the cattle-yards of the farm area and the washing hung out near the

laundry with its spin dryer permanently out of commission. In the way was

the park with its flowerbeds and pavilions, its big-wheel and

plaster-of-paris bathers, covered with penciled grafitti. In the way stood

cottages with ivy-draped verandahs adorned with the crosses of television

antennae. From here, however, the first-floor window, the forest was hidden

by a high brick wall, incomplete as yet, but very high, which rose around

the flat-roofed one-story Engineering Penetration building. The forest could

only be seen from the cliff-edge.

However, even a man who had never seen the forest, heard nothing about

it, never thought about it, wasn't afraid of it, and never yearned for it,

even such a man could easily have guessed at its existence if only because

of the simple existence of the Directorate. I, for example, have thought

about the forest, argued about it, dreamed about it, but I never even

suspected its actual existence. I became convinced of its existence not when

I first went out onto the cliff-edge, but when I first read the notice near

the entrance: "Forest Directorate." I stood before this notice with a

suitcase in my hand, dusty and dehydrated after the long journey, reading

and re-reading it, and felt weak at the knees, for now I knew that the

forest existed and that meant that everything that I had thought about it up

till now was the toyings of a feeble imagination, pale impotent falsehoods.

The forest exists and this vast, somewhat grim building is concerned with

its fate.

"Kim," said Pepper, "surely I'll get into the forest. I'm leaving

tomorrow, after all."

"You really want to go there?" asked Kim absently. "Hot green swamps,

irritable and timorous trees, mermaids, resting on the water under the moon

from their mysterious activity in the depths, wary enigmatic aborigines,

empty villages . . ." "I don't know," said Pepper.

"It's not for you, Peppy," said Kim. "It's only for people who've never

thought about the forest, who've never given a curse about it. You take it

too much to heart. The forest, for you, is dangerous, it will trap you."

"Very likely," said Pepper, "but after all I came here just to see it."

"What do you want the bitter truth for?" asked Kim. "What'll you do

when you've got it? What'll you do in the forest, anyway? Cry over a dream

that's become your destiny? Pray for it to be different? Or, who knows,

maybe start to re-work what there is and must be?"

"So why did I come here?"

"To convince yourself. Surely you realize how important it is--to be

convinced. Other people come for different reasons. Maybe to see miles of

firewood, or find the bacteria of life, or write a thesis. Or get a permit,

not to go into the forest but just in case: come in handy sometime and not

everybody's got one. The limit of their little intentions is to make a

luxury park out of the forest, like a sculptor producing a statue from a

block of marble. So they can keep it trim. Year in, year out. Not let it be

a forest again."

"It's time I got away from here," said Pepper. "There's nothing for me

to do here. Somebody's got to go, either me or all of you."

"Let's multiply," said Kim and Pepper seated himself at his table,

found the wall-plug by feel, and plugged in the Mercedes.

"Seven hundred and ninety three, five hundred and twenty-two by two

hundred and sixty-six, zero eleven."

The machine began to chatter and leap. Pepper waited for it to settle,

then hesitantly read out the answer.

"All right. Clear it," said Kim. "Now, six hundred and ninety-eight,

three hundred and twelve, divide for me by twelve fifteen. . . ."

Kim dictated the figures, Pepper picked them out, pressed the

multiplier and divider keys, added, subtracted, derived roots, everything

proceeded as normal.

"Twelve by ten," said Kim. "Multiply."

"One oh oh seven," dictated Pepper automatically, then woke up and

said: "Wait, it's lying. It should be a hundred and twenty."

"I know, I know," said Kim, impatient. "One zero zero seven," he

repeated. "Now get me the root of ten zero seven. . . ."

"Just a minute," said Pepper.

The bolt clicked again behind the curtain and Proconsul appeared, pink,

fresh, and satisfied. He began to wash his hands, humming the while "Ave

Maria" in a pleasant voice. After this he announced:

"What a marvel it is after all, this forest, gentlemen! It's criminal

how little we talk and write about it! And it is indeed worthy of

description. It ennobles, it arouses the highest feelings. It facilitates

progress. We, however, are totally unable to stem the spread of unqualified

rumors, stories, and jokes. There is no real forest propaganda being done.

People talk and think about the forest hell knows. . . ."

"Seven hundred and eighty-five multiplied by four hundred and

thirty-two," said Kim.

Proconsul raised his voice. His voice was powerful and well modulated.

The Mercedes became inaudible.

" 'As if we lived in the forest. . .' 'Forest people . . .' 'You can't

see the wood for the trees.' 'If you're in the forest, you're after

firewood.' That's what we have to fight against! To eradicate! Let's say

that you, Monsieur Pepper, don't fight against it, why not? After all, you

could do a detailed, meaningful lecture on the forest at the club, but you

do no such thing. I've been keeping tabs on you for quite a while, it's been

wasted time waiting. What's the matter?"

"Well, I've never been there, have I?" said Pepper. "That doesn't

matter. I haven't been there either, but I've read a lecture, and judging by

the response, it was most useful. It's not whether you've been in the forest

or not, it's a matter of ridding the facts of this encrustation of mysticism

and superstition, laying bare the essence of things, having cleansed it of

adornments placed upon it by philistines and utilitarians. . . ."

"Twice eight divide into forty-nine minus seven times seven," said Kim.

The Mercedes got going. Proconsul once again raised his voice:

"I did it as a trained philosopher. You could do it as a qualified

linguist. I'll give you the points and you can develop them in the light of

the latest linguistic research ... if that's the theme of your thesis?"

"It's 'Stylistic and Rhythmic Characteristics of Feminine Prose in the

Late Heian based on Makwa-no Sosi,' " said Pepper. "I'm afraid that . . ."

"Ex . . . cell . . . ent! Just the thing. And emphasize the fact that

it's not swamps, it's excellent therapeutic mud-baths; not jumping trees but

the end product of high-power research; not natives or savages, rather an

ancient civilization of proud, free, modest, and powerful people with noble

intentions. And no mermaids. No lilac veils of fog, no veiled hints--forgive

me for a poor pun-- That will be excellent, mynheer Pepper, just splendid.

It's a good thing you know the forest, so's you can introduce your own

personal impressions. My lecture was good too, but, I fear, somewhat

over-speculative. As the basis of my material, I made use of conference

minutes. Whereas you as one who has researched into the forest . . .."

"I'm not a forest researcher," said Pepper earnestly. "I'm not allowed

into the forest. I don't know the forest at all."

Proconsul, nodding absently, wrote something swiftly on his shirt cuff.

"Yes!" said he. "Yes, yes. It is the bitter truth, alas. Alas, we still

find pockets of formalism, bureaucracy, heuristic approach to the

personality. . . . You can talk about that as well, by the way. You can, yes

you can, everybody talks about that. Meanwhile, I shall attempt to get your

speech agreed with the higher-ups. I'm damned glad that you'll give us a

hand in our work after all, Pepper. I've had a very careful eye on you for a

very long time. . . . There you are then. I've noted your name down for next

week!"

Pepper unplugged the Mercedes.

"I won't be here next week. My visa has expired and

I'm going tomorrow."

"Well, we'll fix that somehow. I'll go to the director, he's a club

member himself, he'll understand. You can reckon to stay another week."

"No," said Pepper. "That won't be necessary." "Oh, yes it will!" said

Proconsul, looking him straight in the eye. "You know perfectly well it is,

Pepper! Good day."

He brought two fingers to his temple and made off, waving his

briefcase.

"It's like a spider's web!" said Pepper. "Am I a fly to them or what?

The manager doesn't want me to leave, Alevtina doesn't and now this one.

..."

"I don't want you to leave either," said Kim.

"But I can't stand it here anymore!" "Seven hundred and eighty-seven,

multiply by four hundred and thirty-two. ..."

"I'll leave all the same," thought Pepper, depressing the keys. "I'll

leave anyway. You may not want it but I will. I shan't be playing ping-pong

with you, or playing chess, or sleeping with you, or drinking tea with jam.

I don't want to sing you any more songs or calculate for you on the

Mercedes, sort out your arguments for you or now read you lectures you won't

understand anyway. And I'm not going to think for you, either. Think for

yourselves, and I'm leaving. Leaving. Leaving. You'll never understand that

thinking isn't a pastime, it's a duty. . . ."

Outside, beyond the incomplete wall, a piledriver thumped heavily,

pneumatic hammers knocked, bricks spilled with a roar. Four workmen in

forage caps were sitting side by side, stripped to the waist and smoking. As

a finishing stroke, a motorcycle roared into life under his window and

ticked over noisily.

"Somebody from the forest," said Kim. "Better multiply me sixteen by

sixteen."

The door burst open and a man ran into the room. He had on a

boiler-suit and an unbuttoned hood dangled on his chest from a length of

radio flex. From boots to waist the boiler-suit bristled with the pale-pink

arrows of young shoots while the right leg was entwined with an orange

plaited liana of endless length and which trailed along the floor. The liana

was still twitching a bit and it seemed to Pepper a very tentacle of the

forest, which would reach out at any moment and drag the man back--through

the corridors of the Directorate down the staircase, along the yard wall,

past the canteen and the workshops, then down the dusty road, through the

park, past the statues and pavilions, up to the entrance to the Serpentine,

to the gates, but not into them, past them to the precipice, and down. . . .

He was wearing motorcycle goggles, and with his face thickly powdered

with dust, Pepper did not at once recognize Stoyan Stoyanov from the

biostation.

He was holding a large paper bag. He made several steps on the tiled

floor with its mosaic picturing a woman taking a shower, and halted in front

of Kim, concealing the paper bag behind his back and making odd head

movements as if his neck was itching.

"Kim," he said, "it's me."

Kim made no reply. His pen could be heard tearing and scratching the

paper.

"Kimmy," Stogan said, ingratiating. "I'm asking you, on my knees."

"Get lost," said Kim. "Maniac."

"It's the very last time," said Stoyan. "The very, very last little

time!"

He moved his head again and Pepper saw in the depression at the back of

his skinny shaven neck a tiny little pink shoot, sharply pointed and already

twining, trembling, avid.

"Just pass it over and say it's from Stoyan, that's all. If he starts

telling you to go to the cinema, tell him you've got urgent overtime. If he

offers you tea, say you've already had some. And don't accept any wine if he

suggests it. Eh? Kimmikins! For the very last time for ever and ever!"

"What're you fidgeting about for?" Kim asked irritably. "Here, turn

around!" "Got one again?" asked Stoyan, turning. "Well, it doesn't matter.

Just so you hand that over, nothing else matters."

Kim, leaning forward over the table, was busy with his neck, kneading

and massaging, elbows spread. He bared his teeth from squeamishness and

muttered curses. Stoyan patiently shifted his weight from foot to foot, head

bent and neck extended.

"Hello, Peppy," said he. "Long time no see. What're you doing here?

I've brought some again . . . what can I do? . . . Very, very last time

ever." He unwrapped the paper and showed Pepper a small bunch of

poison-green forest flowers. "Boy, what a smell! What a smell!"

"Stop pulling, you," cried Kim. "Stand still. Maniac.

Useless."

"Maniac. Useless," agreed Stoyan ecstatically. "But! For the last time

ever and ever!"

The pink shoots on his boiler-suit were already wilted and wrinkling,

raining down on the brick face of the lady under the shower.

"There," said Kirn. "Now get out."

He moved away from Stoyan and threw something half alive, squirming and

bloody into the waste-bin.

"I'm going," said Stoyan. "Right away. But, well, our Rita's acting up

again. I'm afraid to be away from the biostation. Peppy, you might come over

and have a word with them, eh?"

"What next!" said Kim. "Pepper's not needed there."

"What d'you mean, not needed?" Stoyan exclaimed. "Quentin's fading away

before your eyes! Just listen. Rita ran off a week ago--all right. Okay,

what can you do? But, she came back that night all wet, white, and icy cold.

The guard was questioning her, unarmed, and she did something to him, so

he's been senseless ever since. And the whole experimental compound has been

invaded by grass."

"Well?" said Kim.

"Quentin cried all morning. . . ."

"I know all about that," Kim broke in. "What I don't get is how Pepper

comes into it."

Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - The Snail on the Slope

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