Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - Crabs on the Island

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Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - Molecular Cafe - Crabs on the

Island

CRABS ON THE ISLAND

Anatoly DNEPROV

From the SF compilation “THE MOLECULAR CAFE”

MIR PUBLISHERS

Moscow

1968

_______________________________________________________ OCR:

http://home.freeuk.com/russica2

"Hey, you there! Be careful!" shouted Cookling at the sailors who, standing up to

their waists in the water, were trying to drag a small wooden case along the gunwale

of the boat. It was the last of ten crates the engineer had brought to the island.

"Phew! Isn't it hot! Like a furnace," he groaned, wiping his thick red neck with a

bandana handkerchief. Then he pulled off his sweat-soaked shirt and threw it on the

sand. "Take your things off, Bud; there's no civilization here."

Dejectedly I watched the light schooner rocking gently on the waves at a distance

of a mile or so from the shore. It would come back for us in three weeks' time.

"Why the devil did we have to come to this sun-hell with your machines?" I

demanded of Cookling as I undressed. "With a sun like this we'll be peeling like

cucumbers tomorrow."

"Never mind. The sun will come in useful. Incidentally, it's exactly noon, and it's

just above our heads."

"It's always like that at the equator," I muttered, not taking my eyes off the

"Dove". "All the geography books tell you that."

The sailors had come over to us and were standing in silence before the engineer.

Unhurriedly he put his hand in his trouser pocket and took out a wad of notes.

"Is that enough?" he asked, giving them several. One of them nodded.

"In that case you can return to the ship. Remind Captain Gale we shall expect him

in twenty days' time."

Then Cookling turned to me. "Let's get busy, Bud," he said. "I'm impatient to

begin." I stared at him.

"To tell you the truth, I don't know why we've come here. I understand that it

may not have been convenient at the Admiralty for you to tell me about it. But I think

you can now."

Cookling grimaced and looked down at the sand.

"Of course I can. I would have told you all about it even then but there was no

time."

I felt he was lying, but said nothing. Cookling stood rubbing his purple neck with

his greasy palm. He always did that when he was going to tell a lie, I knew, and now

that was quite sufficient for me.

"You see, Bud, we're going to perform an interesting experiment to test the

theories of that. . . what's his name. . .?" He hesitated and looked searchingly at me.

"That English scientist. Damn it, I've clean forgotten his name. No, I've got it-

Charles Darwin."

I went over to him and put my hand on his bare shoulder.

"Look here, Cookling. You seem to think I'm a brainless idiot who doesn't know

who Darwin was. Stop lying and tell me straight why we've landed on this blazing

scrap of land in the middle of the ocean. And please don't mention Darwin to me

again."

Cookling burst out laughing, displaying a mouthful of false teeth. Backing away a

few paces, he said, "You're an ass, Bud, all the same. Because it is Darwin we're

going to test here."

"And that's what you've dragged ten crates of old iron here for?" I demanded,

moving close to him again. Hatred for this fat sweating man began to well up inside

me."Yes," he said, and his smile vanished. "As for your duties, the first thing you

have to do is to open crate No. 1 and get out the tent, water, tinned stuff and the

tools to open the others."

Cookling spoke in the same tones he had used when I had first met him at the

firing-ground. He had been in military uniform then, and so had I.

"Very good," I muttered and went over to case numbered one.

Within two hours we had pitched a tent on the beach, and put a spade, crowbar,

hammer, chisel, several screw-drivers, and other tools into it. In addition we stowed

away about a hundred tins of different foods and containers of fresh water.

In spite of being the boss, Cookling worked like a bull and was, indeed, all agog

to get started. With all the work, we did not notice that the "Dove" had weighed

anchor and disappeared behind the horizon.

After supper we started on crate No. 2. It contained an ordinary two-wheeled

barrow of the kind used at railway stations to carry luggage.

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