He turned to look at her; her lips were slightly parted as she lifted her lovely face toward his.
He turned to look at her; her lips were slightly parted as she lifted her lovely face toward his.
He turned to look at her; her lips were slightly parted as she lifted her lovely face toward his.
And it struck him like a thunderbolt why the others had laughed when Sonia said they were going to see flowers at Samsonov's suggestion, and what the pressure had been on him for. He said abruptly, "Do you know where Ann went—the photographer who was with us?"
"To look at flowers with Pitrim Androvich." Her glance was neither disappointed nor hostile, merely a trifle wide-eyed as though she had just discovered something frightening. She let his hand drop.
VI
So that was the play, thought Heidekopfer, a trifle grimly. The Patriarch was going to make off with Ann while providing him with a substitute and putting the heat on him to accept. He scrambled up and reached a hand to Sonia Grigorevna. "Let's get back to the others, if it is your will."
Later, back with the others Heidekopfer confided his ideas. "If you will forgive me," said Lanzerotti, "I find your theory slightly fantastic."
"So do I," said Rosa. "I haven't been conscious of any sense of pressure or the headachy feeling you mention, and I haven't done a thing I didn't really want to do."
They were sitting in the ambassador's room at the Samsonov house, and it was not yet dark enough to make the candles necessary, although they were lighted. Ann wasn't there. Heidekopfer drew a long breath. "The only thing I can suggest is that you have been influenced too, to some extent. Come on, look at it objectively. Won't you admit the possibility?"
"As a matter of principle, yes," said Lanzerotti. "This is an island culture in the sense that it has been cut off from contact with others, and I'm well aware that island races often develop on aberrant lines. But I see no signs of the compulsions you mention."
"Not even Dubrassov? When he tried to warn us about something and couldn't?"
Lanzerotti smiled. "I'm afraid Dubrassov's case is a rather simple one of hallucination. It was explained to me this afternoon. They don't lock up their mental cases here; they simply let them take that cure, which amounts to a kind of shock-treatment in view of their usual habits."
"Damn it!" said Heidekopfer, but Lanzerotti held up a hand. "Listen, Bob," he said, "I quite understand your annoyance and the reason for it. And I will say that I'm a little surprised at Ann's behavior with our friend the Patriarch. But that's a purely personal matter, and shouldn't be allowed to cloud the diplomatic issue, which is above personalities. And on that level I haven't encountered anything to justify your apprehensions."
"The evidence of pattern? You mentioned it once before. The suicides?"
"The suicides were just suicides. I hinted at the matter and one of them—I think it was Vikhranov—came right out with the explanation without even being asked. It seems that the suicide cases among the castaways were people who had some strong tie or reason for going back, but still couldn't bear to leave Tolstoia once they got here. A simple case of a conflict they were unable to resolve."
Heidekopfer got up and began to pace the floor, his brow set in a frown. "Well, anyway," he said at last, "I might as well tell you that I'm doing something practical about what you call my apprehensions. After what developed at the picnic I radioed South Bergenland for a helio. It will be here tonight, and I'm going back on it and taking Ann with me. I advise you to come, too."
Rosa Lanzerotti trilled a little laugh. "I don't think you'll find Ann particularly grateful—or particularly willing," she said.
"Then by God I'll get help to make her willing!" cried Heidekopfer.
"Wait—" began Lanzerotti, but he was already out the door and almost running down the corridor toward the apartment occupied by the Samsonovs. Not knowing what the custom was, he knocked. A female voice said, "Enter, in the name of the Master."
Mrs. Samsonov, looking as mysterious as ever, was sitting beside a table with one of the girls who served at table, sewing on something. "Good evening, Robert Murrayovich," she said. "Pitrim Androvich is out this evening."
"As a matter of fact, it was you that I wanted to see," he said, "and alone, if possible."
She glanced at the girl. "Is it your will to leave at the desire of the little father?"
"The will of one is the will of all," said the girl, picked up her sewing and went through a door at the back as Mrs. Samsonov faced Heidekopfer. "What is it you desire to say, Robert Murrayovich?"
He hesitated. "Well, it's rather difficult, and I hope you won't be offended—but—"
"In happy Tolstoia we do not take offense at what Nature gives us to do."
"That's very nice of you. Well, it's about Miss Starnes—Ann Samuelovna."
"She is very beautiful."
"That's just the trouble, I'm afraid. Did you know that she went to look at flowers with your husband this afternoon?"
Anna Gulyevna's smile became a trifle more Mona Lisa than before, if possible. "Yes, I knew it."
"And it doesn't worry you? Not even a little bit?"
"Not even a little bit, Robert Murrayovich."
"And he told her she should have children."
"It is good to have children." She smiled again at his hopeless expression and laid down her sewing. "Listen, Robert Murrayovich, and I will tell you how it is in happy Tolstoia. We have a law that a husband and wife must remain faithful to each other. So that if Pitrim Androvich looks at flowers with Ann Samuelovna, or even touches and kisses her, it is because he thinks she is beautiful, like a part of nature. Even though he is Patriarch he cannot break the law."
"But damn it!" said Heidekopfer. "I want to marry her myself!"
"Is it her will also? The will of one must become the will of all."
Heidekopfer experienced a violent sense of frustration. "Look here," he said, "I know you have means of influencing the way people think about things. Can't you give me a little help with Ann?"
She lifted one hand and placed it beside her cheek. "She has achieved the brotherhood of man, and I think she will want to become a citizen of happy Tolstoia," she said. "If she does, the only way would be for the Supreme Soviet to pass a law that she must marry you. Thus the will of all becomes the will of one."
"But I don't want to stay in Tolstoia," said Heidekopfer, "I—"
Outside the door someone shouted, "In the name of the Master, may I enter?"
"Enter," called Anna Gulyevna, and the door opened on Kazetzky. His expression looked even more morose than usual. He said to Heidekopfer, "I am glad you are here, little father. Good evening Anna Gulyevna—I am the bearer of unhappy news."
"Unhappiness cannot remain long in happy Tolstoia," said Anna Gulyevna gravely. "What is your news, Pyotr Ilyich?"
"Pitrim Androvich is very desirous of the foreign woman. He has called a session of the Supreme Soviet for tonight, and will propose a law that a man may have two wives, so that he can marry her."
Heidekopfer saw Anna Gulyevna's hands tense in her lap and the secret smile dropped from her face. "That is most unhappy news, Pyotr Ilyich," she said.
"See here," said Heidekopfer, "can't something be done about this?" He looked at Kazetzky. "You're a member of the Supreme Soviet, aren't you? Can't you oppose the bill on the ground that it's—concisionary, or something?"
But they shook their heads, looking at him gloomily. "Well, by God, I'm going to do something about it if nobody else does," he said, getting to his feet. "Where's this meeting being held?"
Kazetzky did not move. "It is even worse than you think, little father. Pitrim Androvich will propose a law of suicide against you."
Anna Gulyevna gasped and put one hand to her mouth. Heidekopfer looked bewildered. "What have I done and what's a law of suicide?" he asked.
"You are a resistant," said Kazetzky. "It was the will of all that you fall in love with the girl Sonia Grigorevna whom you took to look at flowers this afternoon, but it did not become your will. Therefore, it is evident that you are resistant to the will of all. We always pass laws of suicide against resistants, especially if they are foreigners. It is the only way of maintaining the brotherhood of man."
"I see," said Heidekopfer, and he did, with a sudden horrible clarity. So this was what had happened to the castaways! And how many others had been wiped out in these self-inflicted purges since they established their "brotherhood of man?" The hackles on his neck were rising, but he managed a laugh. "Well, if I'm a resistant, I guess I'm not going to worry about it too much."
Anna Gulyevna's face looked a trifle pale, even in the candlelight. "You do not know the strength of a law of suicide," she said. "It makes use of the death-wish, and those against whom it is passed cannot sleep until they sleep forever."
"Do you mean I have to take it lying down? I'm damned if I do!" He took four quick steps across the room, tore open the door and started down the hall. Kazetzky's voice behind him said, "A moment, little father."
Heidekopfer faced him. "Well?"
"What are you going to do, little father?"
"See Lanzerotti—Vincent Guidovich. He's the ambassador of the Council, and he isn't going to let anything like this go on."
"It will do you no good. This has happened before. He has accepted the will of all, and will not believe you until the law has been passed. When the two new laws are passed and the foreign woman has married Pitrim Androvich, then you will commit suicide, and he will say, 'Ah, that is the reason he did it.'"
"You're so full of bright ideas you just slay me," said Heidekopfer with a wry twist to his mouth. "But I don't think you'd be batting them up unless you had something in mind. Come on, out with it."
Kazetzky said, "If you could leave Tolstoia and return where you came from before the law was passed, I do not think you would be in danger. There would be too many people around you with confused thoughts who do not belong to the brotherhood of man."
"And leave Ann behind to marry that old goat? No, I think not."
Kazetzky said, "Then there is only one thing to do. That is to go to the session of the Supreme Soviet and try to prevent the laws being passed. You are a resistant, and it is possible you could make their thinking confused enough."
Heidekopfer glanced at him sharply. "You want me to, don't you? What's your interest in this?"
"I am a supporter of Alexei Ivanovich Dubrassov. He is a traditionalist who does not believe happy Tolstoia should be extended as Pitrim Androvich wishes. If the law of suicide is not passed and you report against giving us the islands, there will be a law of suicide against Pitrim Androvich, and Alexei Ivanovich will be Patriarch."
Heidekopfer laughed shortly. "I thought there'd be some chestnut-pulling connected with this somewhere. How come that the will of all the others to follow the Patriarch's plan didn't affect you and Dubrassov, too?"
The man's face went sullen. "You have no right to ask me questions like that," he said.
Heidekopfer reflected that the development of their mental integration had not made the Tolstoians any the less Russian. "All right, let's go," he said. "Is it far?"
"At the schoolhouse. I have a droshky which I took to bring Anna Gulyevna the news. It is not good to let bad news delay until the will of one becomes a resistance."
"Okay. Wait just a minute, will you, while I get my pocket radio. I've got some friends coming who may be some help, and I might want to get in touch with them."
VII
The lights behind the windows of the schoolhouse made vague islands in the dark pennons of mist. Kazetzky got out and tied the horse to the hitching-rail as Heidekopfer dismounted. "Go in, little father," he said. "I will stay outside as long as I can." He was breathing hard, as though trying with all his strength to resist some kind of compulsion.
Heidekopfer checked the sets of his radio, walked to the door and flung it open. The fifteen or twenty men and women of the Supreme Soviet were seated in chairs scattered in no particular order around the classroom, with Samsonov at the teacher's desk, his back to Heidekopfer as the latter entered. But the thing that made the reporter catch his breath as the faces turned toward him like flowers toward the sun was the sight of Ann Starnes, sitting just to the right of the Patriarch. Her glance was coldly unfriendly.
For a second or two the tableau held. Then Samsonov turned round and rose majestically to his feet. "The session of the Supreme Soviet is secret," he said, and glared.
Heidekopfer once more felt the headache sensation at the back of his neck, accompanied by an almost overwhelming impulse to get out of there, to escape from that place before something dreadful happened, a strange malaise, which he could not name possessed him. He staggered back a step, then caught Ann's eye fixed on him with the same quality as the rest, and was abruptly seized by another impulse, even more overwhelming.
The second one struck him as a better idea, anyway, so he yielded to it. He took three rapid steps toward the Patriarch Samsonov and let him have one fetched up from the region of the belt-line.
It took the big man flush on the button, and down he went, thrashing and kicking, as the room burst into a turmoil of shouts and chairs knocked to the floor. Ann screamed. Heidekopfer grabbed her by the arm. "You're coming with me whether you like it or not," he said in English, and turned to face the group menacingly. But nobody seemed inclined to offer him any opposition, and the thought flashed through his head that they probably had a law against physical violence, too.
Samsonov had hauled himself to his feet with the aid of the desk. There was a little trickle of blood from his mouth and his eyes were deadly. The last thing Heidekopfer heard him say as he pulled the girl through the door was, "There will be a law—"
Kazetzky had disappeared. Ann was limp as he bundled her into the droshky, and didn't say anything until he had unhitched the horse, climbed to the driver's seat, and with a combination of yells and jerking on the reins, urged it into plodding motion. Then she said, "Oh, Bob!"
He didn't turn around. "Yeah. What is it?"
"I was hating you. I knew they were going to pass a law that you should commit suicide, and I was going to help them."
"Nice of you."
"When you hit him, something happened. It was like coming out of a dark room into the sunlight.... Bob!"
"What is it?"
"I think I need a keeper. I'll marry you when we get back—if we ever do." She began to cry.
This time he swung round on the seat. "Listen, angel," he said, "I want you just enough to take you up on that, whether it's on a rebound or not. But are you sure you're out from under the control that big lug seemed to have snapped on you?"
"I—I—think so. But I don't know how long it will last. Get me out of here, quick!"
Overhead, a beam of light stabbed down through the crowding mist, just picking out the corner of Samsonov's house a few hundred yards beyond them, and there was a sound of ghostly wings. The beam shifted, ran along a line of trees, and then satisfied itself with an open field.
"The helio," said Heidekopfer. "I radioed for one on the chance I could get you away." He tried to urge the horse to greater speed as lights came on in the building and the aircraft swung in for a landing in a pool of its own illumination. Abruptly, the headache sensation took him in the back of the neck again, stronger than ever, accompanied by an intolerable sense of depression, and the night was suddenly full of horrors ahead. It was not worth the trouble. He felt the reins loosening in his hands. "Ann!" he cried, "Ann ..." and blacked out.
He came to to the sound of purring motors and struggled to sit up. Someone said, "Give him this," and a cup of coffee was held against his lips. He looked up into Ann's face.
"Still feel the same way you did in the droshky?" was the first thing he said as he drank.
"Sssh. Yes," she said, and he looked round to see the Lanzerottis smiling at him across the cabin of the helio. He struggled upright on the transom. "That was a narrow one," he said. "I think they must have passed the law of suicide against me. But I can't figure out how it would affect me so. They said I was a resistant."
Lanzerotti said, "Thought can operate without physical presence. The Christian Scientists and Theosophists on earth knew that years ago. And this was a rather massive impact."
Heidekopfer shook his head. "Give me a little more of that stuff, will you? I'm still a little groggy. What I can't figure out is how you two got away and came along."
"We were talking about that," said Lanzerotti. "Rosa and I were just getting ready for bed, when it suddenly struck us that everything you had said was true, and the Tolstoians had us under control and were showing us, in effect, a Potemkin village. When you knocked Samsonov out, even for only a moment, the control snapped on us as it did on Ann. Then he got so interested in passing the law of suicide against you that he didn't have time to rebuild his fences. So we got away, but we had to leave most of the records."
Heidekopfer drank again. "I don't suppose it makes much difference, though," he said. "Our verbal report ought to be enough to keep the Council from giving them the Wrightley Islands. My God, if that thing got loose! With what they've developed they'd be able to take over every inch of the three worlds, little by little, and turn them into more Tolstoias."
"No," said Lanzerotti emphatically.
"No what?"
"My recommendation will be that we grant them the Wrightley Islands and any other bits of uninhabited territory they happen to want—but only for so long as Samsonov remains Patriarch."
Heidekopfer's mouth fell open. "What!" he exclaimed aghast, "Has he still got you under?"
Lanzerotti's smile was bland. "Not at all. They've attained the goal of the totalitarian state. They've got everybody thinking alike. Remember, Dubrassov couldn't warn us, even when he wanted to, although he couldn't bring himself to go along with Samsonov's expansionist policy. Samsonov showed us Potemkin villages, all right. But don't you see what all this crazy set-up adds up to? These people can't change. They've lost their adaptability.
"The system has to be rigid, because the first time anyone expresses an individual idea, the whole totalitarian structure will collapse. They're inbred and interlocked, and Samsonov has complete control of their thinking and their behavior—for the time being, at least. But as soon as the Tolstoians expand to the Wrightley Islands, or anywhere else, they'll be facing conditions they've never before encountered. They'll have to learn to think for themselves again—"
"—And as soon as they start to think new thoughts, Samsonov's power will evaporate. He'll lose his grip, just like he did on me!" finished Heidekopfer, reaching for Ann's hand.
"You see," concluded Lanzerotti, "Dubrassov was the really dangerous one. He didn't have new ideas, and whether they were castaways or not, more people would have been drawn in on him."
The little group was quiet, contemplative, then they smiled knowingly at one another.
"Let's get home," said Ann, "and make our—my last picture."