Chapter IV

Ann's voice sounded vaguely apologetic as she explained to Heidekopfer. "His wife didn't seem to mind," she said. "I was watching her."

"That isn't the point," said Heidekopfer. "It isn't even the point that I minded a hell of a lot. As you have so often informed me, I don't own you or even have a claim on you, much as I'd like to. I just want to know _why_ you did it."

The girl's lips closed and her pretty face set in obstinate lines. "Because I wanted to. Because I felt like it. For the same reason I've kissed you a few times."

"But you've never kissed me with about sixteen people looking on. And may I point out that the reason the castaways stayed in Tolstoia was because they wanted to, too. I want to know what made you want to do it."

"And you're going to put the whip on me to find out," said the girl, but with a smile. "No use, Bob--call it an uncontrollable impulse."

Someone tapped at the door and it was Lanzerotti. "Want to come into my room?" he said. "I'd like to compare notes, and if we do it here, two of us will have to sit on the bed."

"All right," said Heidekopfer. "Rosa back yet?"

"No, still communing with nature and Pyotr Ilyich Kazetzky." He glanced at his watch, saying, "I forgot that's no good here on the different system of time, but I'd guess that it's a good hour before bedtime, so I'm not going to worry. Come on." He led the way down the hall, and threw open the door.

"Notice there isn't a lock in the place?" said Heidekopfer. "It may really be true that they've abolished crime."

"I didn't see any either," said Lanzerotti, "but we have to be careful about drawing conclusions from guided tours. The Russians have always been great on setting up Potemkin villages."

"Oh, back in the old imperial days an Empress named Catherine went on a progress through the country to see how it was getting along under her prime minister, Potemkin. He went ahead of her and had villages set up, just the dummy fronts of houses, with actors to play the part of villagers. Back in the Soviet period they used to pull the same trick, to show tourists how prosperous the country was, only they did it with real model villages and factories and people working in them."

"I don't think they're doing that with us," said Heidekopfer. "On the way to the school, I asked to turn off and see one of the farms we passed, and it all seemed perfectly normal and in key with the rest."

"Shall I get the pictures?" said Ann. "That white wall is rather rough, but I imagine it will take projection."

"No, they're for the record," said Lanzerotti. "I just want a verbal report and impressions." He stepped across the room and opened the sound box for recording.

"Well," said Heidekopfer, "we went to a school this morning. It was quite small, but had children of all ages up to about sixteen. It was more like a manual training institute than what we'd call a school. Most of them were learning to use tools, and some of them working in a garden, and doing a pretty good job of it, I'd say. There was only one class with books."

"I asked about that," said Ann. "They practically don't have any books, and those they do have are hand set and hand printed."

"Of course, I can understand their not using microfilm," said Heidekopfer. "That would run into their prohibition of machines. But I don't quite see how they can claim a printing press isn't a machine."

* * * * *

Lanzerotti smiled. "Logic isn't the long suit of most theorists," he said. "However, my opinion is generally favorable. They seem to be decent people with a high standard of morality, and in spite of the Potemkin village angle, it looks good. There's just one thing--we still haven't found any explanation of why the castaways didn't come back. And that is primarily why we came here."

Heidekopfer said, "We can add a second point to that now--or perhaps it's part of the same one. Did you notice Ann after dinner last night while the music was playing?"

Lanzerotti said, "I did notice that she seemed on fairly good terms with our host on somewhat short notice, but I assumed it was her own business."

"The trouble is that she can't tell why she did it," said Heidekopfer.

A little spot of red appeared in the girl's cheeks. "I told you because I felt like it," she said, "and I'm not particularly grateful for being pumped about it! Excuse me, I've got to charge my camera while you discuss my case." She got up, avoided Heidekopfer's protesting hand, and slipped out the door.

Lanzerotti said, "The case seems to call for diplomacy, and as the diplomat of the expedition, I prescribe a cooling-off period. Meanwhile, continue."

"There isn't much to continue with," said Heidekopfer, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "You know as well as I do that her behavior with Samsonov wasn't--well, what you'd normally expect, even if it wasn't disgraceful or anything. But it seems to me that it's of a piece with the behavior of the castaways who decided to stay in Tolstoia. In both cases, there was what she herself described as an uncontrollable impulse to do something not normally done."

"Evidence of pattern," said Lanzerotti. "You think pressure was applied from outside. But how? Was the food or the beer drugged? No, it couldn't have been that; we ate and drank the same things, and weren't affected."

"I don't know," said Heidekopfer. "It could have been a special for her. Samsonov hardly took his eyes off her from the first time he saw her."

"I--" began Lanzerotti, when a tap sounded on the door and Rosa Lanzerotti came into the room. "Hello, dear," she said, "have a good day?"

"Good with a little mystery in it, which we were just discussing. And you?"

She laughed. "The same. In fact, if you're up to a trip, the day isn't over yet."

"What do you mean?"

"There's a man outside with a droshky to take us to see someone who wants to meet you. I'll tell you the rest as we go. It might be a good idea if you come along, too, Bob. Wait till I get a recorder." She went over to get one of the small size that fits in a pocket, and the other two stood up. Heidekopfer stopped to tap at Ann's door, but she didn't answer, so he stopped at his own room long enough to slip a light in his pocket, as it had grown quite dark outside. There was no one in the dimly-lighted halls; apparently most good Tolstoians had decided to call it a night. Outside, the heavy night mist which pinch-hits for most of Venus' rain was drifting past in streamers, condensing on everything it touched; Heidekopfer felt drops run down his face.

Rosa said, "He's waiting at the corner of the road, and I was warned not to let myself be seen, so you had better not put on the light now.

"Damn!" said Lanzerotti, stumbling. "All right, Rosa, what's the story?"

"We drove around most of the day looking at various views, while this Kazetzky person explained to me how beautiful it all was. It was, too. Stopped at a house where they were weaving cloth on a wooden hand loom and had some lunch, then drove around again. Kazetzky is not an interesting talker, as I began to realize about the fifteenth time he repeated his line about nature and happiness being connected. But toward dinner time he said, 'Ah! I shall take you to have a repast with a man who has in him much of the spirit of the Master.'"

* * * * *

They had reached the end of the drive, and in the dark could just make out the loom of the droshky. A voice said, "Little mother?" Rosa answered, "Okay, it's me," and Heidekopfer flashed his light briefly to enable them to climb into the vehicle. When they were seated and the driver had stirred his horse into action with the inevitable crack of the whip, Rosa went on, "He took me a little distance, little enough so it looked as though he'd been intending to do that all along, to a house almost as big as the one we're living in. Only the owner wasn't living in it, he was living in a tent pitched in a field outside by a stream. His name is Dubrassov, by the way. Kazetzky introduced me, and then went to the house and brought the family out and introduced them, too, ten or twelve of them. Dubrassov said I must bring you here at once, tonight, before it was too late, to hear something terribly important. They all said yes, I must, and then asked me whether I wanted to eat with the family or Dubrassov. Of course I said Dubrassov, and that was my big mistake. The meal consisted of a whitish liquid that tasted like turpentine and burned like it--"

"Kumiss," said Heidekopfer. "It has a kick, too."

"Apparently they have exceptions to their law about liquor. Anyway, I drank water. As I say, the meal consisted entirely of this kumiss and meat, nothing else, and we had to eat it with our fingers. He apologized for it, I will say, and said he was taking a cure of some kind. A diet like that would cure me of wanting to live."

For a moment there was silence as the droshky jounced along. Then Lanzerotti's voice said out of the dark, "Evidently there are disagreements, even in happy Tolstoia, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn what they are. But this whole business has a rather conspiratorial odor, and I'm not sure that a diplomatic representative should be mixed up in it. If you don't mind my saying so, Rosa, you might have given us a chance to discuss all the angles before getting us out of the house."

"But I couldn't do anything else, could I?" Her voice sounded hurt.

The horse's feet clopped in the muddy road. Heidekopfer made a sound like the beginning of speech, then stopped.

"Beg pardon?" said Rosa.

"I just wondered--why didn't you come with us to see the school today? I should have thought you'd find it interesting."

"Oh, there's plenty of time. Besides, if I hadn't gone out to see the country with Kazetzky, I wouldn't have met Dubrassov."

Lanzerotti stirred in his place and said, "By the way, Bob, while you and Ann were looking over that farm this afternoon, I addressed myself to the matter of communications. They don't have to have any, except by word of mouth; the society is so static that there isn't anything requiring quick action by a large number of people, and they can afford to wait."

"Find out anything more about the governmental system?"

"They're disinclined to talk, but I gather it's an almost unchanged adaptation of the Soviet system. Which might be expected, seeing their ancestors came from there, and there's nothing in Tolstoi that would conflict with the system. As a matter of historical process, I'm a bit surprised that there should have been so little evolution--"

"Hell!" said Heidekopfer. "Vincent, when you get to talking theory, you're three parsecs over my head. I just want to know what makes things tick in a practical way."

"The difference is doubtless one of the reasons why we were associated in this mission," said Lanzerotti evenly, and that seemed to put a period to the conversation in the dark until Rosa said, "This must be it. See that light in the tent?"

* * * * *

Heidekopfer flipped on his light and set it in the catch-ring of his hat. The beam diffused through the drifting mist to catch a wooden house painted white and with shutters, on quaint, old-fashioned lines. It was all dark. The droshky pushed on past, bumping off the road across a field toward where a light showed dimly through the wall of a circular tent, and came to a halt. Lanzerotti jumped out and handed Rosa down after him. She approached and said, "May I come in?"

A deep voice boomed, "In the name of the Master, enter, little mother," and the three went in. They saw a powerful looking man, not as big as Samsonov, but with the same indefinable air of force, who barked, "Dubrassov, Alexei Ivanovich," and promptly sat down in the only chair in the tent.

This time the ambassadors knew the right reply. They made it, Rosa sat down on the bed, the others curled up on the ground floor of the tent and waited. Dubrassov glanced from Lanzerotti to Heidekopfer and back with quick motions of his head and neck thrust forward, as though he were trying to see into their minds. Finally he said, "They make me take the cure as concisionary, but it is not I who am the concisionary, it is Pitrim Androvich."

"Indeed," said Lanzerotti.

"It is Pitrim Androvich," Dubrassov repeated. "The will of all is the will of one, but he makes the will of one the will of all."

"I thought the two went together," said Heidekopfer.

The burning eyes were fixed on him. "Are you the ambassador? It is anti-social to interrupt deliberations."

Heidekopfer felt himself flush a little, but said nothing. He could hear the buzz of Rosa's recorder.

"I am the ambassador," said Lanzerotti smoothly. "But I am accredited to the government of Tolstoia, and so far as I am aware, you are a private citizen. However, I will be glad to hear anything you have to say that may affect the question of whether the World Council should allow Tolstoia to colonize the Wrightley Islands."

"Pitrim Androvich wishes the world, even holy Russia." He paused and blew his nose at the name, his Adam's apple moving. Heidekopfer remembered Behrmann. "You should n-n-n--" He stopped suddenly, gagging for breath, his eyes bulging, and then closed his mouth and tried again. "The achievement of universal brotherhood makes the will of all the will of one. It is possible to control the will of one for--" He gagged again, his mouth open, then closed his eyes with a grimace and said, "It is against the law to say more. Beware! And go, in the name of the Master."