Arkadii and Boris Strugatskii

The Second Martian Invasion

A Fantastical Tale

NOTES OF A SANE MAN

O

h! This wretched conformist world. June 1st (3 AM). Lord! Now it’s Artemida - she’s evidently got mixed up with that Nikostratos after all. And she calls herself my daughter … Well, enough of that.

About 1 AM I was woken by a loud though distant rumbling and was startled to see a sinister play of red patches of light on the bedroom wall. The rumbling was the kind of intermittent roaring that precedes an earthquake, and it was so strong that the whole house rocked, the windowpanes rattled and the flasks on the dressing-table jumped about. I rushed to the window in terror. The northern sky was ablaze; it was as if the earth had opened up beyond the horizon and was throwing fountains of multi-coloured flame right up to the stars. Yet those two, oblivious of everything, lit up by a hellish glow and shaken by underground tremors, were kissing and embracing on the bench right under my window. I recognized Artemida at once and thought at first Charon must have returned and that she was so overjoyed to see him that she was kissing him like a young bride instead of taking him straight off to their bedroom. But a moment later I recognized the famous foreign jacket of Mr Nikostratos by the light of the fire and my heart sank. It’s moments like these that rob a man of his health. Though I can’t say this came as a bolt from the blue: there had been rumours, hints and all manner of jokes going around. But all the same I was shattered.

Clutching my heart, and with no idea what to do, I dragged myself, barefoot, to the sitting-room and telephoned the police. But you try to get through to the police when you need them. For a long time the number was engaged and then to cap it all it turned out to be Panderei on duty. I asked him what the phenomenon was beyond the horizon. He didn’t know what a phenomenon was.

‘Can you tell me what’s happening beyond the northern horizon?’ I asked. He asked where that was and I really didn’t know how to explain it to him - but then the light suddenly dawned.

‘Ohhh!’ he said. ‘You mean the fire.’ And he explained that, in fact, some kind of burning activity could be seen, but what it was and what was burning had not been established as yet.

The house was rocking, everything was creaking, and on the street people were screaming something heartrending about war, yet the old fool started telling me that they had brought Minotaur into the lock-up; blind drunk, he’d defiled the corner of Mr Laomedontes’ villa, and now he couldn’t even stand up, nor fight even.

‘Are you going to take some action or not?’ I broke in.

‘That’s what I’m explaining, Mr Apollo.’ The fool sounded offended. ‘I have to draw up a report and you’re blocking the line. If you’re all going to get so worked up over this fire …’

‘And what if it’s a war?’ I asked.

‘No, it’s not a war,’ he declared. ‘I’d know about it if it were.’

‘And what if it’s an eruption?’ I asked.

He didn’t know what an eruption was - I couldn’t take it any longer and hung up the receiver. Covered in sweat after that conversation, I went back to my bedroom and put on a dressing-gown and slippers.

The rumbling seemed to have died down but the flashes of light continued, and those two weren’t kissing any more; they weren’t even sitting embracing. No, not a bit of it, they were standing hand in hand for anyone to see - a fire beyond the horizon made it light as day, except that the light was not white but reddish-orange, and through it floated clouds of brown smoke, shading into a deep coffee colour. The neighbours were running about the street in whatever they happened to be wearing, and Mrs Euridice was grabbing hold of people by their pyjamas and telling them to save her. The only one of them to look businesslike was Myrtil who, with the help of his wife and sons, wheeled his lorry out of the garage and began to carry all his possessions out of the house. It was real panic, just like the good old days - I hadn’t seen anything like it for years. And yet I realized that if this really was the start of an atomic war, then there was no better place to hide and sit it out in the whole area than our small town. If, on the other hand, it was an eruption, then it was happening a long way away, and again presented no threat to our town. Though it was not at all likely to be an eruption - what kind of eruption could we have here? I went upstairs and tried to wake Hermione - and here things were as usual: ‘Leave me alone you drunkard, you and your drinking all night long. Just leave me alone, will you.’ And so on. So, in a loud and convincing tone, I started to tell her about the atomic war and the eruption - painting it all in slightly heightened colours, since otherwise I would get nowhere.

It penetrated, and she jumped out of bed, thrust me aside and rushed into the dining room, muttering: ‘I’ll take a look for myself and then you’d better watch out…’ Unlocking the sideboard she checked the bottles of brandy. I was quite calm. ‘Where have you come from in that state?’ she asked, sniffing suspiciously. ‘What sleazy night-spot have you been in?’ But when she looked out of the window and saw the half-naked neighbours, and Myrtil standing on his roof in nothing more than his underpants, gazing at the north through his binoculars, she lost all interest in me. In fact, as it turned out, the northern horizon was once more buried in darkness and silence, but a strange cloud of smoke, completely blotting out the stars, was still visible. I don’t know how to put it - but my Hermione is no Mrs Euridice: she belongs to a different generation, and she’s had a different upbringing. Anyway, I’d hardly had time to gulp down a glass of cognac before she was dragging out the cases and shouting for Artemida at the top of her voice.

‘Go on, shout,’ I thought sourly. ‘She’ll never hear you.’ And then Artemida appeared at the door of her room. Good Lord, she was pale as death and trembling all over, but she was in her nightclothes already, curling pins dangling from her hair.

‘What’s the matter? What’s wrong with you all?’ she asked.

Like it or not, that’s character for you. If it hadn’t been for this phenomenon I’d never have found out anything, and Charon still less. Our eyes met and she smiled at me tenderly with trembling lips, and I just couldn’t bring myself to utter the words which were on the tip of my tongue. To calm myself I went into my own room and started to pack up my stamps. You’re shaking and trembling, I said to her, mentally. You’re lonely and terribly unprotected. And he hasn’t supported or protected you. He’s plucked the flower of pleasure and fled on his own business. No, little girl, when a man starts dishonourably then that’s how he carries on.

In the meantime the panic was quickly subsiding, much as I had expected. The night returned to normal; the earth no longer shook; the houses no longer creaked. Someone took Mrs Euridice home with them. There were no more shouts about war, and in general there was nothing left to shout about anyway. Glancing through the window I saw that the street was empty and just the occasional light could still be seen in a, few houses. And Myrtil was still on the roof, his underwear gleaming among the stars. I called over to him and asked what he could see.

‘All right, all right,’ he replied in a huff. ‘You go and snore in bed. You start snoring and then they’ll give it you…’

I asked who ‘they’ were.

‘All right, all right,’ he replied. ‘You knowalls have got all the answers. You and your Panderei. And he’s no more than a great fool.’ Hearing Panderei’s name I decided to ring the police again. Once again I rang for ages, and when at last I got through Panderei told me that there was no particular news, but apart from that everything was in order. They’d given the drunken Minotaur a sedative and washed out his stomach and now he had calmed down. As for the fire, it had stopped long ago, especially as it had proved to be not a fire at all, but a big holiday fireworks display. While I tried to remember what holiday it was today Panderei hung up. However, he’s a fool and extremely ill-bred as well. He’s always been like that. Strange to see such people in our police force. Our policemen ought to be intelligent, a model for the young, a hero, someone they would want to emulate, someone who could safely be entrusted not just with power and authority, but with educational activities. But Charon says such a police force would be ‘a company of four-eyes’ and declares that no government wants a police force like that because it would begin by arresting and re-educating the state’s most useful citizens, starting with the prime minister and chief of police. Well, I don’t know, maybe he’s right. But a senior policeman who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘phenomenon’ and can’t carry out his duties without being boorish - that’s not what we want, and no doubt about it.

Stumbling over the suitcases, I picked my way to the sideboard and had just poured myself a glass of brandy when Hermione came back into the room. She said the place was a madhouse; that she couldn’t rely on anyone; that the men weren’t worth calling men and the women not worth calling women; that I was a confirmed alcoholic; that Charon was a useless gadabout; that Artemida was a fine lady who couldn’t adjust herself to normal life. And so on. Perhaps somebody would be so good as to explain to her why she had been roused in the middle of the night and made to start packing the cases? I replied to Hermione as best I could, and took cover in my own room.

About 3 am the earth shook again. Then came the sound of many engines and the clanking of metal. It turned out to be a column of army lorries and armoured troop-carriers passing the house. They were moving slowly with their lights dimmed, and Myrtil had managed to latch on to one of the armoured cars. He was strolling along beside it, clinging on to a protruding hatchway and shouting something. I don’t know what they said in reply, but when the column had passed by and he was left standing alone on the street I called to him and asked for any news.

‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘We know what these manoeuvres are, smart fellows driving about on my money.’ And with that I understood the whole business: large-scale military exercises were being carried out, maybe with the use of atomic weapons. What a lot of fuss about nothing!

Thank God! Now, perhaps, I’ll be able to get to sleep in peace.

June 2nd. I just can’t bring myself to have it out with Artemida. I can’t bear these horribly personal and intimate conversations. And then I don’t even know how she would reply to me. But Daddy, it’s so deadly dull here, she’d say. And you can’t get away from it! She’s a young, attractive woman without children, and she’s high-spirited and would like to rush around enjoying herself. She’d like to go dancing, flirt with people and all the rest of it. But as luck would have it Charon is one of your philosophers. A thinker. Totalitarianism, fascism, managerism, communism. According to him dancing is a sexual drug, and the people we entertain are complete idiots, and he doesn’t know which is the greater of the two evils. And you don’t dare mention Sevens or Chinese patience. And yet, for all that, he can drink well enough! He’ll put five of his clever friends round the table with five bottles of cognac and argue till the morning. And the poor girl sits yawning and yawning till finally she slams the door and goes off to bed. What kind of a life is that? I know well enough that a man needs his own company and pursuits, but then so does a woman. No, I’ve always been fond of my son-in-law: damn it he is my son-in-law and I’ll always be fond of him. But really, just how much time can you spend arguing and debating? And what does it all achieve? After all, it’s clear enough that you can argue about fascism until the cows come home, but you won’t change fascism by that. But if you stop paying the proper amount of attention to a young wife, then she’ll repay you in the same coin. And no amount of philosophy will help you there, either. I quite understand that sometimes an educated man needs to discuss abstract matters, but for goodness’ sake, he should keep a sense of proportion about it. Ah, well, enough of that.

The morning was really beautiful. (Temperature - +19°c; cloud density - 1 degree; wind - southerly, 0.5 metres per second. I should have gone out to the meteorological station to check the wind-gauge since I’ve damaged mine again.) After breakfast I decided that I wouldn’t get anywhere without taking some action, and so I set off to the town hall to clear up the business of my pension. I was walking along enjoying the calm of the morning, when suddenly I noticed that a crowd was gathering at the corner of Freedom Street and the Vereskova. It turned out that Minotaur had driven his cart into the jeweller’s shop window. The police shouldn’t have let him out so soon. They might have known that once having started on a drinking bout he was bound to go off and get drunk again. But, on the other hand, how could they keep him shut up when he’s the only lavatory attendant in the town?

I was held up because of Minotaur and when I reached The Five Clinks our group was already assembled; I paid my fine, and then one-legged Polythemes treated me to an excellent cigar in an aluminium tube. His eldest son, Polycarp, a lieutenant in the Merchant Navy, had sent him this cigar specially for me. This Polycarp had been a pupil of mine for several years before he ran away to become a ship’s boy. He’d been a bright boy and full of mischief. When he left the town Polythemes almost took me to court for it. Would you believe it, he claimed that his teacher had dissipated the young boy with all his lectures about the multitude of different worlds. Right to this day Polythemes himself is convinced that the sky is hard and that space travellers race about it like motorcyclists at the circus. I’ve tried to explain astronomy to him, but it’s no use.

The group was saying that once again the town treasurer was squandering money that had been set aside to build a stadium. This is the seventh time it has happened. To begin with we discussed how we could suppress him.

Silen shrugged his shoulders, maintaining that apart from bringing a lawsuit there was nothing one could do. ‘We’ve had enough of half-measures,’ he argued. ‘An open court. The whole town should gather together in the stadium’s foundation area and pillory the scoundrel right on the site of his crime. For Christ’s sake,’ he repeated, ‘our law is flexible enough for us to see that the means used to suppress the man correspond exactly to the seriousness of the offence.’

‘I would go so far as to say that our law is too flexible,’ observed the quarrelsome Paral. ‘That treasurer has been tried twice already, and both times our flexible law has been bent to his advantage. But maybe you think that was because he was tried in the town hall and not in the foundation area.’

Morpheus, getting down to the heart of the problem, declared that from today he would refuse to shave the treasurer or cut his hair. He could just go about looking unshaven and unkempt.

‘Nothing will make you see that he couldn’t care a damn about the lot of you,’ said Polythemes, ‘He’s got his own supporters.’

‘Exactly,’ Paral backed him up and reminded us that the town architect was still alive and flourishing. This man had designed the stadium - that is, as far as his limited abilities would allow him; and now, not surprisingly, did not want to see building started.

One-legged Polythemes, as a veteran and a man who did not fear bloodshed, suggested that we should catch the pair of them at the entrance to Madame Persephone’s house and kick them in the crutch. Polythemes makes no effort to guard his tongue at critical moments such as these and he comes out with the most crude barracks language. It’s simply amazing, the way such talk stirs us all up. People became virulent and waved their arms about and Kalaid stuttered and hissed even more than usual. In fact, his emotion was so great that he became incapable of pronouncing a single word. But at this moment the quarrelsome Paral, who alone among us had remained calm, observed that, besides the treasurer and the architect, one Mr Laomedontes, their chief ally, was still in the town, living in his summer residence. Suddenly everyone fell silent and started to draw on the cigars and cigarettes that had gone out in the course of the conversation - come to think of it, it would not be very easy to kick Mr Laomedontes in the crutch.

I remembered that I should have been at the town hall long ago, so I put the remains of my cigar in its aluminium tube and went up to the first floor and into the mayor’s reception room. I was struck by the unusual activity in the office. All the officials seemed agitated in some way, Even Mr Secretary, instead of occupying himself with the habitual examination of his nails, was fastening some large envelopes with sealing-wax, and this, moreover, with an air of extreme fussiness and of doing someone a great favour. Feeling very ill-at-ease I approached this dandy, who was touted out in the latest fashion. Christ, at that moment I would have given anything in the world not to see or hear him, not to be obliged to deal with him. I didn’t like Mr Nikostratos before this business. In fact, to tell you the truth, I didn’t like him even when he was my pupil - because of his laziness, arrogance and impudent behaviour - and after what I had seen yesterday it made me feel ill just to look at him. Nor did I have any idea how to approach him. But there was no way out and finally I brought myself to say: ‘Mr Nikostratos, have you heard anything about my case?’

He didn’t even deign to glance at me. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Apollo, but there has been no reply from the ministry as yet,’ he said, and continued to seal his envelopes. I clicked my heels and made my way to the exit feeling like a worm. Offices always have that effect on me. But quite unexpectedly he stopped me with a piece of surprising information. He said that all communications with Marathon had been cut since yesterday.

‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘Surely the manoeuvres must be over by now?’

‘What manoeuvres?’ He sounded surprised.

At that something snapped inside me. I still don’t know if it was worth it, but I looked him straight in the eyes and said: ‘What do you mean - What manoeuvres? The ones you were watching last night, if you please.’

‘But you don’t really think those were manoeuvres?’ he declared with enviable composure, and once again bent over his envelopes. ‘That was a firework display. You should read the morning papers.’

I should really have said something to him about Artemida then, especially as at that moment we were alone in the room. But how could I?

When I got back to The Five Clinks there was already a discussion in progress on the nature of the night’s phenomenon. The entire group was there and Myrtil and Panderei had come along too. Panderei had his tunic unbuttoned and was tired and unshaven after his night on duty. Myrtil didn’t look much better since he’d spent a whole night patrolling his house, on the look-out for trouble. All of them were holding the morning papers and discussing our observer’s notice, which was entitled: ‘On the threshold of the festival’. Our ‘observer’ informed us that Marathon was preparing for the celebration of its 153rd anniversary, and, as he had found out from well-informed sources, yesterday night a practice fireworks display had been held, which the inhabitants of the neighbouring small towns and villages within a radius of 200 kilometres had been able to admire. Just let Charon go away on a study trip and our paper makes a fool of itself. If they had even tried to imagine what a fireworks display would look like at a distance of 200 kilometres. And if they had just stopped to consider – since when have fireworks been accompanied by underground tremors? I quickly pointed this out to the rest of the group. But they replied that they hadn’t been born yesterday either and advised me to read the Milese Herald. In the Herald it was stated in black and white that last night ‘the inhabitants of Milese had been able to admire the most impressive spectacle of military exercises being carried out with the use of ultramodern military techniques’. ‘And what did I say!’ I was on the point of exclaiming, when Myrtil interrupted me. He described how, in the early hours of the morning, a driver whom he did not know from the firm ‘Long-distance Haulage Company’ had stopped to refuel at his petrol pump and had taken 150 litres of petrol, two jars of Avtol motor oil and a crate of marmalade. The man had told him, in secret, that during the night the underground rocket-fuel factories had exploded - the cause being unknown. It seemed that 23 watchmen and the entire night shift had perished, and apart from that 179 men had been lost without trace. We were all horrified, but at this point the quarrelsome Paral inquired aggressively: ‘And why then did he need marmalade, I wonder?’

This question floored Myrtil. ‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you. That’s all you’ll get from me.’ We had no answer either. Why did the man need marmalade? Kalaid hissed and spluttered but couldn’t get anything out. And then that old fool Panderei took the floor.

‘Listen, fellows,’ he said. ‘Those weren’t rocket factories. They were marmalade factories. Get it? And now, shut up.’

We all sat up. ‘Underground marmalade factories?’ said Paral. ‘Well, old man, you’re in great form today.’

We started to clap Panderei on the back saying: ‘Yes, Pan, poor old man, you can see that you didn’t get much sleep last night. That Minotaur led you a fine song and dance. Oh, Pan, Pan, old friend, it’s high time you got your pension!’

‘A policeman, and he encourages panic himself,’ said Myrtil in an aggrieved tone. He was the only one of us to have taken Panderei’s words seriously.

Finally Panderei buttoned up his jacket from top to bottom and looking over our heads barked out: ‘That’s enough, all of you! Disperse! In the name of the law.’ Myrtil went off to his petrol pump and the rest of us made for the bar.

In the bar we ordered beer straight away. There’s a real pleasure for you, something I was deprived of before I retired ! In a town as small as ours everyone knows the schoolmaster, and for some reason or other all the parents imagine that you are a miracle worker and by your own personal example can prevent their children from following in the footsteps of their parents. From morning till late at night the bar is literally swarming with these parents, and if you permitted yourself an innocent jug of beer, the next day without fail you’d be given a humiliating lecture by the director. And I love going to the bar! I like to sit in good male company, absentmindedly taking in the hum of voices and the clink of glasses behind me. I like swapping risqué stories or winning a game of Chinese patience - a narrow victory, but a worthy one - and when I’ve won I like to order everyone a jug of beer. However, enough of all that.

Japheth served us and we started to talk about war. One-legged Polythemes declared that if this were a war then mobilization would have begun already, but Paral objected to that, saying that if it were war, we would know nothing about it. I don’t like talking about war and would have been glad to move the conversation on to the question of pensions, but then who am I to … Polythemes laid his crutch on the table and asked how much Paral personally knew about war. Paral just shrugged his shoulders and Polythemes finally lost his temper. Then, when he had vented his spleen, he fell to reminiscing over the tank attack we had all beaten back in the snow.

We sat ourselves down and I decided to have lunch at the same time. Normally the food at Japheth’s is very good, but today his dumpling soup à la maison had a foul smell of cheap oil about it - and I told Japheth as much. It turned out that Japheth had been suffering from toothache for the past three days, and it was so bad that he couldn’t taste what he was preparing. ‘And do you remember how I knocked out one of your teeth, Feb ?’ he asked mournfully.

How could I forget! It was way back in the seventh class when we were both running after Iphigenia and fought over her daily. Good God, the days when I could fight are far away now! And apparently Iphigenia has married some engineer in the south and already has grandchildren and heart trouble.

When I passed Mr Laomedontes’ house on my way to see Achilles, that horrible red car with the bullet-proof windows was standing there, and that vile thug who always pokes fun at me was sitting smoking behind the wheel. He started off with his usual abuse, so that I was obliged to cross in a dignified manner to the other side of the street, without paying any attention to him. Achilles was seated in state behind the cash register, thumbing through his Cosmos. Ever since the day he got hold of that blue triangular stamp with the silver seal, he’s made it a rule to reach out for the album, as if quite by chance, as soon as I walk in. I can see right through him and so I’m careful not to show any reaction. Though, to tell the truth, it always makes the blood rush to my heart. My one consolation is that the triangular stamp is franked. I told him so. ‘Yes, Achilles,’ I said, ‘there’s no doubt about it - it’s a beautiful thing. Just a pity that it’s franked.’ He looked angry and muttered something about sour grapes.

But in general we passed the time quite happily together. He tried to persuade me that yesterday’s fireworks were in fact a polar radiance of a very rare kind, which happened purely by chance to have the same appearance as an earthquake, and I tried to make him understand about the manoeuvres and the explosion in the marmalade factory. It’s no good arguing with Achilles. And it’s plain that the man doesn’t believe what he’s saying himself, and only argues from sheer cussedness. He sits there like a Mongolian statue, looks through the window and repeats the same thing over and over again, the general drift of it being that I’m not the only man in this town to understand natural phenomena. From the way he talks you might suppose that in his pharmaceutical college they had been trained in the serious sciences. No, not with a single member of our group can you carry an argument to a rational conclusion.

Our argument ended when Achilles brought out his precious bottle, and we both had a glass of gin. Achilles doesn’t have a great deal of trade. I get the impression that if it weren’t for Madame Persephone he wouldn’t even have enough money for gin.

Even today she had sent somebody in. ‘May I suggest a stomach settler?’ asked Achilles in a delicate whisper.

‘No,’ replied the girl. ‘Madame would like something more reliable, please.’ She dares to ask for something more reliable….Japheth’s young cook came running in to get him some tooth drops, and apart from that there was nobody, so we could chat to our heart’s content.

June 3rd. Sometimes I’m seized by terror at the thought that the problem of my pension is making no headway. I tense up inside and can’t settle to anything.

If only I had some contacts! But, well, there is one of my former pupils, a general what’s more, Alcimes, who is now in the Lower Congress. Maybe it would be worth writing to him? He’s bound to remember me: we had lots of those stupid conflicts which pupils love to remember once they have become adults. Christ, I’ll write to him. And I’ll start the letter quite simply: ‘Hello, young man. Here I am, an old man already…’ I’ll wait a little and then I’ll write.

Today I spent the whole day at home: yesterday Hermione went to visit her aunt and she came back with a large packet full of old stamps. Sorting them out gave me great satisfaction. It’s an incomparable occupation - something like an unending honeymoon. There turned out to be several really fine specimens - all franked, though, and they’ll need touching up. Myrtil has pitched tent in the courtyard of his house and is living there with his entire family. He was boasting that he could gather his belongings and leave in ten minutes. He said that there was still no communication with Marathon. No doubt he’s lying. Minotaur, blind drunk, had driven his dirty cart into Mr Laomedontes’ red car and had had a fight with the chauffeur. Both of them had been taken to the police station. Then Minotaur had been locked up until he sobered and apparently the driver had been taken to hospital. There’s some justice in the world after all. Artemida is sitting at home, quiet as a mouse; Charon should be back any day now. And I’m not going to say anything to Hermione. Maybe it will all sort itself out somehow. If I could just get the first installment of my pension!

June 4th. I’ve just finished reading the evening paper, but I still can’t understand anything. No doubt about it, there’s been some kind of change. But what exactly? And as the result of what events? Our papers like to tell lies, that’s all.

This morning I had a cup of coffee then made my way to The Five Clinks. It was a fine, mild morning. (Temperature - + 18°c; cloud density - 0 degrees; wind - southerly, 1 metre per second, according to my wind-gauge.) As I came out of the garden gate I saw that Myrtil was busy with his tent which he had spread out on the ground. I asked him what he was doing.

‘All right, all right,’ he replied in a tone of intense irritation. ‘You lot have got all the answers. You sit and wait for them to come and finish you all off if you want to.’

I’ve no faith in what Myrtil says, but such talk always upsets me. ‘Well, what has happened now?’ I asked. ‘The Mars-men,’ he answered briefly and started folding the tent between his knees. I didn’t understand what he meant straight away, and maybe that’s why this strange word struck a chill in my heart, as if something terrible and insuperable were at hand. My legs felt weak and I sat down on the bumper of the lorry. Myrtil said nothing more, just puffed and panted. ‘What was it you said?’ I asked. He wrapped up the tent, threw it into a basket and lit a cigarette.

‘The Mars-men have attacked,’ he said in a whisper. ‘It’s the end for all of us. They say that Marathon has been razed to the ground, and that ten million have been killed in one night - can you imagine it? And now they’re in our town hall. They’re in power now and that’s all there is to it. They’ve already forbidden us to sow our crops, and now people say that they’re going to cut out our stomachs. Can you imagine it, they need our stomachs for something or other? Well, I’m not waiting for that - I need my stomach myself. When I heard all that, I decided straight away - these new regimes aren’t for me. The rest of you can go to the devil, for all I care, but I’m off to my brother’s farm. I’ve sent the old woman and the children off by bus already. We’ll sit it out there, see what’s happening, and then we’ll decide what to do.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said, realizing that it was all plainly a pack of lies, but none the less feeling weaker with every moment. ‘Wait a minute, Myrtil. What on earth are you saying? Who’s attacked us? Who’s razed Marathon? - I’ve got a son-in-law there at the moment.’

‘Your son-in-law is lost,’ said Myrtil sympathetically, and threw away his cigarette butt. ‘You may as well count your daughter a widow. She can make free with the secretary now. Well, I’m off. Farewell, Apollo. We always got on well together. I’ve got no grudge against you, and you - well, think kindly of me.’

‘Good Lord!’ I cried out in desperation, all my strength gone. ‘But who has attacked?’

‘The Mars-men, the Mars-men!’ he said, dropping to a whisper again. ‘From up there!’ He pointed his finger at the sky. ‘They came from a comet,’

‘May be you mean the Martians ?’ I asked hopefully.

‘All right, all right,’ he said, getting into his cabin. ‘You’re the teacher, you know best. But, as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t make any difference who it is that’s letting my guts out…’

‘Good heavens, Myrtil,’ I said, having finally grasped what all this nonsense was about. ‘How can you carry on like this? You’re an old man with grandsons of your own. What Martians can there be when Mars is a lifeless planet? There’s no life on Mars, and that’s a scientific fact.’

‘All right, all right,’ muttered Myrtil, but it was clear that he was beginning to have doubts. ‘What more facts have you got up your sleeve?’

‘Enough of your “all rights”. That’s the plain truth. Ask any scholar. Or you don’t even need to ask a scholar - every schoolboy knows that!’

Myrtil grunted and climbed out of his cab. ‘The devil take them all,’ he said, scratching the back of his head. ‘Who on earth is one to listen to? Should I listen to you? Or should I listen to Panderei? I can’t make head nor tail of anything.’ He spat and went off into his house.

I decided to go back in and telephone the police. Panderei turned out to be very busy - Minotaur had broken the grille of his cell and escaped, so that now he, Panderei, had to organize a round-up. He said that some people had quite definitely driven up to the town hall about an hour and a half ago, authorities from somewhere, and maybe they were Martians even. There were certainly rumours around that it was the Martians, but no orders had been received regarding cutting out stomachs, and, anyway, he wasn’t very interested in the Martians, since in his opinion one Minotaur by himself was more trouble than all the Martians put together.

I hurried along to The Five Clinks. Almost all our group were crowded around the entrance to the town hall and were arguing violently about some strange marks in the dust. These marks had been made by one of the Martians who had just arrived - that much they knew for a fact. Morpheus repeated over and over again that even he, a veteran hairdresser and masseur, had never seen such monsters.

‘Spiders,’ he said. ‘Great hairy spiders. The males are hairy and the females hairless. They walk on their hind legs and grab hold of things with their front legs. Have you seen their marks? It’s terrible! Just like holes. Here’s where he’s walked past.’

‘He didn’t walk past,’ said Silen soberly. ‘The force of gravity is greater on earth, as Apollo will confirm, which means that they simply cannot use their legs for walking. They have specially-sprung stilts to walk with and it’s the stilts that leave the marks in the dust.’

‘Quite right, stilts,’ Japheth corroborated him. His cheeks were covered by a bandage and he spoke indistinctly. ‘Only they’re not stilts. It’s a special vehicle that they have - I’ve seen it at the cinema. Their vehicles don’t move on wheels but on levers - something like stilts.’

‘Our treasurer’s gone out of his mind again,’ said Paral. ‘Last time it was hail of an unusual force, the time before that it was locusts and this time he’s hit on the idea of the Martians - more on a level with the age; in tune with assimilation of cosmic expanses.’

‘I can’t look at those marks and stay calm,’ repeated Morpheus. ‘It’s terrible. Well lads, let’s go for a drink, eh?’

Kalaid, who had been struggling with himself for some time already, finally spluttered: ‘It-t-t’s f-f-fine w-weather to-to-to-d-d-ay, f-f-friends. Did y-y-ou s-s-sl-leep w-w-w-well?’ Because of his speech defect he is always out of touch with events. All the same he’s a veteran and might have had something interesting to say about the marks.

‘And Myrtil has taken his leave already,’ said Dimant, giggling stupidly, ‘ “Farewell, Dimant,” he said, “we were always good friends. Look after my petrol pump, and if anything happens, burn it rather than leave it to the enemy.”‘

At this point I asked cautiously what news there was of Marathon.

‘They say that Marathon has been burnt to the ground,’ said Dimant readily. ‘It seems that they’ve phoned from there offering peace.’

I was quite convinced that all this was stupid rumour, and I was ready to disprove them, but at that moment a police siren wailed and we all turned round.

Zigzagging like a hare, reeling, bruised and swollen-faced, Minotaur came running across the square; and behind him in hot pursuit came Panderei in a police jeep. Panderei was standing up, holding on to the windscreen, shouting something and brandishing a pair of handcuffs.

‘That’s it - he’ll get him now,’ said Morpheus.

‘How can you say that?’ objected Dimant. ‘Just look at what he’s doing!’

Minotaur had run up to a telegraph pole, clasped his arms and legs round it and begun to clamber up. However, Panderei had already jumped down from the jeep and grabbed a firm hold of his trousers. With the help of the junior policeman he dragged him away from the post, thrust him into the jeep and put on the handcuffs. After this the junior policeman drove off and Panderei, mopping himself with a handkerchief and unbuttoning his tunic, walked over towards us.

‘There, he’s caught him,’ said Morpheus, turning to Dimant.

Panderei drew near and asked what news there was. He was told about the marks left by the Martians. He quickly got down on his haunches and buried himself in an examination of the circumstantial evidence. I even felt an unwilling respect for him, because straight away a really professional understanding showed itself in his eyes: he looked at the marks from the side, and didn’t touch anything with his hands. I had a presentiment that everything would be explained now. Panderei moved along the length of the marks like a duck wagging its fat behind, and kept repeating: ‘Uh, huh. Quite clear. Uh, huh, quite clear

We waited in impatient silence - only Kalaid tried to say something and brought out a hiss. At last Panderei righted himself with a groan and, surveying the square for all the world as if he expected to discover something, pronounced abruptly: ‘Two of them. Carried off money in a sack. One of them has a walking stick with a blade, the other smokes “Astra”.’

‘I smoke “Astra” too,’ said Paral.

Panderei immediately fixed his eyes on him,

‘Two what?’ asked Dimant. ‘Martians?’

‘I didn’t think locals had done it at first,’ said Panderei slowly, never taking his eyes off Paral. ‘At first I thought it was the lads from Milese. I know what they’re like.’

At this point Kalaid burst out: ‘N-n-no. Y-y-you c-c-can’t c-c-catch him in a car.’

‘And how can they be Martians?’ said Dimant. ‘I don’t understand …’

Panderei, ignoring direct questions as before, looked Paral up and down. ‘Give me your cigarette, old man,’ he said.

‘What do you want it for?’ asked Paral.

‘I want to see how you bite it,’ announced Panderei, ‘and as well I want to know where you were between six and seven am this morning.’

We all looked at Paral, and Paral said that in his opinion Panderei was the biggest fool in the world, with the exception of the cretin who took Panderei into the police force. We were forced to agree with him and started to clap Panderei on the back saying: ‘Yes, Panderei, you’ve made a blunder, old fellow. Can’t you understand, old man? These are Martian marks. This isn’t one of your lavatory attendants!’ Panderei began to swell with indignation.

But at that moment one-legged Polythemes came out of the town hall and burst into the middle of our merriment. ‘It’s a rotten business, lads,’ he said in a worried tone. ‘The Martians are advancing. They’ve taken Milese. Our men are retreating, they’re burning the crops and tearing down the bridges after them!’ My legs went quite weak again and I didn’t even have the strength to push my way to a bench and sit down. ‘They’ve made a landing in the south, two divisions,’ croaked Polythemes. ‘They’ll be here soon!’

‘They’ve been here already,’ said Silen, ‘on special lever-stilts. Look, here are their tracks…’

Polythemes gave them no more than a glance, then said, indignantly, that those were his tracks, and at once everybody realized that, in fact, they were his. I felt very relieved. But as soon as he had understood Panderei buttoned up his tunic from top to bottom and, looking over our heads barked out: ‘That’s enough, all of you! Move on! In the name of the law.’

I went into the town hall. The place was crowded out with flat sacks of some kind, which were stacked along the corridor walls, on the landings and even in the reception room. An unfamiliar smell came from these sacks, and the windows were wide open everywhere, but apart from that everything was as usual. Mr Nikostratos was sitting at his table, polishing his fingernails. Smirking strangely and pronouncing his words very indistinctly, he gave me to understand that, in the course of his official duty, he was not entitled to spread information concerning the Martians, but that he could positively affirm that all this could hardly have any bearing on the question of my pension. One thing was certain: from now on it would be unprofitable to sow wheat in our region, but it would be very profitable to sow some new cereal, which had what he described as ‘universal properties’. The seed was being kept in those sacks, and from today onwards they would begin to divide it among the farms round about.

‘And where have these sacks come from?’ I asked.

‘They were supplied,’ he replied impressively.

I overcame my timidity and inquired who had supplied them.

‘Official personages,’ he said, got up from behind his table, excused himself, and with his straggling gait went off to the mayor’s room.

I went out to the general office and chatted with the typists and the watchmen for a bit. Strange though it may seem, they confirmed almost all the rumours about the Martians, but they did not give me the impression of having genuine information. Oh! I’ve had enough of these rumours already! Nobody believes in them, yet everybody repeats them. It means that even the most simple facts are distorted. For example, Polythemes was declaring that the bridges had been torn down. And what had happened in actual fact? Somebody saw him through a window and asked him to come into the mayor’s office and repair a typewriter. While he was at work, and amusing the girls with the story of how he lost his leg, the mayor came into the office, stood there for a moment, listened with a thoughtful expression on his face and said ambiguously: ‘Yes, sirs, our bridges seem to have been burned’ - and then returned to his room, from where he shortly ordered sardine sandwiches and a bottle of Fargosskii beer. But Polythemes explained to the girls that retreating troops generally tear down bridges behind them so as to obstruct the enemy’s advance. The rest is plain. What stupidity! I decided it was my duty to explain to the town-hall employees that the secret phrase uttered by the lord mayor only meant that some irrevocable decision had been taken. Naturally relief immediately showed itself on the faces of all around, mixed, however, with some disappointment.

Nobody could be seen at The Five Clinks - Panderei had chased them all away. Feeling almost completely reassured already, I set off to see Achilles. I wanted to tell him about my latest discoveries and also to sound out the ground regarding the architectural series: maybe he would take the soiled one since it was impossible to get an unmarked one anyway - after all, he’ll take franked stamps! But Achilles too was oppressed by the steadily-growing rumours. To my proposal he replied absentmindedly that he would think it over. Then, not even noticing the importance of it himself, he gave me an excellent idea.

‘The Martians are a new power,’ he said. ‘And you know, Feb, a new power means new stamps.’

I was astonished that this simple idea had not occurred to me. Certainly, even if the rumours were only partly true, the first rational action of these mythical Martians would have been to issue their own stamps, or at least to overprint our old ones. I hurriedly said goodbye to Achilles and headed straight for the post office. But of course no letters with new stamps had appeared, and in general there was nothing new in the post office. When, finally, will we teach ourselves not to believe rumours? After all, it’s well known that Mars has an extremely rarefied atmosphere, that its climate is excessively harsh and that water - the basis of life - hardly exists there. The myths about the Martian canals were decisively debunked long ago, and they turned out to be nothing more than an optical illusion. In short, all this reminds me of the panic the year before last, when one-legged Polythemes ran about the town with a shotgun, shrieking that a gigantic man-eating triton had escaped from the zoo in the capital. That time Myrtil was clever enough to carry off his whole house, and it took two weeks before he made up his mind to return to the town.

The dim intelligence of my fellow citizens, blunted by a monotonous life, gives birth to the most fantastic images, whenever something happens that is even slightly outside the usual. The world of our town is like a henhouse buried in sleep - you need only accidentally brush against the plume of some cockerel, as it drowses on the perch, and at once indescribable pandemonium is let loose. The whole brood flaps around, cackling and making a complete mess of the henhouse. But, in my opinion, life is troubled enough as it is. We should all be more careful of our nerves. I reckon that these rumours are a lot more harmful to the health than even smoking. A writer who had the necessary figures to hand proved this. As well, he wrote that the reciprocal strength of the panic rumour was directly proportionate to the ignorance of the masses. And that’s true, although I must admit that even the most highly educated among us succumb surprisingly easily to the general mood, and are ready to go anywhere along with the panic-stricken crowd.

I had decided to explain all this to our group but on my way to the bar I noticed that a crowd had gathered again at The Five Clinks. I turned round and went there instead, and was soon convinced that the rumours had already shown their destructive nature. Nobody would listen to my arguments. They were all impossibly worked up, and the veterans were brandishing their guns. Somebody explained to me that the soldiers from the barracks of the 88th infantry regiment had been discharged and had an extraordinary tale to tell.

The night before last the regiment was woken by an alarm call, and had spent some time - to be precise, until the morning - camped in armoured carriers and lorries in the square, in full military readiness. In the morning they had called off the alarm and yesterday everything had been normal. But last night exactly the same had happened, with the one exception, however: in the morning the general staff colonel had arrived in the barracks by helicopter, had ordered them to reconstruct the regiment as a punishment, and, not even getting out of his helicopter, had delivered a long, completely unintelligible speech, after which he flew off, and then almost the entire regiment were discharged. I must add, however, that the soldiers, who had already got themselves pretty well oiled at Japheth’s, spoke extremely distinctly, and now and then started singing that coarse song: ‘Niobe, Niobe, Come and lie nigh o’ me’. However, it was quite plain that not a single word had been said about the Martians in the general staff colonel’s speech. As a matter of fact, the colonel spoke only of two things: the patriotic duty of the soldier, and his gastric juices; and then in some elusive manner he managed to link these two concepts together. The soldiers themselves hadn’t understood all these subtleties, but they had understood something else: from that day onward anyone whom a sergeant caught with the chewing gum ‘Narko’ or with an ‘Opi’ cigarette would find himself bump in the punishment cell and would be left there to rot for ten days and nights. As soon as the colonel had flown off, the regimental commander, far from forgetting the punishment, had ordered the junior officers and sergeants to conduct a thorough search of the barracks, with the object of removing all cigarettes and chewing gum that contained toxic elements. Apart from that the soldiers didn’t know anything and didn’t want to know any more. Hugging each other by the shoulders they burst forth with such a threatening air into: ‘Niobe, Niobe, Come give yourself to me’, that we gave way to them in a hurry and left them alone.

By now Polythemes had climbed up on to a bench with his crutch and shotgun and was shouting that the generals had betrayed us, that there were spies all round, that the real patriots must rally round the banner, that patriotism was the thing needed, and so on. That Polythemes cannot live without patriotism. He can live without a leg but he can’t do anything without patriotism. At length he became hoarse and stopped talking so as to finish his cigarette. I had a shot at making our group see some sense. I started to tell them that there was not, and could not be, life on Mars, that it was sheer invention. Once again, however, they wouldn’t let me have my say. First Morpheus, stuck the morning paper with a long article entitled ‘Is there life on Mars?’ under my nose. In this article all former scientific facts were subjected to ironical doubt: and when, by no means subdued, I tried to discuss the article, Polythemes pushed his way up to me, grabbed me by the collar and wheezed threateningly: ‘You’re forgetting your vigilance, aren’t you, you Martian spy? Balding shit! To the wall with you!’

I can’t bear it when people treat me like that. My heart started to pound and I yelled for the police. Sheer hooliganism ! I’ll never forgive Polythemes for that. Who does he think he is? I pulled myself free, called him a one-legged swine and went off to the bar.

It was pleasant to be persuaded that Polythemes’ patriotic howls were distasteful to others besides myself. Some of the group had already gathered in the bar. They had all planted themselves round Kronid the archivist and were taking it in turns to ply him with beer, while they tried to extract information from him regarding the morning’s visitation by the Martians.

‘Nothing special about them,’ said Kronid, rolling the whites of his eyes with difficulty. ‘Well, they’re just - Martians. One of them was called Calchand, the other Elias, both of them southerners, with great long noses like this …’

‘Yes, yes, but what about their vehicle?’ he was asked.

‘Just an ordinary machine, black, flies … No, not a helicopter. Flies, that’s all. What do you think I am, a pilot or something? How would I know how it flies? …’

I had lunch and waited for them to leave him alone, then got two portions of gin and sat down beside him. ‘No further news about the pensions?’ I asked him. But Kronid was already past understanding.

His eyes had filled with tears, he downed glass after glass like a machine, and muttered: ‘Martians - well, just Martians, one of them called Calchand, the other Elias … Black machines … they fly … No, not airships, Elias I said … Not me, the pilot…’ and then he fell asleep.

When Polythemes and his gang flocked into the bar I pointedly left for home. Myrtil hadn’t left after all. Once again he had pitched his tent and was sitting cooking supper on a gas ring. Artemida wasn’t at home; she’d gone off somewhere without saying anything, and Hermione was beating the carpets. I started touching up my stamps to calm myself. It’s pleasant, for all that, to reflect on the art I’ve managed to perfect. I don’t know if anyone else could distinguish my special glue from real glue, but, in any case, Achilles can’t.

And now to today’s papers. Nowadays, the papers are quite amazing. Almost every page is taken up with the opinions of different medical men regarding rational modes of nutrition. Medicinal preparations containing opium, morphine and caffeine are discussed with a certain unnatural indignation. So what, if I have liver pains now, then I’m just supposed to put up with it? Not a single paper has a philatelists’ section, there’s not a word about football, and, what’s more, all the papers have printed the same huge, and entirely meaningless, article about the importance of gastric juice. Anyone would think that I couldn’t possibly know what was the importance of the gastric juices without them to tell me. Not a single telegram from abroad, not a word about the results of the embargo - instead a long discussion about wheat. They say there aren’t enough vitamins in wheat, and wheat, apparently, is too easily infected by pests. And a certain Martius, an MA in agriculture, has managed to persuade himself that the one thousand years’ history of the cultivation of wheat and other useful cereals (oats, Indian corn, maize) represents a universal error on the part of mankind, although it is still not too late to correct this error. I don’t know much about wheat, and a specialist would say more than I can, but the article was written in an intolerably fault-finding, not to say perversive manner. You can see at once that this Martius is a typical southerner - a nihilist and a shouter.

Twelve o’clock already and still no sign of Artemida. She’s not in the house and there’s no sign of her in the garden, and apart from anything else the streets are full of drunken soldiers. She could at least have telephoned to say where she was. I’ll get the lot - Hermione will come in and ask what’s going on with Artemida. And I’ve no idea how to reply. I just can’t do with that kind of conversation. The question is: how did I come to have such a daughter? The other one, dead now, was a modest girl. She amused herself a little just the once, with the town architect, and amusement was all it was - two or three notes, one letter. And I’d never been a great dog, as Polythemes would put it. I still remember my visit to Madame Persephone with horror. No, such pastimes are not for a civilized man. For all that, love, even the most sensual, is a sacrament, and it is by no means so entertaining to have an affair, even with familiar and well-meaning people, as some books would have it. Good heavens, I certainly don’t think that Artemida is indulging in an orgy of drink and bacchanalian dances right now, but she might at least have telephoned. The stupidity of my son-in-law amazes me. In his place I’d have been back long ago.

I was already on the point of closing my diary and going off to bed when the following thought occurred to me. Obviously Charon had had a good reason for staying in Marathon. It’s a frightening thought, but I think I can guess what has happened. Can it really be that they’ve decided on it? Now I can remember all those gatherings under my roof, those strange friends of his with their vulgar habits and appalling manners - some kind of mechanics with coarse voices who drank whisky without soda and smoked revolting cheap cigarettes. As well there were some short-haired shouters with unhealthy complexions who strutted about in jeans and gaudy shirts and never wiped their feet before coming into the house. I can remember all their talk about a world government, about some kind of technocracy and about these unthinkable ‘isms’ - the organic rejection of everything that guarantees peace and security to the ordinary man. I can remember it all now, and now I understand what has happened. Yes, my son-in-law and his associates were extremists and this is what they’ve done. All this talk about Martians is obviously the distorted version of something that has really happened. Conspirators have always worshipped fine, mysterious-sounding words, and you can’t rule out the possibility that they are calling themselves ‘Martians’ or some ‘society for the improvement of Mars’ or even, say, ‘The Martian renaissance’. Even the fact that the MA in agriculture bears the name Martius seems to me to be very significant: it’s more than likely that he’s the leader of the coup. What I cannot understand is the hostility of the putschists to wheat and their unintelligent interest in the gastric juices. Quite likely, it’s just a manoeuvre to distract people and bewilder the public.

If Charon has the sense not to remain in the back ranks, then at least I’m assured the first category pension.

June 5th. Last night I slept badly. First I was woken by Artemida, who didn’t come home till nearly 1 am. I had quite decided to speak frankly to her, but nothing came of it: she kissed me goodnight and shut herself up in her bedroom. I had to take a sleeping pill to calm myself. I dozed off and dreamt some kind of nonsense. Then at 4 am I was woken again, this time by Charon. Everyone is asleep, yet he holds forth to the whole house in a loud voice, as if there were no one there but himself. I threw on my dressing-gown and went into the sitting-room. My God, but it frightened me just to look at him! I realized at once that the coup had not been successful.

He was sitting at the table greedily devouring everything that the sleepy Artemida brought to him: and the oily parts of some kind of gun were scattered on the table too, right on the tablecloth. He was unshaven, his eyes were red and inflamed, his hair dishevelled and sticking up in matted locks, and he gobbled his food like a lavatory attendant. He didn’t have a jacket, and I dare say he had arrived at the house in just this state. There was nothing of the chief editor of a small but respectable paper left in him now. His shirt was torn and soiled, his hands were filthy, his fingernails broken, and on his chest you could see some horrible swollen-looking scratches. He didn’t even think of greeting me, merely glanced at me with the eyes of a madman and muttered, choking down his food: ‘At last, you scum!’

I let this fierce greeting pass, since I could see that the man was not himself, but my heart sank and my legs felt so weak that I was obliged to sit down on the divan without further ado. And Artemida was very frightened - although she tried to hide it in every way. We had no conversation in the normal sense of the word. Trying in vain to control the pounding of my heart I asked Charon if he had had a good trip. In reply he snarled completely unintelligibly that he’d had a bloody awful trip.

I tried to change the topic and direct the conversation into a more peaceful channel, and inquired about the weather at Marathon. He looked at me as if I had insulted him mortally, but in return only snarled into his plate, ‘Stupid idiots’. Obviously it was no good talking to him. He swore horribly the whole time - during the course of his meal and when, after he had finished eating, he pushed away the plates with his elbow and started with renewed vigour to sort out the gun parts. In general it went something like this: ‘The whole bloody business is in such a bloody state that any bloody wretch can do what he wants with the whole bleeding business and not a single bleeding man will stir a hand to stop all the bleeders carrying on with their filth’.

Poor Artemida stood at his shoulder, wringing her hands, the tears running down her cheeks. From time to time she glanced at me imploringly, but what could I do? I needed help myself - everything had gone black in front of my eyes, like a shroud, from nervous exhaustion. Still keeping up the oaths he fitted his gun together (it turned out to be a modern military automatic), he inserted a cartridge clip and got heavily to his feet, throwing two plates to the floor. My poor little Artemida, her face drained of blood, strained towards him and then he seemed to soften a little.

‘Now, now, little girl,’ he said, stopping his oaths for a moment and taking her clumsily by the shoulders. ‘I could take you with me, but it would hardly make you very happy. I know very well what you’re like.’

Even I was tormented by the need for Artemida to find the right words now. And just as if she had caught my telepathy she asked what seemed to me to be a very important question: ‘What will happen to us now?’ At once I understood that from Charon’s point of view these words were quite superfluous.

He thrust his automatic under his arm, slapped Artemida on the bottom and grinning pleasantly said: ‘Don’t worry, little girl, there’ll be nothing new here’, after which he headed straight for the door. But I couldn’t let him go like that without giving any explanation.

‘Just a minute, Charon,’ I said, overcoming my weakness, ‘just what will happen now? What will they do to us?’

This single question of mine drove him into an indescribable frenzy. He stopped in the doorway, turned halfway round, his knee twitching painfully, hissed the following strange words through his teeth: ‘If just one bloody wretch would ask what he should do. But no, every single bloody beast just wants to know what will happen to him. Don’t worry, you’ll get your heaven on earth.’ And with that he went out slamming the door loudly behind him, and a moment later his car engine could be heard muttering as he drove away down the street.

For the next hour I might have been in hell itself. Artemida started something like hysterics, although it looked more like a fit of uncontrollable anger. She broke all the china that was left on the table, snatched hold of the tablecloth and flung it at the television, banged on the door with her fists, and in a stifled voice screamed something that sounded like this: ‘So I’m just your fool, am I? Your fool, that’s it, isn’t it? … And you? … And you … I couldn’t care a damn about you! You can do what you want and I’ll do what I want! … Get it? … Get it? … Get it? … You’ll come running to me on your knees yet! …’

I should probably have given her some water, slapped her on the cheeks and all the rest of it, but I myself was lying prostrated on the divan and there was nobody to bring me a validol tablet. Finally Artemida rushed off into her room, without paying any attention to me, and when I had rested a little I dragged myself to my bed and lost consciousness.

The morning turned out overcast and rainy. (Temperature - + 17°c; cloud density - 10 degrees; no wind.) Mercifully, I slept through Artemida’s explanation to Hermione regarding the chaos in the living-room. I only know that there was a great row and that both of them are now going about sulking. The intention of giving me a dressing-down, too, was written large on Hermione’s face, as she poured out the coffee, but she kept her peace. No doubt I’m looking pretty ill - and she’s a kind-hearted woman, which is why I respect her. After coffee I was summoning the energy to go out to The Five Clinks when a young messenger-boy appeared on the scene, bringing me a so-called summons, signed by Polythemes. It seems that I am a rank-and-file member of the ‘Town Voluntary Anti-Martian Brigade’ and I was already directed to ‘Present myself on Concord Square by 9 am having with me a gun, or some other weapon, and food rations for three days’. What does he think I am, some raw youth? Of course, I didn’t go anywhere, on principle.

Myrtil, who is still living in his tent, told me that farmers had been arriving at the town hall since dawn, collecting sacks of the new cereal and carrying it off to use on their farms. Supposedly, this year’s standing wheat harvest, doomed to destruction, was being bought up by the Government on advantageous terms, and deposits were also being taken on the new cereal harvest. The farmers suspect the usual shady agrarian transactions, but while neither money nor written undertakings are demanded from them they don’t know what to think. Myrtil assures me (!) that there are no Martians, because life on Mars is impossible. There is just a new agrarian policy. However, he’s ready to leave the town at any moment and he, too, has taken a sack of the new seed, just in case. The same as yesterday, there’s nothing but wheat and gastric juices in the papers. If it goes on like this much longer I’ll give up my subscription. On the radio - nothing but wheat and gastric juices too. I’ve stopped listening to it already and just watch the television, where everything is as it was before the coup. Mr Nikostratos turned up in his car, Artemida rushed out to meet him and they rolled off together. I don’t want to think about it.

Since the babble about wheat and gastric juices hasn’t come to an end it seems that the coup has been successful after all. No doubt Charon, with the quarrelsome nature peculiar to him, hadn’t got what he wanted, had fought with the gang there and had found himself in the opposition. I’m afraid that there’s still trouble in store for us because of him. When madmen like Charon get hold of an automatic they shoot. Good God, will there ever be a time when I don’t have any worries?

June 6th. Temperature - +16°c; cloud density - 9 degrees; wind - south-westerly, 6 metres per second. I’ve mended the wind-gauge.

June 7th. My eye is still hurting, my eyelid is swollen and I can’t see anything through it. It’s a good thing it’s my left eye. Achilles’ eye-lotion doesn’t help much. Achilles says that the bruise will be visible for at least a week. At the moment it’s reddish-blue, then it will turn green, then yellow and then it will disappear entirely. All the same, what cruel, uncultured behaviour: to strike an elderly man, who had done nothing more than ask an innocent question. If the Martians begin like this, heaven knows how they’ll finish. But complaining won’t do any good - there’s only one thing left to do: wait for the situation to clear up. My eye is so sore that it’s an effort even to remember how much the calm morning delighted me. (Temperature - +20°c; cloud density - 0 degrees; wind - southerly, 1 metre per second.)

When I went up to the attic after breakfast to carry out some meteorological observations I noticed, with some surprise, that the fields beyond the town had taken on a distinctly bluish tinge. In the distance the fields had so merged with the azure of the sky that the line of the horizon was completely indistinct, even although the air was beautifully clear and there was absolutely no haze. This new Martian seed has come up remarkably quickly. It looks as if it will wipe out the wheat completely in a matter of days.

Coming into the square I saw that almost the whole of our group, and besides them a great number of other townsfolk, such as farmers, who should have been at work at this time, and schoolboys, who should have been playing games, were crowding round three large vans, which had been decorated with different-coloured placards and posters. I would have guessed that it was a travelling circus, especially since the posters invited one to admire the incomparable rope-walkers and other unusual heroes of the arena, but Morpheus, who had been there for some time already, explained to me that it was not a circus, but a mobile donor point. Inside them were special pumps and hoses and beside each pump sat a hefty young fellow in a doctor’s gown, who invited everyone who came near to have their excesses drawn off, and who paid remarkably highly: five roubles per glass.

‘What excesses?’ I asked. It turned out to be gastric-juice excesses. The whole world was obsessed with gastric juice. ‘Is it really the Martians?’ I asked.

‘What Martians?’ said Morpheus. ‘They’re just great, hairy fellows. One of them’s lost an eye.’

‘And what’s proved by the fact that he’s lost an eye?’ I objected quite naturally. ‘A member of any race, whether on Earth or on Mars, will lose the use of an eye if it is injured.’ I didn’t know then that my words were prophetic. Simply, Morpheus’s self-importance irritated me.

‘Well, I’ve never heard of one-eyed Martians,’ he declared. The people round about were listening to our conversation and, in a fit of vainglory, he decided that it was necessary to boost his doubtful reputation as a debater. And yet he doesn’t understand the first thing about the art of debate! ‘Those aren’t Martians,’ he announced. ‘They’re ordinary fellows from the suburbs of the capital. You can see a dozen like them in every bar.’

‘Our information concerning Mars is so meagre,’ I said calmly, ‘that to suggest that Martians are like fellows from the suburban bars would certainly not contradict any scientific evidence.’

‘That’s right,’ butted in an unknown farmer who was standing beside us. ‘You said that most convincingly, Mr I-don’t-know-what-your-name-is. That one-eyed character has got his arm tattooed right up to the elbow, nothing but naked women too. He rolled up his sleeves and bore down on me with that hose - and I thought to myself, no, we won’t need the likes of him.’

‘So what does science have to say regarding Martian tattooing?’ Morpheus asked maliciously. He thought he’d catch me with that. A cheap approach, just what you’d expect from a hairdresser. You won’t get me with that kind of trick.

‘The chief astronomer of the Marathon observatory, Professor Zephyr,’ I said, looking him straight in the eyes, ‘does not deny the existence of such a habit among the Martians in a single one of his many articles.’

‘That’s quite right,’ the farmer corroborated me. ‘And astronomers wear glasses, so they can see better.’

Morpheus had to swallow it all. He developed a sudden coughing fit and with the words ‘I need a glass of beer,’ made his way out of the crowd. I stayed on, however, to see what more would happen.

For some time there was nothing. Everyone just stood around gaping and chatting quietly. Farmers and tradesmen - an indecisive crew. And then someone started to move at the front. Some rural fellow suddenly tore off his straw hat, trod it beneath his feet with all his might, and shouted out loudly: ‘Well, so what? Five roubles… it’s all money, isn’t it?’

With these words he walked decisively up the steps and pushed his way through the door of the van, so that all we could see was his back, muddy and covered with feathers. What he said and what he asked - we couldn’t make out because of the distance. I could only see that at first his pose was tense, and then he seemed to relax, started shifting about from one foot to the other, thrust his hands in his pockets and, stepping backwards, shook his head. Then he cautiously let himself down to the ground, without looking at anyone, picked up his hat, shook the dust from it carefully and disappeared into the crowd. A man, who was certainly very tall and certainly had only one eye, appeared in the doorway of the van. If it weren’t for his white gown, what with the black bandage across his face, his unshaven stubble and hairy tattooed arms, he would have looked just like the criminal inhabitant of some vile den. Looking at us gloomily he slowly rolled down his sleeves, took out a cigarette and, lighting it, said in a coarse voice: ‘Well, come along in then. Five roubles a time. Five roubles a time. Five roubles for every glass. Real money! Ready cash. How long do you sweat to earn yourselves five roubles? Here you just swallow a tube and it’s done. Well, what about it?’

I looked at him and felt amazed at the short-sightedness of the administration. How could anyone reckon that the man in the street, even a farmer, would be willing to entrust his organism to such a thug? I made my way out of the crowd and went off to The Five Clinks.

Our group were there already, all of them with shotguns and some of them with white bands on their sleeves. Polythemes had struggled into his old uniform cap, and was delivering a speech from a bench, with the sweat pouring off his face. According to him, the infamous behaviour of the Martians had become absolutely intolerable; the hearts of all patriots were bleeding in anguish under their yoke; and the time had come, at last, to repulse them once and for all. And it was deserters and traitors such as fat-bottomed, guzzling generals, the chemist Achilles, the coward Myrtil and that recreant Apollo, he maintained, who were responsible for it all.

My eyes saw red when I heard the last words. I quite lost the power of speech and only came to my senses when I noticed that, apart from me, nobody was listening to Polythemes. They weren’t listening to that one-legged fool, but to Silen, who had just returned from the town hall and was saying that from now the payment of taxes would only be accepted in gastric juice, and that an edict had come from Marathon, putting gastric juices on the same footing as ordinary coinage. Now, apparently, gastric juice will be just as valid as money, and all savings and other banks will be prepared to change it for currency.

Paral at once remarked: ‘So it’s finally come to that. They’ve squandered the gold reserves and now they’re trying to insure the currency with gastric juice.’

‘How can that work?’ said Dimant. ‘I don’t understand! Does it mean they’ll have to bring in special glass containers shaped like purses? And what if I bring them water instead of gastric juice?’

‘Listen, Silen,’ said Morpheus, ‘I owe you ten roubles. Will you take it in juice?’ He was quite transformed - he never had enough money for a drink and was always getting other people to pay for him. ‘It’s a great age, lads,’ he exclaimed. ‘For example, if I want to have a drink now, I go off to the bank, divide out my excesses, get some ready cash and - off to the bar.’

At this point Polythemes began to shout with renewed vigour. ‘You’ve been bought!’ he yelled. ‘You’ve sold yourselves to the Martians for gastric juice. You’ve sold yourselves and they’re driving round the town as if it were their own Mars!’

And in actual fact a very strange vehicle, black in colour, and apparently quite bare of wheels, doors or windows, was moving slowly and completely silently across the square. Small boys ran after it, shouting and whistling, and some of them tried to clamber on to the back of it, but it was as smooth as a grand piano and there was nothing to cling to. A very strange vehicle.

‘It can’t really be a Martian vehicle can it?’ I asked.

‘Well, who else does it belong to?’ said Polythemes in an irritated tone. ‘Is it yours?’

‘Nobody’s saying it’s mine,’ I objected. ‘There are enough cars in the world, why should they all belong to the Martians?’

‘And I’m not saying they’re all Martian, you old fool!’ yelled Polythemes. ‘I’m saying that the Martians, the skunks, are driving about the town as if it belonged to them! And you lot have all sold yourselves.’

I merely shrugged my shoulders, not wanting to become involved, but Silen rebuked him sharply. ‘Excuse me, Polythemes, but your shrieks are beginning to annoy me. And not just me. In my opinion we have all carried out our duty. We’ve joined the brigade, cleaned our guns; just what more do you want, I’d like to know?’

‘Patrols! We need patrols!’ said Polythemes tearfully. ‘We must close the roads. We mustn’t let the Martians into the town!’

‘And how will you stop them from getting past?’

‘Oh, to the devil with you, Silen. How will I stop them getting past? Very simply! - Stop, who goes there? Stop or I’ll shoot!’

I can’t take that kind of talk. He’s not a man - he’s a military barracks.

‘Well, we could form patrols,’ said Dimant. ‘But we’ll find it a bit difficult won’t we?’

‘That’s not our job,’ I said firmly. ‘Silen here will tell you that it’s illegal. That’s what the Army’s for. Let the Army form the patrols and do the shooting.’

I cannot abide these military games, especially when it’s Polythemes in charge. It’s just like a kind of sadism. I remember when we had some anti-atomic bomb training in the town, and to make it more real Polythemes threw smoke-boxes all round, so that nobody would shirk using their gas masks. And the number of people who were poisoned - a real nightmare. Besides, he’s a non-commissioned officer and you can’t trust anything to him. And once he burst into a school gym class, swore at the teacher in foul language and started to demonstrate the goose-step to the children. If they put him in a patrol he’d be firing at everybody with his shotgun until people would refuse to bring rations into the town. Let him have a good go at the Martians and in revenge they’ll take the town and burn it. But, my God, old men are like children. Tell them to form a patrol and - they’ll form a patrol. I spat ostentatiously and went into the town hall.

Mr Nikostratos was polishing his fingernails and answered my confused questions roughly like this: under the new conditions the financial policy of the Government was changing somewhat. From now on the so-called gastric juices would play an important role in monetary affairs. One could expect that gastric juices would soon be used in the same way as money. As yet there were no special instructions concerning pensions, but there was good reason to suppose that once taxes were accepted in the so-called gastric juice, then pensions, too, would be paid in the so-called gastric juice. My heart sank but I plucked up courage and asked Mr Nikostratos straight out whether I would be wrong in taking his words to mean that this so-called gastric juice was not, properly speaking, gastric juice, but represented some symbol of the new financial policy.

Mr Nikostratos shrugged his shoulders vaguely and, continuing to examine his nails, announced: ‘Gastric juice, Mr Apollo, is gastric juice’.

‘And what do I want with gastric juice?’ I asked in complete despair.

He shrugged his shoulders for a second time and observed: ‘You know very well that gastric juice is vital to every human being’. It was quite plain to me that Mr Nikostratos was either lying or keeping something back. I was in such despair that I demanded an interview with the mayor. But I was refused. Then I left the town hall and enrolled in the patrol.

If a man who has given thirty years of unblemished service in the field of human enlightenment is offered as a reward a phial of gastric juice, then that man is quite entitled to demonstrate his dissatisfaction as much as he wants. It’s not really important whether the Martians are to blame or not. I can’t abide anarchistic behaviour, but I’m ready to take up arms for my rights. And although everyone can see that my protest has a purely symbolic character, they can think about this, and know this: they’re not dealing with a dumb animal. Certainly, if the donor points were systematized, and if ordinary banks and savings banks did in fact accept gastric juice in exchange for currency, then I would have a different attitude to it all. But the only one to talk about savings banks has been Silen, so for the moment it is nothing more than unsubstantiated rumour. On the subject of donor points, however, Morpheus, who had enrolled in the patrol and decided to celebrate the fact straight away put himself in the hands of the one-eyed thug and returned with red, tear-stained eyes and, showing us a shining new five-rouble piece, told us that the vans were leaving. Which means that there’s no question of any system: they’ve come and they’ve gone. If you managed to give your excesses - fine; if you didn’t - so much the worse for you. In my opinion it’s disgraceful.

Polythemes appointed the stutterer Kalaid and myself to patrol Concord Square, and the streets adjacent, from twelve to two am. Having given us identification cards made out by Silen, he slapped me on the back with great emotion and said: ‘The old guard! We won’t give these filthy scum any help, will we, Feb? I knew you’d be with us when it came to the crunch.’

We embraced and both shed a few tears. Basically Polythemes is really not a bad sort, it’s just that he wants people to obey him unquestioningly. A quite understandable desire. I asked his permission to be dismissed and set off to see Achilles. A patrol is all very well, but one has to take some provision on one’s own account. I asked Achilles what gastric juices were, who needed them and what were their uses? Achilles said that one needed this juice to digest one’s food properly and for nothing apart from that. I didn’t need him to tell me that.

‘Soon I’ll be able to offer you a large dose of this so-called gastric juice,’ I said. ‘Will you take it?’

He said he would think it over and proposed swapping my incomplete zoological series for an indentated ‘28 airmail stamp. There’s no doubt about it, an indentated stamp is pretty well unique, but the one Achilles has is double-franked and has a greasy spot on it. I don’t know. I really don’t.

As I came out of the chemist’s I saw the Martian vehicle again. Maybe it was the same one and maybe it was another. Breaking all the rules for street traffic it was bearing along in the middle of the road, moving at walking speed, it’s true, so that I could examine it thoroughly - I was on my way to the bar and took the same road. My first impression seemed quite correct - more than anything else the vehicle resembled a dusty grand piano with streamlined contours. From time to time something sparked underneath it and it bobbed up and down slightly, but evidently this was not a fault, since it continued to move implacably forward without halting for a second. Even from a short distance I couldn’t make out door or windows. But more than anything else I was struck by the absence of wheels. True, my build did not permit me to stoop low enough to look underneath it. Probably there were wheels there all the same - it’s quite impossible for there not to be any wheels at all.

Suddenly the vehicle stopped. And right enough it stopped in front of Mr Laomedontes’ villa. I remember that I thought bitterly - well, for some people it really doesn’t make any difference who it is, whether it’s a new president or an old president, the Martians or anybody else. Any new power always treats them with far more respect and attention than they deserve. Whereas, as far as respect is concerned, they deserve the opposite. However, something quite unexpected now took place. Guessing correctly that somebody would get out of the vehicle, and that at last I would glimpse a live Martian, I stopped in a corner to watch, along with some other passers-by, whose thoughts clearly coincided with my own. To our amazement and disappointment, however, no Martians got out of the vehicle but some very fine young men in narrow coats and identical berets. Three of them went up to the front door and rang while another two, their hands thrust deep into their coat pockets, arranged themselves in careless poses beside the vehicle, leaning on different parts of its body. The front door opened, the three went inside, and at once strange, not very loud, sounds could be heard from within. It was just as if one of them had started carelessly shifting the furniture about and the others had started to beat the carpet with measured blows. The two who had remained beside the vehicle didn’t pay any attention to this noise. They remained in their former poses: one of them looked absentmindedly along the street, while the other, yawning, cast his eye over the upper storey of the house. When a moment later my humiliator, Mr Laomedontes’ chauffeur, like a blind man walked slowly and cautiously out of the front door they didn’t change their poses either. His face was white, his mouth wide open, his eyes bulging and glassy and both hands were pressed to his stomach. He got on to the pavement, took a few steps, sat down with a groan, stayed sitting for a few moments, stooping more and more, then fell over heavily on to his back, writhed, pawed the ground and lay deathly still. I must admit that at first I couldn’t understand anything. It all took place so unhurriedly, in such a peaceful, workmanlike manner and against the background of such normal town noise, that at first the feeling was born in me that this was something which ought to happen. I felt no disquiet and sought no explanation. I simply trusted these young men who were so refined-looking and so restrained … At this point one of them absentmindedly glanced at the recumbent chauffeur, lit a cigarette, and once again continued his examination of the upper storey. It even seemed to me that he was smiling. Then the clatter of feet could be heard and out of the door, one after the other, walked: one young man in a narrow coat, wiping his lips with a handkerchief; Mr Laomedontes in a luxurious Oriental dressing-gown, without a hat and in handcuffs; the second young man in a narrow coat, who was in the middle of taking off his gloves; and, finally, the third young man in a narrow coat, loaded with guns. With his right hand he was clutching three or four sub-machine-guns to his chest, and in his left hand he carried several pistols, his fingers thrust through the trigger-guards, and, apart from that, light machine guns were hanging from each shoulder. I only looked at Mr Laomedontes once and that was quite enough for me - the impression of something red, wet and sticky has remained in my mind ever since. The whole cavalcade crossed the pavement at a leisurely pace and hid itself in the womb of the vehicle. The two young men who had been leaning against the polished side of the vehicle now straightened themselves casually, walked up to the recumbent chauffeur, took him carefully by the arms and legs, swung him slightly and threw him into the entrance of the house. Then one of them took a piece of paper from his pocket and pinned it neatly to the doorbell, after which the vehicle, without first turning round, moved off at its former speed in the opposite direction. The two remaining young men, with the most unassuming air, passed through the crowd, which parted for them, and disappeared round a corner.

When I recovered from the stupor, into which the suddenness and strangeness of what had just taken place had plunged me, and re-discovered the power of reflection, I experienced something in the nature of a psychological earthquake. It was as if a turning-point in history had been accomplished in front of my eyes. I’m sure that the other witnesses experienced something similar. We all jostled each other in front of the doorway, but nobody could pluck up the courage to go in. I put on my glasses and over the heads of the rest read the proclamation which had been pinned beneath the doorbell. It read: ‘Narcotics are the poison and disgrace of the nation! The time has come to put an end to them. We will wipe them out and you will help us. We will punish mercilessly those who spread narcotics.’

If our group had been there it would have made a topic of conversation for a good two hours, but here everybody merely muttered and grunted, unable to overcome their habitual timidity. ‘I-yi-yi-yi…’ ‘Well, think of that!’ ‘Ohhhh …’ ‘Good God! …’ Someone sent for the police and a doctor. The doctor went into the house and set to work on the chauffeur. Then Panderei turned up in a police jeep. He hung around the doorway, read through the proclamation several times, scratched the back of his head and even glanced through the door, but was too cowardly to go inside - although the doctor shouted to him crossly and called him some very rude names. He stood in the doorway, shuffling from one foot to the other, thrusting his palms into his belt and puffing himself up like a turkey cock. With the appearance of the police, the crowd became slightly more bold and started talking more freely. ‘So that’s their way, eh?’ ‘Yes, you can see it all there, it’s all plain …’ ‘Very interesting, very interesting, gentlemen!’ ‘I’d never have believed it…’ I felt uneasy that their tongues were becoming loosened and I would have liked to get away, but curiosity was overcoming me.

At this point, however, Silen turned to Panderei with a direct question: ‘And so the law has triumphed after all, Pan? You finally made up your minds?’

Panderei pursed his lips significantly and said hesitantly: ‘I don’t think we decided on this’.

‘What do you mean, you didn’t? Well, who did then?’

‘I suppose it was the gendarmerie from the capital,’ said Panderei in a stage whisper, glancing to either side of him.

‘What kind of a gendarmerie is that?’ came objections from the crowd. ‘A gendarmerie that suddenly appears in a Martian vehicle! No, that’s no gendarmerie.’

‘Well, who do you think it was then? The Martians themselves, eh?’

Panderei puffed himself up still further and barked out: ‘Hey! Who’s that talking about Martians? Take care!’ But nobody was paying any attention to him now. The tongues had finally become completely unloosened.

‘Maybe it was a Martian vehicle, but those weren’t Martians, that’s for sure. They behave like human beings.’

‘Quite right! And why should Martians worry about narcotics either?’

‘A new broom sweeps clean, you know, old fellow.’

‘And why should the Martians worry about our gastric juices?’

‘No, gentlemen, those weren’t men. They were too calm, too silent. Do you get my meaning? I think they were, in fact, Martians. They work like machines.’

‘That’s it, machines! Robots. Why should Martians dirty their hands? They’ve got robots to do their work for them.’

Panderei, unable to restrain himself, added a suggestion too. ‘No, lads,’ he announced, ‘Those weren’t robots. It’s a new system we’ve got. They’re only taking deaf-mutes into the gendarmerie now. In the interests of guarding State secrets.’

This hypothesis caused astonishment and then malicious rejoinders, most of them very witty, but I can only remember the observation made by Paral who expressed himself in this vein: that it wouldn’t be a bad thing only to take deaf-mutes into the police force, not in the interest of guarding State secrets, but in the interests of protecting entirely innocent people from the utter tripe loosed at them by these officials.

Panderei, who. had earlier unbuttoned his tunic, now immediately buttoned it up again and roared: ‘You’ve said your bit - that’s all!’ So unfortunately we had to disperse although the ambulance was driving up at just that moment. That old donkey got into a rage so that we could only watch from a distance as they carried the mutilated chauffeur from the entrance. Then to our surprise they carried out two more bodies. It’s still not known who these two were.

All our chaps went off to the pub, and so did I. Those same two young men in the tight coats had settled themselves down comfortably at the bar. They were as calm and silent as before, just drinking gin and staring into space. I ordered a complete meal and, having satisfied my hunger, watched the more curious of our group gradually edging their way towards the young men. It was amusing to see how clumsily Morpheus tried to start up a conversation with them on the subject of the weather in Marathon, while Paral, in an attempt to take the bull by the horns, offered to buy them a drink. The young men seemed oblivious of everyone around them, they promptly swallowed the drinks thrust in front of them, and direct questions they seemed not to hear at all. I didn’t know what to think. At moments I delighted in their extraordinary self-control, their complete indifference to all the absurd attempts to draw them into conversation, at other moments I inclined towards the idea that they really were Martian robots, that the repulsive appearance of the Martians prevented them from being seen in person; and there were moments when I suspected them of being actual Martians - of whom up to now we knew essentially nothing. Our chaps got cheekier, began crowding round the young men and, dropping all restraint, started discussing their characters, while some of the bolder ones even felt the material of their coats. Everyone was now convinced that they were faced with robots.

Japheth even started to get worried. Bringing me a brandy he said: ‘How can they be robots? - they’ve had two gins, two brandies, two packets of cigarettes, and who’s going to pay?’

I explained that a robot which had been programmed to take into account a need for drink and cigarettes must surely have had taken into account some device for the payment of the goods required. Japheth calmed down, but at that moment a brawl broke out at the bar.

I learnt afterwards that Paral had had a bet with Dimant the donkey that nothing would happen if Dimant pressed a lighted cigarette against the hand of the robot. What I saw with my own eyes was this: Dimant suddenly shot like a cork out of the crowd of people amusing themselves around the robots; on swiftly gyrating legs he flew backwards across the length of the room knocking over tables and people coming into the bar and collapsed in a corner. Hardly a second passed before Paral emerged in exactly the same way, landing in another corner. Our chaps scattered and I, not understanding anything of what had happened at the time, saw the young men sitting at the bar as calmly as ever and with the self-same gesture thoughtfully raising their glasses of alcohol to their lips.

Paral and Dimant were lifted up and dragged away somewhere behind the scenes. I went to find out what had happened. I arrived just as Dimant was coming round. He was sitting up with the most idiotic expression on his face, feeling his chest. Paral had not yet returned to consciousness, but was already swallowing gin washed down with soda. Next to him, holding a towel ready, stood a waitress, preparing to bandage his jaw. when he came to. It was there that I discovered the version of the events which I have recorded above, and I agreed with the others that Paral was a provocateur and Dimant simply an idiot, no better than Panderei. However, having made these sensible observations, our chaps were not content. They took it into their heads that the affair could not be left at that. Polythemes, who had kept to the sidelines till then, announced that this would be the first act of war of our fighting brigade. We would get these young thugs as they left the inn, he said, and began issuing commands, which of us should stand where, and when we should begin to fight. I washed my hands of this venture at once. In the first place I am opposed to force in general, there is definitely nothing of the officer in me, in the second place I could see no particular guilt on the side of the two young men. And, finally, I was planning not to fight them, but to talk to them about my own affairs. I slipped quietly out of the corridor and returned to my table and it was in so doing that I, in fact, set in motion events which were to prove so embittering for me.

Incidentally, even now, when I look back on the experiences of that day through quite different eyes, I must observe that the logic of my actions remains unimpeachable. The young men were not from our parts, I reasoned. The fact that they had arrived in a Martian car indicated that they were most likely from the capital. Moreover, the part they had played in the liquidation of Mr Laomedontes was indisputable evidence that they were connected with the powers that be; they would hardly send some common agent to deal with Mr Laomedontes. Thus, out of the very logic of things, flowed the conclusion that the young men must necessarily be well informed on the new situation and could tell me much on the questions that interested me. In my position as the small man, jeered at by Mr Laomedontes’ chauffeur, refused information by the town hall secretary, I could not afford to let slip such an opportunity to get accurate information. On the other hand, the young men did not arouse any apprehension in me. The fact that they had dealt with Mr Laomedontes and his bodyguard somewhat severely, did not put me on my guard. They were doing their duty and that had been Mr Laomedontes, who had long ago had it coming to him. As for the incident with Paral and Dimant, well Dimant is so stupid it’s impossible to have dealings with him, and Paral can exasperate anyone with acrid wit. Not to mention that I myself would not allow anyone to call me a robot and, moreover, press a burning cigarette into my hand.

So, when I had finished my brandy, I started to make my way towards the young men. I was quite confident in the success of my undertaking. I had thought out all the details of the projected conversation, taking into account both the nature of their activities and their mood in relation to the incident that had just taken place, and their obvious natural quietness and reserve. I meant to apologize first for the wretched behaviour of my fellow citizens. Then I would introduce myself, expressing the hope that I was not imposing on them with my conversation. I would give them some advice on the quality of the brandy, which Japheth frequently dilutes with cheaper varieties, and would offer them a drink from my personal bottle. And only then, when we had discussed the weather in Marathon and in our town, did I intend, delicately and gently, to pass to the basic question. As I headed towards them I noted that one of them was absorbed in smoking a cigarette. The other one was turned away from the bar and attentively and, it seemed to me, with interest, following my progress towards them. For this reason I decided to address myself directly to him. As I came up I raised my hat and said ‘Good evening!’ Then that young thug made a lazy movement with his shoulder and immediately a grenade seemed to explode in my head. I don’t remember anything. I only remember that I lay for a long time in the corridor beside Paral, swallowing gin, washed down with soda, while someone pressed a cold wet towel to my injured eye.

And now I ask myself: what more could you expect? No one came to my aid, no one raised their voice in protest. The same thing was happening again. Young thugs terrorizing people again, beating up citizens, in the streets. And when Polythemes brought me home in his invalid chair, my daughter, as indifferent as everyone else, was kissing Mister Secretary in the garden. But no, even if I had known how it would all end, I would still have felt obliged to try to start up a conversation with them. I would have been more careful, I wouldn’t have gone near them, but who else is going to give me information? I don’t want to have to tremble over every penny I spend, I haven’t the strength to go on giving lessons any more, I don’t want to sell the house in which I have lived so many years. All I want is my peace of mind.

June 8th. Temperature 17°c; cloud density - 8 degrees; wind - southerly, 3 metres per second. I’m at home, I don’t go out and I don’t see anyone. The swelling has gone down and the injured spot hardly hurts at all, but the general appearance is ugly all the same. All day I have been looking through my stamps and watching television. In town everything is as it was. Yesterday night our golden youth besieged Madame Persephones’ establishment which was taken over by soldiers. They say there was a regular battle.

The papers say nothing much. Not a word about the embargo - you’d think it had been completely abolished. There was a strange speech by the minister for war, full of small print, about how our participation in the Military Union was a burden for the country and not so justifiable as it might seem at first glance. Thank God they’ve realized that, after eleven years! But the main news is about a farmer called Periphant, remarkable in that he is able to give up to four litres of gastric juices in one day without any ill-effects to his own organism. His difficult life story is told with many intimate details, there is a report of an interview with him and scenes from his life have been shown several times on television. A sturdy rough-looking man of about forty-five, completely unintelligent - to see him you would never think that you were confronted by such a surprising phenomenon. He continually stressed his habit of sucking a piece of sugar in the mornings. I must try it

Yes, of course! In the paper there’s an article by the veterinary surgeon Kalaid about the harmfulness of narcotics. Kalaid says straight out that the regular use of narcotics by heavy horned cattle is without exception damaging to the production of gastric juices. There’s even a diagram. It’s an interesting observation: Kalaid’s article has it all in black and white, but it’s unbearably difficult to read, as if he were writing with the hiccups. But the general impression is that Mr Laomedontes was done away with because he prevented citizens from giving gastric juices freely. It gives the impression that gastric juices represents some sort of corner stone of new Government policy. It’s unprecedented, but if you think about it, why not?

I’ve just come back from a visit with Hermione. Over supper she said that a donor’s point for the collection of stomach juices was being set up in the former residence of Mr Laomedontes. If this is true, I approve and support the move. I am generally for all setting up of points and for stability.

My little stamps, dear little stamps! Only you never upset me.

June 9th. Temperature 16°c; cloud density - 5 degrees; slight rain. The swelling has completely disappeared. However, as Achilles predicted, all the area around the eye has turned an ugly green. It’s impossible to go out: never mind, apart from stupid jokes, you don’t hear anything worthwhile. In the morning I rang the town hall, but Mr Nikostratos chose to be in a humorous mood and told me absolutely nothing on the subject of the pension. Of course, I got worked up, tried to calm myself with the stamps, but even the stamps couldn’t soothe me. I sent Hermione to get me some sedatives, but she came back empty-handed. It seems Achilles had received a special circular telling him to issue sedatives only on the prescription of a city doctor. I lost my temper and rang him, started an argument, but to be honest, how is he to blame? A strict check is being kept on all medicines containing narcotics by the police and others specially empowered by the town hall. But what can you do? If you cut down a forest, chips will fly. I had a glass of whisky, right in front of Hermione. It helped. I even felt better, and not a squeak out of Hermione.

In the morning Myrtil’s family - he’s still living in the tent - came back. To tell the truth, I was pleased. It was a real sign that the situation in the country was becoming stabilized. But suddenly after lunch I saw that Myrtil was once again seeing them all on to the bus. What was happening? ‘All right, all right,’ Myrtil replied in his usual manner. ‘You’re all the clever ones around here, and I’m a fool…’

It appeared he had been to The Five Clinks and had found out there that both the treasurer and the architect were to be called by the Martians to answer for embezzlement of funds and intrigue; they had already been summoned somewhere. I tried to explain to Myrtil that this was a good thing and that it was just, but it was hopeless. ‘OK’ he said. ‘Just, is it? Today the treasurer and the architect, tomorrow the mayor, the day after, I don’t know who, me perhaps. It’s no good. They gave you one in the eye - is that just too?’ I just can’t talk to him. Let him be.

Mr Coribanth rang me. He, it seems, is replacing Charon on the paper. His voice trembled pitifully. The paper was having some kind of unpleasantness with the authorities. He begged me to tell him whether Charon would be back soon. I, of course, spoke to him very sympathetically but didn’t say a word about the fact that Charon had already been back once. I felt intuitively that it wasn’t worth spreading that about. God knew where Charon was now and what he was doing. All I needed was unpleasantness over politics. I don’t talk about him to anyone myself and I have forbidden Artemida and Hermione to do so. Hermione understood at once, but Artemida made a scene.

June 11th. Only now am I more or less myself again, although I am still just as sick and exhausted. And I am constantly dogged by sinister phantoms which I would like to shake off, but can’t. I can understand going off with a gun to kill when it’s kill or be killed. That, too, is distasteful and nasty, but at least it’s normal. But no one is forcing them. Partisans! I know very well what that means, but how could I have expected that in my declining years I would see it once again with my own eyes?

It all began when yesterday morning, against all expectations, I received a very friendly reply from General Alcimes. He wrote that he remembered me well, had liked me very much and wished me all the best. His letter excited me so much, I just didn’t know what to do with myself. I consulted Hermione and she was obliged to agree that such an opportunity wasn’t to be missed. There was just one thing that worried both of us - the troubled times. But at that moment we saw Myrtil roll up his temporary shelter and begin carrying his things back into the house. This was the deciding stroke. Hermione made me a very elegant black bandage for my injured eye, I took the bundle of documents, got into my car and set off for Marathon.

The weather favoured me. I drove peacefully down the empty highway between the blue fields and thought over various possible courses of action, depending on different circumstances. However, as usual the unforeseen soon happened. About forty miles from town, the motor began to cough, the car began to lurch and to pull badly and then stopped altogether. This happened at the top of a hill and when I got out on to the highway a peaceful country scene opened up before me. It’s true it looked a little unusual because of the blueness of the ripening ears of grain. I remember that, in spite of the delay, I was completely calm and didn’t restrain myself from admiring the neat, white farms scattered in the distance. The blue wheat stood very tall, reaching a man’s height in places. Never before had such an abundant harvest flourished in our district. The highway, straight as an arrow, could be seen right to the horizon.

I opened the bonnet and examined the motor for a while hoping to locate the fault, but I’m too hopeless a mechanic and I despaired very soon, straightened my tired back and looked around, trying to decide where to turn for help. However, the nearest farm was too far away and on the highway I could see only one car, approaching from the direction of Marathon at quite a speed. At first I was cheered but soon to my great disappointment I saw that it was one of the black Martian cars. I didn’t give up hope altogether though, since I remembered that ordinary people also drove about in Martian cars. The prospect of deciding which didn’t attract me very much, I feared that the occupants might nevertheless turn out to be Martians, whom I instinctively feared. But what else was there for me to do? I stretched out my hand across the road and took a few steps towards the car which had already reached the foot of the hill. And then a terrible thing happened.

The car was about fifty yards from me when suddenly something exploded with a yellow flash. The car appeared to stand on end. A thunderous bang rang out, the highway was lost in a cloud of smoke. Then I saw the car apparently trying to take to the air; it had already risen above the cloud lurching sharply on its side, but then two more flashes burst one after another alongside it. The double blow overturned it, and it crashed with all its weight to the asphalt so that I felt the earth shudder under my legs, which were in any case giving way under the impact of the unexpectedness of it all. ‘What a terrible smash,’ I thought in the first moment. The car was beginning to burn and some black, flaming figures were climbing out of it. At that moment shots broke out. I couldn’t see who was shooting, where the shots were coming from, but I clearly saw who they were shooting at. The black figures stumbled about in the smoke and flames and fell, one after another. Through the crackle of gunfire I heard their heartrending inhuman screams and then they all lay spread out beside the overturned car which continued to burn; but the shooting still didn’t stop. Then the car exploded with a terrible crash, an unearthly white light hit me in the eyes and thick burning air slapped me in the face. I involuntarily shut my eyes and when I opened them again I was horrified to see, coming towards me along the highway, and leaping like an enormous monkey, a black creature enveloped in flames and trailing a tail of black soot. At that moment a man sprang out of the blue wheat fields on my left, wearing a military uniform and holding a gun at the ready. He stopped in the middle of the road with his back to me, squatted down quickly and started shooting at the flaming black figure, almost point-blank. My horror was so great that the initial numbness left me and I found in myself the strength to turn around and run towards my car as fast as my legs would take me. Like a madman I pressed the starter, blind to everything in front of me, and forgetting that the motor wasn’t working; then my strength ebbed again and I remained sitting in my car, staring stupidly in front of me, the passive and deafened witness of a terrible tragedy.

Indifference overwhelmed me. As if in a dream I saw armed men coming into the road one after another, I saw them surround the site of the disaster and bend over the burning bodies, turning them over and exchanging brief shouts hardly audible over the noise of the blood beating in my temples.

Four of them had gathered at the foot of the hill, but the man in the military uniform - an officer judging by the epaulettes - stood in his former place a few paces from the last man killed and was reloading his automatic. Then I saw him unhurriedly approach the man on the ground, lower the barrel of the automatic and give a short burst of fire. Then the most frightful part of all began.

The officer glanced swiftly over the sky, then turned and looked at me - I will never forget his cold, merciless glance - and, holding his automatic at the ready, he headed towards my car. I heard those standing below shout something to him, but he didn’t turn around. He was walking towards me. I probably even lost consciousness for a few seconds because I don’t remember any more until the moment when I came to, standing alongside my car in front of that officer and two more of the rebels. God, what people! All three were long unshaven and dirty and their clothes were grubby and ragged; the officer’s uniform, too, was in a terrible state. The officer wore a cap, one of the civilians had a black beret, the other was wearing glasses and had no headgear at all.

‘Are you deaf or something?’ the officer was saying sharply, shaking me by the shoulder.

The man in the beret grimaced and said through set teeth: ‘Leave him alone. What do you want with him?’

I gathered together what remained of my feeble strength and forced myself to speak calmly, I realized my life was at stake. ‘What is it you want?’ I asked.

‘He’s just an ordinary person,’ said the man in the beret. ‘He doesn’t know anything and doesn’t want to know anything.’

‘Just a minute, engineer,’ said the officer irritably. ‘Who are you?’ he asked me. ‘What are you doing here?’

I hid nothing, explained everything to him, and while I talked he kept looking around, examining the sky, for all the world as if he were afraid of rain.

The man in the beret interrupted me once to shout: ‘I don’t want to risk it. I’m going, you do what you want!’ After which he turned and ran down the hill. But the other two remained and heard me out to the end, while I tried to guess from their faces what my fate was to be - I didn’t see anything that augured well for me there.

A saving thought came into my head and forgetting everything else I blurted out: ‘Bear in mind, sirs, that I’m the father-in-law of Mr Charon’.

‘Who’s Charon?’ asked the rebel in glasses.

‘The chief editor of the local paper.’

‘So what?’ asked the rebel in glasses, and the officer went on looking at the sky.

I got confused: they obviously didn’t know Charon. But I said nevertheless: ‘My son-in-law took a gun on the very first day and left home’.

‘I see,’ said the rebel in glasses. ‘That does him credit.’

‘That’s all rubbish,’ said the officer. ‘What’s going on in town? What’s happening with the Army?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Everything’s peaceful in town.’

‘Is the entry into town free?’ asked the officer.

‘As far as I know, it is,’ I said, and thought it my duty to add, ‘but you might be held up by the patrols of the Anti-Martian Brigade.’

‘What?’ said the officer, and on his stern face for the first time there appeared something like surprise. He even stopped looking at the sky and began looking at me. ‘What sort of brigade?’

‘Anti-Martian,’ I said. ‘Under the leadership of Officer Polythemes. Perhaps you know him? He’s an invalid.’

‘How very curious,’ said the officer. ‘Can you take us to town?’

My heart sank. ‘I would, of course,’ I said, ‘but my car…’

‘Yes,’ said the officer. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

I gathered up my determination and lied, ‘It seems the motor’s jammed’.

The officer whistled and without saying another word turned and disappeared in the wheat. The rebel in the glasses went on staring at me fixedly and then suddenly asked:

‘Do you have any grandchildren?’

‘Yes,’ I lied in utter despair. ‘Two! One’s an infant in arms …’

He nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s terrible,’ he said. ‘That’s what torments me more than anything. They don’t know anything and they won’t ever know …’

I didn’t understand a word he said and I didn’t want to understand. I just prayed that he would go away as quickly as possible and do nothing to me. For some reason it suddenly seemed to me that this quiet man in the glasses was the most terrible of all of them.

He waited for me to reply for a few seconds and then he slung his automatic across his shoulder and said: ‘I advise you to get out of here as quickly as you can. Goodbye.’

I didn’t even wait for him to disappear, I turned and ran as fast as I could away from the hill in the direction of town, as if a whirlwind were carrying me on its wings. I didn’t feel my legs, I didn’t feel my breathing. I thought I heard some kind of mechanical rumble behind me, but I didn’t even turn around, I just tried to run.

I hadn’t gone far when a small lorry filled to overflowing with farmers turned out of the village road and came towards me. I was half senseless, but I found enough strength in me to bar their way. I waved my hands and shouted: ‘Stop! Don’t go on. There are partisans over there!’

The lorry stopped and I was surrounded by rough, common people who for some reason were armed with machine guns. They grasped me by my shirt front, shook me, shouted and swore at me and I didn’t understand anything that was happening, I was terrified and only after a while realized that they were taking me for an accomplice of the rebels. My legs gave under me, but then the driver climbed out of the cabin and proved to be a former student of mine.

‘What are you doing, mates?’ he shouted, grabbing their hands. ‘That’s Mr Apollo, the town teacher, I know him.’

Eventually they all calmed down and I told them what I had seen.

‘Aha,’ said the driver, ‘that’s what we thought. We’ll hunt them out now. Let’s go, mates.’

I wanted to carry on into town, but he convinced me that it was safer for me to be with them and that he would repair my car in peace while the rest hunted the bandits. They sat me in the cabin of the lorry and moved off towards the site of the tragedy. We came to the crest of the hill and saw my car, but farther on the road was completely empty. There were no bodies, no pieces of broken metal, only the burnt patches on the asphalt remained and the shallow pit in the place where the explosion had happened. ‘It’s obvious,’ said the driver, as he stopped the lorry, ‘they’ve collected everything up already. There they are in the air …’ Everyone started talking and also pointed to the horizon in the direction of Marathon but much as I stared far into the calm sky with my one eye, I couldn’t see anything.

Then the farmers, with a skill that indicated a certain experience, without any unnecessary fuss or argument, broke into two groups of ten men. The two groups spread into a chain and began combing the wheatfields, one to the right, the other to the left.

‘They’ve got automatics,’ I warned them, ‘and grenades, too, I think.’ ‘We know that very well,’ they replied, and after a while I heard shouts that indicated they had come across a trail. The driver busied himself for a while with the repair of my car while I flung myself down on the back seat and fell into a blessed half-consciousness as I finally got a chance to rest my nerves. The driver located the fault (it proved to be an air-lock in the petrol pipe). Tears of gratitude came to my eyes. I squeezed his hand and paid him as much as I could. He was content. This simple, good man (I never did manage to remember his name) proved to be very talkative as well, as distinct from the majority of farmers who are also simple and kind people, but morose and reserved. He explained a lot to me about what had happened. It seems that the rebels, whom the people had simply termed bandits, had appeared in the district as early as the second day after the arrival of the Martians. At first they fraternized in a friendly way with the farmers and it was obvious then that the majority of them were residents of Marathon, mostly educated and at first glance harmless people, if you didn’t count the soldiers. What they were after was incomprehensible to the farmers. At first they called on the villagers to rise against the new authorities, but they explained the need for this in a very muddled way, kept on about the death of culture, renaissance and other literary things which didn’t interest the villagers. Nevertheless, the farmers fed and lodged them because the situation remained unclear and it was still not known what was to be expected from the new order. However, it became clear that the new authorities represented nothing bad - only good, in fact. They bought up the growing wheat at a good price (not even the harvest, but the shoots). They gave them a generous advance on the harvest of blue corn and money started pouring in as if from the sky for hitherto useless gastric juices. On the other hand, it became clear that the bandits were setting up ambushes against the representatives of the administration which was bringing money into the countryside. The representatives from Marathon made it clear that this disgrace must be stopped as soon as possible for the general good, and relations with the rebels changed completely.

Several times we interrupted our conversation and listened. From the fields came the occasional shot and each time we nodded with satisfaction and exchanged glances. I had already recovered and was sitting at the wheel ready to turn the car homewards. I had no intention, of course, of continuing on to Marathon. With things like this happening on the road, Alcimes could remain undisturbed when the hunt returned to the road. First came two farmers with two motionless bodies. One of the dead I recognized. It was the man in the beret whom the officer had called engineer. The other, a young man, hardly more than a boy, was unknown to me. With some relief I saw that he was, fortunately, not dead but just badly wounded. Then the rest of the members of the hunt returned in a crowd, chattering cheerfully to each other. They brought a prisoner with his hands tied whom I also recognized, although he no longer had his glasses. The victory was complete, none of the farmers had suffered. I felt an enormous moral satisfaction seeing how these simple people, with the heat of battle still on them, none the less showed unmistakable spiritual dignity, treating the defeated enemy in an almost knightly way. They bound the wounds of the injured man and laid him in the lorry carefully enough. Although his hands were still tied, the prisoner was given a drink and a cigarette was thrust in his mouth.

‘Well, that’s that,’ said my driver friend. ‘Now the place will be more peaceful.’

I thought it my duty to tell him that there had been at least five rebels.

‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘So two got away. They won’t get anywhere. The set-up in the next district is the same as in ours. They’re killed or they’re caught.’

‘Where will you send these?’ I asked.

‘We’ll take them to the Martian garrison about forty miles away. They take them there alive or dead, as you bring them.’ I thanked him again, shook his hand, and he went to his lorry saying to the rest, ‘Let’s go, eh?’

Then the prisoner was led past me. He stopped for a second and looked me straight in the face with his short-sighted eyes. Perhaps I imagined it, but in his eyes was something that made my heart sink. Now I hope that I imagined it. Wretched world! No, I’m not justifying that man. He’s an extremist, a partisan. He has killed and must be punished, but I’m not blind. I saw clearly that this was a fine man, not a black shirt, not a fool, but a man with convictions. Now I hope that I was wrong. All my life I have suffered for thinking well of people.

The lorry moved off in one direction and I in the other and in an hour I was already home, absolutely broken, exhausted and ill. I noted incidentally that Mr Nikostratos was sitting in the drawing-room and Artemida was serving him tea. However, I wasn’t worried about them. It had been a terrible, torturing day.

Temperature - 17°c; cloud density - 10 degrees; heavy rain.

Yes, these rebels are dangerous people for the general peace. And yet I cannot but pity them, drenched through, muddy, hunted like animals, in the name of what? What is anarchy? Protest against injustice? But against whom? I definitely don’t understand them. It’s odd, I now recall that during the hunt there had been no burst of automatic fire, nor the sound of grenades. They must have run out of ammunition.

June 11th. Midnight. Hermione wanted me to spend the whole day in bed, but I didn’t take any notice and I did right not to. At midday I felt well enough and straight after lunch I decided to go into town. Man is weak. I won’t conceal the fact that I couldn’t wait to tell our group about the terrible and tragic events which I had witnessed the previous day. It’s true that by lunchtime these events featured in my imagination in not so much a tragic as a romantic light. At The Five Clinks my tale was a great success. I was showered with questions and my little bit of vanity was fully satisfied. It was amusing to watch Polythemes (he was, by the way, now the only member of the Anti-Martian Brigade who still went round with a shotgun). When I related to our chaps my conversation with the rebel officer he spoke up immediately, boasting and claiming a part in the desperate and dangerous activities of the rebels. He even got to the point of admitting that they were brave fellows, although they were acting illegally. I didn’t understand what he meant by that, and neither did anyone else. He announced that he would show those peasants the price of a pound of smoke and then a brawl almost broke out because Myrtil’s brother is a farmer and Myrtil himself comes from farming stock. I don’t like arguments, I can’t bear them, in fact, and while they were being separated I went off to the town hall.

Mr Nikostratos showed me marked kindness, inquired, inquired concernedly about my health and with great sympathy heard out my account of yesterday’s adventures. Not just he, but all the employees put aside what they were doing and gathered around me, so I had a complete success here too. All agreed that I had acted bravely and that my conduct did me credit. I had to shake a lot of hands and the beautiful Tiona even asked permission to kiss me, which permission I, of course, willingly granted. (Dash it all, it’s a long time since I’d been kissed by young girls, I confess I’d even forgotten how pleasant it was.) On the question of the pension Mr Nikostratos assured me that everything would probably be all right and told me in great secrecy that the question of taxes had now been finally settled it seemed, and as from June taxes would be collected in the form of gastric juice.

This entertaining conversation, of course, was unfortunately interrupted by a regular scandal. The door of the mayor’s office was flung open and Mr Coribanth appeared on the threshold and, standing with his back to us, he began to shout at the lord mayor that he would not leave things at that, that this was an infringement of freedom and speech, that this was a corporation, that the lord mayor ought to remember the unfortunate fate of Mr Laomedontes and so on. The lord mayor also spoke in a raised voice but rather more quietly than Mr Coribanth and I didn’t understand exactly what they were talking about. Mr Coribanth finally left, slamming the door hard behind him, and then Mr Nikostratos explained the matter to me. It seems that the lord mayor had fined the newspaper and closed it down for a week because Mr Coribanth had published a poem in the issue of the day before yesterday signed by a certain ‘XYZ’ in which had appeared the line: ‘And on the distant horizon, fierce Mars is flaming’. Mr Coribanth refused to accept the lord mayor’s decision and this was already the second day that they’d been quarrelling, both by telephone and in person. In passing judgement on this event, Mr Nikostratos and I came to the same conclusion, that both sides in this affair were, in their own way, both right and wrong. On the one hand, the penalty inflicted on the newspaper by the lord mayor was excessively severe, especially since the poem was as a whole completely harmless, inasmuch as it was only talking of the author’s unrequited love for a night fairy. But, on the other hand, the situation is such that one can’t afford to tease the geese - the lord mayor has enough unpleasantness as it is to deal with, what with Minotaur, who the day before yesterday again got blind drunk and damaged a Martian car with his stinking tank cart. I returned to The Five Clinks and rejoined the fellows. The quarrel between Polythemes and Myrtil had already been smoothed over and the usual friendly discussion was in progress. Not without satisfaction I noted that my tale had, it seemed, turned the minds of those gathered there along a particular line. They were talking about the rebels, about the armaments which the Martians had at their disposal and other similar subjects. Morpheus was saying that not far from Milese a Martian flying machine, which was making a forced landing because the pilot was unused to the increased force of gravity, had been attacked by a group of malefactors and had shot everyone of them, down to the last man, with some special electronic missile, after which it exploded itself, leaving behind an enormous hole with glass walls. All of Milese was now going over to look at the hole.

Myrtil, repeating what he had heard from his farmer brother, told us about a terrible band of Amazons who attacked and kidnapped Martians with the intention of having offspring by them. The one-legged Polythemes for his part told us the following: yesterday night, when he was on patrol duty on Park Street, four Martian cars stole up on him silently. An unfamiliar voice in some massacred version of the language and with an unpleasant hiss in it asked him how to get to the pub, and, although the pub is not an object of national importance, Polythemes, simply out of pride and scorn for the conquerors refused to reply, so that the Martians got nothing for their pains. Polythemes assured us that at the time his life hung by a thread, he had even noticed long, black poles directed straight at him, but he didn’t waver for a second in his determination.

‘What! Were you too miserable to tell them?’ asked Myrtil. ‘I know that kind of mean wretch. You come to some strange place, you want a drink and they won’t for anything tell you where the pub is.’

The affair nearly came to a fight once again, but then Panderei arrived and, with a happy smile, announced that Minotaur had at last been taken out of town - by the Martians. They suspected Minotaur in connexion with the terrorists and sabotage. We were all up in arms about it - leaving us without a cesspit emptier at the hottest time of the year - why, that was a crime!

‘Enough!’ shouted the one-legged Polythemes. ‘We’ve borne the cursed yoke long enough. Fellow countrymen, hear my command. Arise!’

We had already started to fall into line when Panderei calmed everyone down by saying that the Martians intended to begin work on the sewerage canals in the coming week, and meanwhile Minotaur’s place would be taken by a junior policeman. Everyone agreed that that was a different matter and resumed their conversation about the terrorists, about how it was swinish all the same, setting up ambushes.

Rolling his eyes, Dimant told us a terrible story about how for the third day now, some people had been roaming around town and offering sweets to people they met. ‘You eat one of those sweets and - piff! - you’re gone.’ They hoped to poison all the Martians this way. We of course didn’t believe the story, but somehow we began to feel bad.

Then Kalaid who had been twitching and spluttering for a long time suddenly blurted out: ‘But A-A-Apollo himself has a son-in-law who’s a terrorist’. Everyone at once recoiled from me somehow, and Panderei thrusting out his jaw, announced: ‘That’s true, I have information to that effect’.

I was extremely put out and announced to all of them that: in the first place, a father-in-law was not answerable for his son-in-law; in the second place, Panderei himself had a relation who was last year put away for five years for some sort of debauched activities; in the third place, I had always been at daggers drawn with Charon and anyone could support that, and, in the fourth place, I knew nothing of the sort about Charon - he had gone on a study trip and we had not heard a word from him since. These were unpleasant moments but the stupidity of the accusation was so obvious that everything ended happily and the conversation moved on to gastric juice. It appeared that all our group had been giving gastric juice for the second day running and had got cash for it. Only I was left out. Always, in some incomprehensible way, I proved the exception when there was a profit to be made from something - there are such disorganized people in the world. In Army barracks it is they who are always doing jankers, at the front, it’s they who fall into the shit. All the nasty things come to them first, and all the good things last. I’m one of those. Well, that’s how it is. All the chaps then started boasting about how satisfied they were. I should think so! All that and then to be dissatisfied!

At this point a Martian car drove across the square and the one-legged Polythemes said: ‘What do you reckon, lads, if you took a pot at it with a shotgun, would you punch a hole in it or not?’

‘With a bullet, presumably you would,’ said Silen.

‘Depends where you hit it,’ said Myrtil, ‘if you got the prow or the stern, not a chance.’

‘What about the side?’ asked Polythemes.

‘If you hit the side, then presumably you would,’ replied Myrtil.

I was just going to say that even a grenade wouldn’t puncture it when I was forestalled by Panderei who said ponderously: ‘No, old chaps, you’re wasting your time arguing, they’re impregnable’.

‘The sides too?’ asked Morpheus maliciously.

‘Absolutely,’ said Panderei.

‘What, even with a bullet?’ asked Myrtil.

‘Yes, even if you shoot at it,’ said Panderei very importantly.

At that everyone began shaking their heads and slapping him on the back. ‘Oh, Pan! Old boy,’ they said, ‘you’ve slipped up there. Yes, Pandy, old fellow, you didn’t think, just opened your mouth and babbled.’ And Paral the quarrelsome wasted no time in showing his sting - he said: ‘If you shot Panderei in the stern you might perhaps make a dent, but if you got him in the head, it would just bounce off’.

Well, Panderei swelled up, buttoned up his tunic and barked: ‘You’ve all said your bit! That’s all! Disperse! In the name of the law.’

Without wasting any time, I set off for the donor’s point. I was, of course, met by failure again. They took no juice from me and I got no money. It seems there’s a regulation that you have to have fasted before you can give juice, and I had had lunch only two hours before. I was given a donor’s card and told to come back in the morning. I must say, by the way, that the donor’s point made the most pleasant impression on me. The newest equipment. The probe was wiped with the finest-quality vaseline. The juice is taken automatically, but under the supervision of an experienced doctor, not some ruffian. The staff is without exception polite and helpful - it’s obvious at once that they’re well paid. Everything shines with cleanliness, the furniture is new. In the waiting-room you can read the latest papers or watch television, and the waiting is nothing - fewer people and quicker service than in the pub. And you get your money at once, from an automat. Throughout, you are conscious of a high level of culture, humanity and solicitousness towards the donor. To think that three days ago this house was the den of a man like Mr Laomedontes!

However, I couldn’t shake off the thought of my son-in-law and I felt I had to discuss this irritating problem with Achilles. I found him as usual behind the cash desk looking at his copy of Cosmos. The story of my adventures had a tremendous effect on him and I felt that he looked at me in quite a different light as a result. But, when I spoke of Charon, he just shrugged his shoulders and said that the impression made by my actions and the dangers which I had experienced would completely rehabilitate not just me, but perhaps Charon himself. Besides, he actually doubted that Charon would take part in anything illegal. Charon, he said, was most likely now in Marathon doing his bit to restore order and trying to do something useful for his home town as befitted every civilized resident. The local envies, all your Pandereis and Kalaids were only capable of irresponsible gossip and were simply slandering him.

I had my own suspicions on this score, but naturally I was silent and I just felt surprised how badly we citizens of such an essentially small town knew each other. I realized that I had talked about this with Achilles to no purpose and, pretending that his judgement had completely set my mind at rest, I turned the conversation to stamps. And then an extraordinary thing happened.

I remember that at first my conversation was rather forced since it was basically intended to draw Achilles away from the subject of Charon. But it turned out that the conversation turned to that blessed inverted lithographic overprint. In my own time, I put before Achilles absolutely indisputable facts to show that it was a forgery, and the question seemed to be closed. However, the evening before Achilles had read some sort of book and considered himself capable of drawing his own conclusions. This was unheard of in our relationship. Naturally, I was beside myself. I lost my temper and said straight out that Achilles knew nothing about philately, that only a year before he couldn’t tell the difference between ‘mint’ and ‘used’, and it was no accident that his collection overflowed with defective examples. Achilles also exploded and we completely forgot ourselves in the wrangle that ensued, the kind of wrangle I am only capable of with Achilles, and then only on the subject of stamps.

Through a kind of fog I was aware then that during our argument someone seemed to come into the chemist shop, hold out some kind of paper to Achilles over my shoulder, that Achilles quietened down for a moment, and that I immediately took advantage of this to drive a wedge into his incompetent judgements. Then I remember an irritating sense of being disturbed, something irrelevant was thrusting itself into my consciousness and preventing me from thinking coherently or logically. However, this passed and the next stage in this psychologically curious event was the point when our argument ended and we fell silent, tired and a little offended with each other.

I remember that precisely at that moment I experienced an uncontrollable urge to look around the place and felt a vague surprise at not seeing anything particularly changed. Meanwhile, I was clearly aware that some kind of change must have taken place during our quarrel. Then I noticed that Achilles, too, was in a state of mental unease. He, too, was looking round him and then he went down along the counter and looked under it. Finally he asked: ‘I say, Feb, did anyone come in?’ He was definitely worried by the same thing that was bothering me. His question dotted all the ‘I’s: I realized what the sense of my perplexity was.

‘The blue hand!’ I cried, as an unexpectedly clear recollection came to me. I almost seemed to see in front of me the blue fingers, crumpling a piece of paper.

‘No, not a hand!’ said Achilles excitedly. ‘A tentacle! Like an octopus!’

‘But I clearly remember fingers …’

‘A tentacle, like an octopus!’ Achilles repeated, looking round him feverishly. Then he grabbed the prescription book from the counter and hurriedly thumbed through it. Everything in me tensed under the weight of a presentiment. Holding a slip of paper in his hand he slowly raised bulging eyes to me and I already knew what he was going to say.

‘Feb,’ he said in a choking voice, ‘it was a Martian.’ We were both shaken and Achilles, as a man versed in medicine, considered it essential to revive our strength with brandy, a bottle of which he took from a carton marked ‘Norsulphazolum’. Yes, while we were arguing here about that overprint a Martian had entered the chemist’s shop, had given Achilles a written order asking for all medicaments containing narcotics to be given over to the bearer, and Achilles had without remembering or realizing anything wrapped up a package containing these medicaments and handed it over, after which the Martian had left, leaving nothing in our memories but flashes of recollection and a blurred picture registered out of the corners of our eyes.

I remembered clearly the blue hand covered with thin, short whitish hair, and the fleshy fingers without nails and I was struck by the fact that such a vision had not immediately driven out of my mind any capacity for abstract argument.

Achilles didn’t remember any hand, but instead he remembered a long, throbbing tentacle stretched out to him apparently out of nowhere. He remembered, too, how he had angrily thrown the packet of medicine on to the counter without looking, but he had absolutely no recollection of reading or entering the prescription in the book, yet he obviously must have read it (since he had passed over the medicine) and recorded it (since there it was).

We drank another glass of brandy and Achilles remembered that the Martian had stood to my left and had worn a fashionable sweater with a low neck and I remembered that on one of the blue fingers there had been a glittering ring of some white metal set with a precious stone. Besides that, I remembered the sound of a car. Achilles mopped his forehead and announced that the sight of the prescription book reminded him of the uncomfortable feeling he had had, apparently induced by someone’s attempts - importunate to the point of rudeness - to force himself into our argument with some completely absurd viewpoint on philately in general and on inverted overprints in particular.

Then I remembered that it was true, the Martian had spoken, and his voice had been piercing and unpleasant. ‘Low and patronizing, rather,’ said Achilles. However, I stuck to my version and Achilles got heated again and called his junior pharmacist from the laboratory to ask him what sounds he had heard during the last hour. The junior pharmacist, a particularly unintelligent youth, blinked his stupid eyes and mumbled that he had only heard our voices during all that time and at one point it seemed someone had turned on the radio, but he hadn’t paid any attention to that. We sent the junior pharmacist back and had another drop of brandy. Our memories finally cleared and, although our opinions still differed as to the external appearance of the Martian, we were nevertheless in full agreement as to the facts of what had taken place. The Martian had undoubtedly come to the chemist shop in a car and had not switched off the engine while he came into the building, he had stopped to the left of and just a little behind me, had stood there motionless for some time, looking at us and listening to our conversation. (A chill ran over my skin as I realized how vulnerable I had been in that moment.) Then he had made several remarks to us, apparently on the subject of philately and apparently completely incompetent, and then he had held out the prescription to Achilles who had fleetingly looked at it and thrust it into the prescription book. And then Achilles, still furious at the interruption, had passed over the parcel of medicine and the Martian had left, realizing that we didn’t want to include him in our conversation. In this way we separated out the detail and established a picture of a being who, although not very competent in the field of philately, was in general not without breeding and a certain humanity, if you considered that in that time he could have done what he liked to us. We had another drink and felt that it was more than we could do to stay here and keep the group uninformed about what had happened. Achilles hid the bottle, put the junior pharmacist in charge and we walked quickly towards the pub.

Our account of the Martian’s visit was received in various ways by the group. The one-legged Polythemes frankly considered it a lie. ‘Just a whiff of them,’ he said, ‘they’re tanked to the eyeballs.’

The sensible Silen suggested that it had nevertheless been just some Negro: Negroes sometimes have a bluish tint to their skin. And Paral was Paral.

‘A fine chemist we’ve got,’ he said acidly. ‘Someone, he doesn’t know who, comes from somewhere, he doesn’t know where, shows him some piece of paper, he doesn’t know what, and, without a murmur, he gives him what he wants. Really, with chemists like this, how can we hope to establish a rational society? What kind of a chemist is it who, because of his rubbishy stamps, doesn’t know what he’s about?’

On the other hand the others were on our side, the whole pub gathered around us and even the golden youth headed by Mr Nikostratos dragged themselves away from the bar to listen. We had to repeat the story again and again, where the Martian stood, how he had stretched out his extremity and so on. Very soon I noticed that Achilles was embroidering the tale with new details which were as a rule of a shattering nature. (Such as that when the Martian was silent he blinked only two eyes, but when he opened his mouth additional eyes opened, one red and one white.) I reproved him at once but he said that cognac and brandy had a remarkable effect on the human memory and that this was a medically established fact. I decided not to argue and, laughing to myself, watched him confidently compromising himself. In some ten minutes everyone realized that Achilles had definitely lied himself to a full stop, and ceased to pay any attention to him.

The golden youth went back, to the bar and soon we could hear from their direction remarks such as: ‘… had enough What bores! … Martians? Rubbish, drivel … We ought to beat them up.’

At our table the old argument about gastric juice was revived: what it was, what use it was, what the Martians wanted it for, and what use it was to ourselves. Achilles explained that man needed stomach juices for the digestion of food, it was impossible to digest food without it. But his authority had already been undermined and no one believed him.

‘You’d better be quiet, you old bag of wind …’ said Polythemes. ‘What do you mean, impossible? I’ve given juice for the third day running and what of it? I’m still digesting I ought to digest you.’

Woefully they turned to consult Kalaid, but naturally that came to nothing. Kalaid after long digressions which the whole pub followed expectantly, blurted out: ‘If you want to know, a policeman’s finished at thirty’.

These words bore on some half-forgotten conversation which had taken place back at The Five Clinks before lunch and were generally not intended for us but for Panderei who had long since gone on duty. We left Kalaid still giving birth to an answer to our question and started speculating amongst ourselves. Silen suggested that the civilization of Mars had come to a blind alley in the physiological field and were unable to manufacture their own gastric juices, so they had to take over other sources of supply. Japheth put in from behind the bar that the Martians used gastric juices as a kind of ferment for the production of a special kind of energy, ‘like atomic energy,’ he added as an afterthought. And then Dimant, who had never distinguished himself with bold flights of fancy, announced that human gastric juice was for the Martians what brandy or beer was for us, or say vodka, and with this announcement spoilt the appetite of everyone who was eating at the time.

Someone suggested that the Martians got gold or precious metal from gastric juice and this obviously uneducated suggestion led Morpheus to a very true thought: ‘Fellows,’ he said, ‘whether in fact they get gold or energy from it, it’s clear that our gastric juice is very important to the Martians. Are they making fools of us?’ At first no one understood what he was getting at, but then it dawned - no one knew the real price of gastric juice and what kind of price it was that the Martians had fixed, we couldn’t tell. It was quite possible that the Martians - a very practical people we had to agree - were taking advantage of our ignorance.

‘They’re buying from us on the cheap,’ one-legged Polythemes said, white with anger. ‘They take it to some comet and get the proper price.’ I risked correcting him on the point that it wouldn’t be a comet but a planet, to which with his characteristic rudeness he suggested that I had my eyes seen to before I ventured into arguments. But that wasn’t the point.

We were all disturbed by Morpheus’ suggestion and a very serious and useful discussion could have resulted, but at that point Myrtil rolled into the pub with his farmer brother, both of them dead drunk. It appeared that Myrtil’s brother had for several days been experimenting with the distillation of the grain of the blue wheat and that today his experiments had finally been crowned with success. On to the table were hoisted two respectable flagons of blue first brew. Everyone was at once distracted, and started trying it, and I must say that blue brandy made a big impression on us. Myrtil, to his misfortune, invited Japheth to the table to try it as well. Japheth drank two glasses, stood for a while with his left eye closed as if he were thinking it over and then suddenly said: ‘Get out of my sight’.

It was said in such a voice that Myrtil without a word gathered up the empty flagons and his brother who had dozed off, and hurriedly left. Japheth looked us over solemnly and said: ‘They’ve got a nerve - bringing their rot-gut into my establishment’, and returned to the bar.

To smooth over the unpleasantness we all ordered a drink but the easy atmosphere had now been shattered. I sat for another half-hour and then I went home.

In the sitting-room, Mr Nikostratos had taken over Charon’s chair and was sitting opposite Artemida having tea. I didn’t get involved in that affair. First of all, Charon had in any case cut himself off, and it wasn’t clear whether he was going to come back at all, and, in the second place, Hermione was somewhere not too far away and I reeked of alcohol so strongly that I could smell it myself. Therefore I preferred to creep past silently to my own room, without drawing attention to myself. I changed and looked through the paper. It’s simply amazing. Sixteen sides and nothing of substance, it’s like chewing cottonwool. There was a report of a Press conference given by the president. I read it twice and understood nothing - sheer gastric juice. I’ll go and see how Hermione is.

June 12th. Temperature - 20°c; cloud density - 0 degrees; no wind. I’m having revolting belches from that blue brandy; a splitting migraine, and I’ve been home all day. A gastronomic novelty made its appearance - blue bread. Hermione praised it, Artemida liked it too, but I ate it without any appetite, bread’s bread, even when it’s blue.

June 13th. Summer weather has finally arrived it seems. Temperature - 20°c and some cloud.

What a business! I don’t know where to begin. On the question of the pension, there’s nothing new, but that’s not what I’m concerned with now. I had just started writing today’s entry when I heard a car drive up. I thought Myrtil might have brought the promised quart of blue brandy from the farm and glanced out just in time. First I caught sight of an unfamiliar car, a luxury model too, which was standing under the street-lamp, and then I noticed Charon making his way through the garden straight towards the bench where Artemida and Mr Nikostratos had been settled since the evening. I hardly had time to blink before Mr Nikostratos flew head over heels over the garden wall. Charon flung his stick and hat after him, but Mr Nikostratos didn’t stop to pick them up, just ran ever faster. Then Charon turned to Artemida. I couldn’t see very well what was happening between them but I got the impression that at first Artemida tried to faint. However, when Charon boxed her ears she changed her mind and decided to display some of her famous temper. She let out a long-drawn-out ear-shattering shriek and clawed Charon’s face. I repeat that I didn’t see everything. But when, a few minutes later, I looked into the drawing-room, Charon was pacing from corner to corner like a tiger in a cage, his hands behind his back, and on his nose was a fresh, red scratch. Artemida was busily laying the table and I noticed that her face looked slightly asymmetrical. I can’t bear domestic scenes, they make me all weak inside and I have to go away somewhere so as not to see or hear anything. However, Charon noticed me before I could hide myself, and to my surprise he greeted me so warmly and welcomingly that I felt obliged to go into the drawing-room and speak to him.

First of all, I was pleasantly struck by the fact that Charon looked completely different to what I had expected. This was not the bearded, ragged tramp who had clanked around with a gun and quarrelled with me here a week ago. To be honest, I had expected him to be still dirtier and more ragged. However, before me stood the former Charon of peaceful times, smooth shaven, well combed, tastefully and elegantly dressed. Only the red scratch on his nose spoiled the general impression a little and the colour of his face, which was unaccustomedly swarthy, witnessed to the fact that in the last few days this office worker had spent a lot of time in the open.

Hermione came in in her curling pins, apologized for her appearance and also sat down to the table. It was like in the old days, we sat there, the four of us, one peaceful family. Until the women left to take out the dishes the conversation. was on general topics, the weather, health, who looked how. But when we were left alone Charon lit up a cigarette and said, looking at me strangely: ‘Well, Father, our game’s over then?’

In reply I simply shrugged my shoulders although I wanted very much to say that if someone’s game was over, it certainly wasn’t ‘ours’. Actually Charon, in my opinion, didn’t expect a reply. He had restrained himself in front of the women and only now I noticed that he was in a state of almost unhealthy excitement, in the state when a man can change abruptly from nervous laughter to nervous tears, when everything is boiling inside him and he feels an unbearable need to give vent to some of it in words and so to talk, talk, talk and Charon talked.

People no longer had a future, he said. Man had ceased to be the king of nature. From now and for ever man would be an ordinary phenomenon of nature like a tree, or a horse, and nothing more. Civilization and progress in general had lost all meaning. Humanity no longer needed to develop itself, it would be developed from outside, and for that it did not need schools, institutes, laboratories, social consciousness, philosophy, literature, in other words, all that distinguished man from the animals and that had up to now been called civilization was no longer necessary. As a factory of gastric juice, Albert Einstein, he said, was no better than Panderei, he was inferior probably since Panderei was an exceptional glutton. The history of man would end, not in the thunder of a cosmic catastrophe, not in the flames of atomic war, not even in the press of over-population, but in satiated, peaceful quiet.

‘Just to think,’ he said, dropping his head in his hands, ‘it isn’t ballistic missiles that finished civilization, it’s nothing more than a handful of coppers for a glass of gastric juice…’

He spoke much more, of course, and much, more effectively, but I assimilate abstract discussion badly, and remembered only what I remembered. I admit that at first he managed to depress me. However, I understood soon enough that this was simply the hysterical outpouring of words of an educated man who could not bear the shattering of his personal ideals. And I felt I had to reply to him. Not, of course, because I hoped to convince him, but because his judgements hurt me deeply, seemed bombastic and arrogant, and besides I wanted to shake off that depressing impression which his lamentations had had on me.

‘You’ve had too easy a life, my son,’ I said straight out. ‘You’re too fussy! You don’t know anything about life. It’s obvious at once that you’ve never had a knock in the teeth, you’ve never frozen in the trenches, never carted logs in prison. You’ve always had enough to eat, and enough to pay for it with. You’ve got used to looking at the world with the eyes of a godless man, some sort of superman. What a pity! Civilization has been sold for a handful of coppers! Be thankful that they still give you coppers for it! For you they mean nothing. But what about the widow who has to raise three children alone, who has to bring them up, feed them, educate them? And Polythemes, the cripple, who gets a paltry pension? And the farmer? What do you propose for the farmer? Dubious little social ideas? Books and pamphlets? Your aesthetic philosophy? The farmer would spit on it all. He needs clothes, machines, and faith in tomorrow: He needs the permanent possibility of raising his harvest and getting a good price for it! Could you give him that? You with all your civilization? No one could give him that for ten thousand years, but the Martians have done it. Why be surprised now that the farmers hound you like wild beasts? No one needs you or your civilization talk, your snobbery, your abstract preaching, which so easily turns into shots from an automatic. The farmer doesn’t need you, the townsman doesn’t need you, the Martians don’t need you. I even believe that the majority of your rational, educated people don’t need you. You think you are the flower of civilization, and in fact you are mould growing out of its sap. You’ve grown conceited and now argue that your death is the death of civilization.’

My speech seemed to have shattered him. He sat, covering his face with his hands, trembling all over. He looked so pitiful that my heart was touched.

‘Charon,’ I said as gently as I could, ‘my boy, try at least for a moment to come down from the clouds on to the sinful earth. Try to understand that man needs peace and faith in tomorrow more than anything else in the world. Nothing terrible has happened. You say that man has now turned into a factory of gastric juice. These are strong words, Charon. In fact, something like the opposite has happened. Man, having emerged into new conditions of life, has found a superb means of using his physiological resources for the improvement of his situation in this world. You call it slavery, but every reasonable man would call it the usual commercial transaction which can be mutually beneficial. What sort of slavery can it be if rational man is already weighing up whether or not he is being cheated, and if he is being cheated, then I assure you he will know how to get justice? You talk of the end of culture and civilization, that is really not true! I don’t even understand what you mean. The papers come out every day, industry is working, Charon, what more do you ask? You have all that you ever had, freedom of speech, self-government, the constitution. As if this weren’t enough you are protected from Mr Laomedontes and you have at last been given a permanent and dependable source of income which is completely independent of any crisis.’

I stopped at this point because I saw that Charon was not at all shattered, he wasn’t sobbing as I thought, but in fact giggling in the rudest possible way.

I felt extremely insulted, but when Charon said: ‘Forgive me, for God’s sake. I don’t want to offend you. I was just remembering an amusing story.’

It appeared that two days ago Charon, at the head of a group of five rebels, had captured a Martian car. To their surprise out of the car stepped a completely sober Minotaur with a portable device for the pumping of gastric juice.

‘Well, fellows, what’s up? Feeling thirsty?’ he asked. ‘Come on, I’ll set you up in a minute, who’s first?’

The rebels had even been taken aback. When they recovered themselves they knocked him about a bit for his treachery and let him go together with the car. They had intended to take the car, learn to drive it and then to use it to penetrate into the Martian garrison and start a battle there, but the episode had such an effect on them that they felt like spitting on everything. In the evening two of them went home and the next morning the rest were caught by farmers. I didn’t understand at all what relation this bore to the subject of our discussion, but I was struck by the thought that Charon must have been a prisoner of the Martians.

‘Yes,’ he said in response to my question. ‘That’s why I laughed. The Martians told me exactly what you have, point for point. They especially stressed the point that I am of the elite in society, that they had a deep respect for me, and did not understand why I and those like me involved ourselves in terrorist activities instead of setting up a rational opposition. They suggested that we fight them by legal means, guaranteed us full freedom of Press and freedom to hold meetings. Wonderful chaps the Martians, don’t you agree?’

What could I say to him? Especially when it became clear that they had treated him splendidly, washed him, dressed him, given him medical attention, and a car, confiscated from some owner of an opium den, and let him go in peace.

‘I’m speechless,’ I said, raising my hands.

‘I too,’ echoed Charon and his face darkened again. ‘I, too, am speechless but I have to find words. We’re all worth nothing unless we find them.’

After that he, completely unexpectedly, wished me a sudden goodnight and went to his room. I was left sitting there like a fool seized by an unpleasant presentiment. Oh yes, we would have more trouble yet with Charon, yes indeed! And what an unpleasant way of leaving, without finishing the argument. It was only one o’clock already and I wasn’t in the least sleepy. By the way, I gave gastric juice for the first time today. There’s nothing frightening in it, it’s just unpleasant to swallow, but they say you soon get used to it. If you give 200 grams a day, that’s 150 a month. Not so bad!

June 14th. Temperature - 22°c; cloud density - 0 degrees; no wind. The new stamps have been issued at last. Lord, what joy! I bought the whole issue in quarter-block and then couldn’t resist it, and bought the full sheets. I’ve economized enough! Now I can allow myself a bit of expenditure. Hermione and I went to give gastric juice - in future I’ll go alone. There’s a rumour that the Ministry of Education has issued a circular confirming the earlier situation on the question of pensions, however I wasn’t able to find out the details. Mr Nikostratos didn’t come to work. He sent his younger brother to say that he had caught a chill. They say, though, that it’s not the flu, but that he was careless enough to fall over somewhere. Of course, Charon! Artemida goes about as quiet as a mouse.

Oh, yes, I had completely forgotten. Today I looked into the drawing-room and saw Charon sitting there and with him a pleasant-looking fellow with large glasses. I recognized him and literally froze. It was the same rebel whom the farmers had caught before my eyes. He recognized me, too, and also froze. We stared at each other for a time, and then I recovered myself, nodded and left the room. I don’t know what he told Charon about me. Anyway, he left soon after. I repeat frankly, I don’t like it. If he takes up the battle legally, as they officially suggested to him, with all kinds of meetings, pamphlets, papers - by all means. But if I find just once again any automatics and other kind of ironmongery in my house, I’ll say goodbye, dear son-in-law. Here our roads must part. I’ve had enough.

To calm myself I read over again yesterday’s entry of my talk with Charon. In my opinion, my logic is unimpeachable. He was unable to bring forward any reply to it. It’s only sad that I wrote it much more coherently and convincingly than I said it. I am no good at all at talking, it’s my weakest point.

There was an interesting article in the morning paper about the general demobilization and demilitarization of the country. Thank God, they’ve come to their senses at last. Evidently the Martians have taken the question of defence completely into their own hands, and now defence won’t cost us a penny, if you don’t take into account gastric juice, that is. The president’s speech doesn’t say a word about that directly, but you can read between the lines. The former defence expenditure, he says, will be diverted towards the raising of the standard of living, and developing shipbuilding. There are certain difficulties connected with the cutting of war industries, but this is a purely temporary factor. And he stressed several times that no one will suffer from this reorganization. I understand it this way, the war industries and the generals are to be given a nice lump sum - they’re rich people these Martians. Demobilization has begun already. Paral is spreading the rumour that the police will also be abolished. Panderei wanted to put him in jail but we wouldn’t let him. Rumours are only rumours, but in Panderei’s place I would be more careful now.

Today I don’t feel like writing anything. I’ll make a fair copy of my yesterday’s speech to Charon now. It’s a good speech.

*

June 15th. An unusually clear and bright morning (temperature - 15°c; cloud density - nil; and no wind). How pleasant it is to get up early in the morning, when the sun has already dispersed the morning mist, but the air is still fresh and cool and retains the perfumes of the night. The finest drops of dew tremble and shimmer in a myriad of rainbows, like precious stones, on each blade of grass, on each leaf, on each spider web, which the industrious spider has spun overnight from his little home to an overhanging twig - no, I must say, I don’t do too well with artistic prose. On the one hand, everything seems to be correct, beautiful in places, but just the same, somehow I don’t know, something’s not quite right. Well, never mind.

For the second day running we all show an exceptionally good appetite. They say that it’s the blue bread. It is, it’s true, an amazing product. Before, I didn’t ever eat bread except in sandwiches, and actually I ate very little of it altogether. Now I literally gorge myself on it. It melts in the mouth like pastry and doesn’t weigh heavily on the stomach. Even Artemida, who always worried more about preserving her figure than about preserving the family, cannot restrain herself and now eats as a healthy young woman of her age ought to eat.

Charon also eats and praises it. At my not-unmalicious digs he only says: ‘One doesn’t interfere with the other, Father. One doesn’t interfere with the other.’

After breakfast I went to the town hall and came just before the beginning of the session. Our group hadn’t yet got to The Five Clinks. Mr Nikostratos doesn’t look too well. At each movement he grimaces, grabbing his side, and from time to time he groans quietly. He talked in a painful whisper, didn’t pay any attention to his nails. During our conversation he didn’t look at me once, but spoke politely without the slightest suggestion of his usual irony. The circular had, indeed, been received, confirming the earlier position on the question of payment of pensions. My papers were probably already with the ministry. We must assume that everything would turn out well and I would be in the first category, all the same it wouldn’t hurt to ask the mayor to send a special letter to the ministry in which my personal part in the war against the rebels could be confirmed. This idea pleased me very much and I agreed with Mr Nikostratos that I would put together a rough draft of such a letter and he would edit it and give it to the lord mayor for his perusal.

Meanwhile at The Five Clinks our group had already got together. Morpheus came last and we fined him. Enough of liberalism! We had lately completely neglected our club business. Everyone was extremely interested in one question; had the affair between Charon and Mr Nikostratos ended? They made me describe in the most detailed way all that I had seen, and for some time the one-legged Polythemes and Silen argued about what part of Mr Nikostratos it was that had suffered injury. As a former non-commissioned officer, Polythemes insisted that in such a skirmish Mr Nikostratos must have injured his tailbone, because only an accurately aimed blow from the toe of a boot in the appropriate place could have brought about the kind of departure from the field of battle that I had described.

I was also asked whether Artemida continued to feel warmly towards Mr Nikostratos and when I determinedly refused to answer such a tactless question they concluded to a man that of course she did.

‘A woman is a woman,’ said Paral the quarrelsome. ‘One man never satisfies a woman - it’s their biological nature.’

I lost my temper in the end and remarked that he shouldn’t judge others by his own standards, and everyone found my joke very witty inasmuch as everyone disliked Paral for his irascibility and we remembered that in his time, before the war, his young wife had run off with a travelling salesman. A perfect situation arose for putting Paral, with his eternal, quasi-philosophical pronouncements, in his place.

Morpheus, a new witticism already on his lips, choked with laughter in advance, and grabbing people by the hand shouted, ‘Just listen to what I’m going to say’.

Then, at the wrong moment as usual, that old donkey Panderei butted his way in and not understanding the subject of the conversation announced in his thunderous voice that these days we were acquiring the foreign fashion of living three or four with one woman, like cats. ‘What can you do - just throw up your hands and give up.’

Paral at once seized on this speech and immediately turned the conversation to Panderei personally. ‘Yes, Pandy,’ he said, ‘you’re in form today, I haven’t heard anything like that even from my youngest son-in-law, the major.’ Paral’s second son-in-law was known far beyond the limits of the town. We couldn’t restrain ourselves and we all burst into roars of laughter, but Paral went one better, adding with a mournful expression: ‘No, old chaps, it’s useless our demilitarizing, we’d be better off depolicifying, or at the thin end of the wedge, depanderizing’.

Panderei at once swelled up, like a blow-fish, did up the buttons of his tunic and barked: ‘You’ve all said your bit - and that’s all …’

It was still too early to go to the donor’s point and I set off for Achilles’ shop. I read him the fair copy of my speech to Charon. He listened to me open-mouthed. My success was complete.

Here are his exact words, when I had finished my reading: ‘That was written by a real tribune, Feb! Where did you get it from?’ I put on a few airs for better effect and then explained to him how it had happened. But he didn’t believe me! He announced that a retired teacher of astronomy was simply not capable of formulating so accurately the thoughts and longings of the simple people. ‘Only a great writer could do this,’ he said, ‘or a great statesman. And in our country I don’t see much sign of any great writers, or any great statesmen. Feb, you pinched that from the Martians. Admit it, old chap, I won’t tell anyone.’

I was quite perplexed. His disbelief at once flattered me and annoyed me. And at that point he suddenly showed me a sealed envelope of thick, black paper.

‘What’s that?’ I asked with deliberate casualness, while my heart already felt a sense of misfortune and contracted from a nasty presentiment.

‘Stamps,’ said that boaster. ‘The real thing. From that place!’

I don’t remember how I pulled myself together. Through a fog, I heard his exultations, expressed in a falsely sympathetic tone. And he waved the envelope in front of my nose telling me all the time what a rarity this was, how impossible it was to get hold of them, what fabulous prices he had already been offered for them by Kitone himself and how shrewdly he had acted, demanding compensation for the withdrawal of medicines not in money but in stamps. The sums which he casually mentioned put me in a completely bemused state. It seemed that the market price of Martian stamps was so high that no first category pension and no gastric juice would ever change anything in my situation. But in the end I recovered my composure. I had a brainwave and asked Achilles to show me the stamps. And then everything became clear. That slyboots got confused and put out, and began to babble something about how these stamps, being Martian ones, couldn’t be exposed to the light, like photographic paper, that you could only examine them under special lighting and that here in the shop he didn’t have the proper equipment. I recovered my courage and asked permission to call round that evening when he was at home. He invited me without much enthusiasm saying that to tell the truth he didn’t have the special lighting at home either at the moment, but by tomorrow evening he would try to think of something. It will probably turn out that these stamps dissolve in the air or that they can’t be examined at all, only be felt with the fingers.

In the heat of our talk I suddenly heard someone’s breathing over my left shoulder and caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of some sort of movement next to me. I at once remembered the mysterious visitor and turned around sharply, but it turned out to be Madame Persephone’s servant, who had come to ask for something a bit more reliable. Achilles went off to the laboratory to find a preparation to satisfy Mrs Persephone, obviously intending not to return until I had gone. I left, making no effort to hide my sarcasm.

At the donor’s point a pleasant surprise awaited me: the appropriate analysis had revealed that, as a result of my chronic internal illness, my gastric juice came under the first type, so that for a hundred grams of juice I would now be paid forty per cent more than all the others. As if this were not enough, the surgeon on duty hinted that by using a moderate but sufficient quantity of the blue brandy, I could achieve a transfer into the extra category and would receive seventy to eighty per cent more for a hundred grams. I don’t want to tempt fate, but it seems that at last, for the first time in my life, I’ve had a bit of luck.

I set off for the pub in a most exhilarated mood and sat there till late at night. It was very jolly. In the first place Japheth now deals at full steam in blue brandy, which he gets wholesale from the local farmers. The blue brandy gives one unpleasant belches but it’s cheap, easy to drink and gives you a pleasant, merry kind of intoxication. One of the young men in the narrow coats diverted us very much. I still hadn’t learnt to tell them apart, and up to this evening felt towards both of them a natural aversion which most of our group shared. These terrible assassins of Mr Laomedontes, together or singly, usually spent the whole time from lunch to closing time in the pub. They sat at the bar and drank in stubborn silence, as if they didn’t notice anyone around them. However, today this young man suddenly broke away from the bar, came to our table and in the guarded silence that followed, first of all ordered drinks all round.

Then he sat down between Polythemes and Silen and said not very loudly, ‘Urk!’

At first we all thought he had belched and Polythemes, as was his custom, said: ‘Best of luck!’

However the young man looked slightly offended and explained that Urk was his name and that he had been so named in honour of the son of Zeus and Aegina, the father of Telamon and Peles, the grandfather of Aenthe the Great. Polythemes at once begged his pardon and proposed a toast to Urk’s health so that the incident was completely smoothed over. We all also introduced ourselves and very soon Urk was absolutely at home amongst us. He proved a splendid storyteller and we simply split our sides listening to him.

We especially liked their custom of soaping the floor of the drawing-room, undressing young ladies and setting up a chase after them. They called this ‘playing tag’; and he told us about it in the most killing way. I must admit that we all felt a little ashamed of ourselves as provincials who’d never heard of anything like this, and for this reason the witty escapade of some of the young layabouts from Mr Nikostratos’ band proved very much in place.

They appeared on the square leading on a string a big, gingery-red rooster. My goodness, how funny it was. Singing ‘Niobe-Niobe’ they proceeded across the square right into the pub. There they surrounded the bar and demanded brandy for themselves and a blue brandy for the rooster. At the same time they announced to everyone listening that they were celebrating the rooster’s attainment of sexual maturity and invited all those who wanted to, to join in. Urk laughed too, so that our town was somewhat rehabilitated in the eyes of this resident of the capital, as some sort of centre of witty entertainment.

It was also interesting when Achilles came and announced that six semi-padded chairs had been stolen out of the waiting-room of the town hall. Panderei had already examined the scene of the crime and claimed that he had come across a trail. He said that there were two of them, and one had worn a velvet cap while the other had six toes on his right leg, but actually we were all convinced that the city treasurer had taken the chairs.

Paral said so openly: ‘Well, he’s pulled himself out of a hole again. Now everyone will be talking about those stupid chairs and completely forget about the latest embezzlement.’

When I came home, Charon was still sitting in the editorial office and we had supper together.

I’ve just looked out the window. A wonderful summer night has opened up an endless sky over the town, a sky studded with a myriad of glittering stars. A warm breeze is drifting in magical perfumes and caressing the branches of the sleeping trees. Hist! You can hear the gentle humming of a glow-worm lost in the grass on his way to a meeting with his emerald mistress. Dreams and bliss have descended on the little town, tired out by daily cares - no, somehow it’s not quite right. Never mind. I’m leading up to how beautiful it was when, like a symbol of peace and security, some enormous spaceships shining with a magical light flew by through the heavens; it was obvious at once that they weren’t ours.

I’m going to call my speech ‘Peace and faith’ and I’ll give it to Charon for the paper. Just let him try not to print it. How is it that, when the whole town is for, they, can you believe it, are against! Nothing will come of it, dear son-in-law, nothing will come of it.

I’ll go and see how Hermione is.

Translated by D. Mafias and P. Barrett

Table of Contents

Start