Half a Life by Kir Bulychev translated by Bill Bowler

Table of Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4, part 1 Chapter 4, part 2 Chapter 4, part 3 Chapter 4, part 4 Chapter 5, part 1 Chapter 5, part 2 Chapter 6 Translator’s notes

Chapter 4

part 3 of 4

Sometime later, when I have time, I’ll write of my first years in prison. Now much of that already seems vague and distant — my horror, my despair, how I searched for an escape, thought even to go right to the center and smash all their machines. Let us crash. I thought that way at the time because I was afraid they would fly back to us on Earth and do something bad. But I understood that I could not do anything with this ship. I doubt even a highly trained engineer could figure out what does what.

Now it’s time for me to return to those events that happened not so long ago, months and weeks ago, after I had gotten some paper and begun to write my diary. New prisoners who were gathered up on the last stop ended up on my floor, probably because we all breathed the same kind of air. At first they were kept under quarantine on another floor, and then were sent to cells not far from my area.

I was overcome by the hope that they might be people or something at least resembling people. But when I saw them and watched as the dummies brought food to the cell, I realized that I was to be greatly disappointed. I was once in Yaroslavl for some reason, in a market where they sold sea slugs. I thought at the time, is there anything so revolting that people won’t eat it? The new animals on board turned out to resemble those sea slugs. There were two of them in the cell, about the size of dogs. They looked slimy and disgusting. I got upset and went back to my room.

I didn’t even bother to write anything about them in my diary. The next day, I told my dragon everything, but she, of course, understood nothing. If not for my high expectation, it would have been easier to endure such disappointment. They didn’t let these slugs out of the cell. I soon found out there were five of them altogether: two in the cell, and three in a cage behind a metal door. I soon saw their food as well, because the dummies crowded into my garden and tore some kind of mold to shreds. It seemed almost alive. It moved and gave off an awful stink. And they dragged this mold to the slugs.

My dragon has somehow taken a turn for the worse. I’ve been doing experiments in the laboratory. Ivan Akimovich, from our hospital, should see me now. He always encouraged me to continue my education. He said they could make a doctor out of me because I have highly developed intuition. But my life drained me, and I remained untrained. I’m very sorry for it now.

True, more than once I had to replace the lab technician, and I knew how to do analyses and how to assist during operations. A small hospital makes for a good school. I’d advise all young medics to go through one. But could my knowledge possibly be useful here?

“Why are you silent now?” asked Dag. “Are you skipping parts?”

“I’m reading to myself. I want to get to the core of it,” answered Pavlysh.

Although I was revolted by the slugs, I understood that my revulsion was unfair. They had done nothing bad to me. And I had already grown used to living among wonders and monsters that you wouldn’t dream of. When I count my days here, it’s such an endless and monotonous chain that it frightens me. But if you stop to think, it turns out that every day you learn something, see something, think of something. What an enduring creature man is! Surely I seem a frightening monster to others here, maybe even to my dragon.

These slugs could certainly think so. I realized that when I saw I had only to pass near their cell, and they would scurry back and follow my movement.

At one point, I was coming back from the garden with a bunch of radishes. These radishes were stunted and limp but contained vitamins nonetheless. One of the slugs was busy near the grate. It seemed to me he was trying to break the lock. Well, I thought, the same idea had occurred to me, too, in the early days, when I sat locked up, and when they locked the door because we were approaching another planet.

I was thinking about this, and I even stopped by the grate. Well what does this mean? These slugs think the same way I do? And the slug, when he saw me, hissed and crawled back towards the middle of the cell. But he wasn’t quick enough because one of the dummies was nearby (I hadn’t seen it. I’ve grown accustomed and don’t notice them.) The dummy aimed his beam at the slug. That’s how they deliver punishment. The slug curled into a ball.

I shouted at the dummy and wanted to move past him, but then I got mine. He struck me with a beam of such force it knocked me over, and I spilled the radishes. Clearly he wanted to show me what happened to these slugs was none of my business.

I got up somehow — my limbs have been aching lately — and started back towards my room. No matter how long I live here, I cannot get used to the idea that to them I’m no more than a laboratory rabbit. At any moment, they could kill me — and into a jar in the museum I go. And nothing would happen to them for it. I clenched my teeth and walked away.

Then it turned out that this shot from the beam even helped me. The slugs had thought at first that I was one of the masters. They even took me for the head. If it weren’t for the dummy punishing me, they would have considered me an enemy. But three days later I was passing near their cell to go tend to my dragon, and I saw one of the slugs crawling near the grate and hissing. Hissing quietly.

I looked around — no dummies were visible. “What is it?” I asked. “Are you suffering, little one?” By this time, I had already gotten used to the slugs, and they no longer seemed to me such monsters as they had the first day. The slug kept hissing and making clicking noises. And then I realized that he was talking to me.

“I don’t understand,” I answered him and wanted to smile, but I thought better of it. My smile might look to him like the bared fangs of a wolf. He hissed again. I said to him, “What are you doing? I don’t have a dictionary of your words. If you’re not poisonous, then you and I must certainly get along.”

He grew silent, listening. Then a large dummy with arms like a grasshopper appeared in the corridor. A janitor robot. And though I knew this kind had no beam, I rushed away. I didn’t want to be seen near the cell. But I came back, lingered again, spoke to the slug again, just to have someone to unburden my soul with.

Then it occurred to me: maybe it would be easier for them to communicate in writing? I wrote on a piece of paper: “My name is Nadezhda.” I brought it to him, showed him what I had written, and repeated it out loud. I was afraid he did not understand.

A day later, there was another encounter between one of the slugs and the dummies. I think he had succeeded in opening the lock, and they had caught him in the corridor. He fell among the janitor robots. They cornered him until the other dummies were summoned, but he was fighting back.

I was in the corridor, heard the ruckus, and ran there, but was too late. They had already locked him in a separate cell and installed a new lock. I saw that the other slugs were agitated and stirring in their cells. I tried then to get into the cell of the slug they had segregated. The dummies wouldn’t let me pass. They didn’t strike me with the beam, but would not let me pass. Then I got stubborn. I stood and waited by the door. I waited until the dummies opened the door, and I managed to get a look inside.

The slug lay on the floor. He was covered with wounds. I went to the lab, grabbed my medical bag — this wasn’t the first time I had had to provide emergency medical service — and went back straight into the cell. When a dummy tried to stop me, I showed it what I had in my bag. The dummy froze. I already knew that’s what they did when they communicated with the machine.

I waited. A minute passed. Suddenly the dummy rolled aside, as if saying, go ahead. I sat with the slug for three hours and ordered the dummies around as if they were my assistants. They brought me water and bedding for the slug. But there was one thing I could not get them to do: to bring me another one of the slugs. Surely the slugs knew better than I what one of their own would need.

And most amazingly, at that moment, when there were no dummies in the cell, the wounded slug hissed again, and in his hissing, I made out the words, “What are you doing?” I realized he remembered what I had first said to him, and was trying to imitate me. But then, for the first time in many months, I felt joy. For he wasn’t only imitating, he understood.

I was amazed how quickly they memorized my words and, though words were difficult for them to pronounce — their mouths were just like little tube openings, with no teeth — they tried very hard.

I lived for two weeks as if in a dream, a good dream. I noticed remarkable changes in myself. It turned out there was no more pleasant creature in the world than slugs. I understood that they were beautiful. I learned to tell them apart, but was not able to understand a single thing in their hissing and clicking. I still can’t.

I taught them, whenever the opportunity arose. I’d walk past their cell, say a word, bring various objects with me, show them, and they understood at once. They learned how to say my name. If they caught sight of me (and the dummies were not around), they’d immediately hiss, “Nasheshda, Nasheshda!” Well, just like little children!

I found out what they loved to eat from the garden, and tried to nourish them, though their food smelled awful. I’ve never grown used to that odor. The dummies had strict orders from the machine regarding the slugs — never to let them wander free, never to take their eyes off them, to guard them and not trust them. So I could not openly associate with them, or I would have fallen under suspicion, as well.

It was remarkable how much time I had spent here and not been a danger to the dummies. But I had been alone. Together with the slugs, we became strong. I felt it. The slugs spoke to me when they learned Russian, and the day came when I walked up to their cell and heard,

“Nadezhda, we must leave this place.”

“And where would you go?” I answered. “No one knows where this ship is flying. No one knows where we are now. How could we possibly be able to steer the ship?”

And then the slug Bal answered me,

“We can steer the ship. Not now, but later when we have learned more. But we need you.”

“Would I be able to do it?” I answered.

Two of them together began chirping, hissing at me, persuading me. And I just smiled. I couldn’t tell them that I was happy. It was all the same whether we tore ourselves out of here or not. The slugs and I — what a team! If Olga could have seen her old mother, how I walked along the blue corridors past the locked doors and cells, singing a song, “There’s no stopping us now...”

“In general, she found like-minded thinkers,” Pavlyshev curtly answered Dag’s angry insistence that he read aloud. “You know, I could read these pages to myself ten times faster.”

“So...” Dag was about to say, but Pavlysh was already reading the next page.

Proceed to part 4...

Copyright © 2010 by Kir Bulychev
Translation © 2010 by Bill Bowler