Half a Life

by Kir Bulychev

translated by Bill Bowler

Nadezhda Sidorova has survived WWII, endured the death of her husband in a car crash, and is struggling to raise her little girl Olya while working as a nurse. Nadezhda has paid her dues, more than her share, and seems now finally on the verge of finding a better life with the kind and loving Timofei. Events suddenly jolt Nadezhda onto a new and unexpected course. She faces a greater struggle than any she has yet endured or could even have imagined.

Chapter 5

part 1 of 2

Several days passed. Pavlysh slept and ate in his tent and traveled the long corridors of the ship, as if on his way to work. He rarely participated in communications and remained silent when Dag began to grumble.

Pavlysh felt his colleagues were treating Nadezhda as a sensation, a marvelous paradox — for them she remained a causus, a discovery, a phenomenon. Here one could think of many words that only approximately convey all the complexity of their reactions, in which there was but one thing lacking: a sense of identification with Nadezhda.

Pavlysh remained constantly alongside Nadezhda. He followed her tracks and saw the ship — its corridors, storerooms, hidden recesses — just as Nadezhda had seen them. He completely immersed himself in the atmosphere of the tragic prison that most likely had not been meant for the role it played, had not been meant to introduce into the life of the nurse from the Kalyazin hospital that frightful inevitability that she came to understand, but with which, in her soul of souls, she could not reconcile.

Now, having read every word in Nadezhda’s diary, having grasped the sequence of her movements around the ship, having clarified the significance of her routes and activities, and having been in those locations Nadezhda could not reach, the existence of which she did not even suspect, Pavlysh was able to understand what happened next; that is, not to guess, but to know.

Pieces of wire, overturned robot-dummies, a dark stain on a white wall, the strange havoc in the steering deck, fragments of records in sections of the ship’s memory — it all came together into a picture of the final events in which Nadezhda was a participant.

And Pavlysh didn’t have to search for traces. He knew beforehand where they would show up. And if they didn’t turn up, he looked further, until his certainty was supported by new proof...

Nadezhda had hurried to finish writing the final page. She was very sorry now that she had written so little in recent weeks. She had never loved to write. Even her sisters had reproached her for not writing letters.

And only now it suddenly occurred to her that, if she escaped with the slugs, it was still possible the ship would fall into the hands of intelligent creatures, even those who might deliver her notes back to Earth. And those who would read the notes would curse her with their last breath for not having described her life in more detail, day by day, for not having described the slugs, though she knew them now like her own family, nor the other creatures with which she had come into contact on the ship.

They had long since perished. Some had ended up in the museum. Others, apparently, were condemned to die. The slugs were in a position to know — for they understood the ship’s technology much better than Nadezhda — that the ship had taken so long to return home because its systems were corrupted. And if things continued as they were going, the ship would hurtle endlessly through the universe, breaking up slowly, dying, like a person.

Nadezhda’s final days passed in a rush. She had to accomplish many tasks, the meaning of which she did not always grasp. But she knew they were important and necessary for a purpose that was clear to the slugs. She understood that to ask them about it was senseless. They could not explain it to her, even if they had wanted to.

Over the years, Nadezhda had learned that she could not understand even the simplest inhabitants of the ship, not to mention the slugs. How long had she lived beside the dragon? How many hours had she spent with it, and yet learned nothing about it?

Or the little spheres, living in the glass cube? There were many of them, maybe twenty. At the sight of Nadezhda, they often began to change color and to roll like big pearls along the bottom of the cube, forming into shapes and circles, as if giving her signs that she could not understand.

Nadezhda told the slugs about the little spheres, but they either forgot at once, or did not get around to looking at them. When it became clear that the journey was nearing its end, Nadezhda made a sack out of wire to take the spheres with her. She even knew that the spheres needed water and nothing else but water.

And now, as she was finishing writing and packing her things, she had to run and open three doors that the slugs had indicated to her on the plan. The slugs themselves could not open these three doors because the wall cubes were too high up for them to reach.

Nadezhda understood that they would be taking that same launch, the one that long ago had captured her. But to accomplish this, they had to disconnect the main machine. Otherwise they could not make it to the launch, and the machine simply would not release them from the ship. And to accomplish this, Nadezhda’s help was needed.

Nadezhda had not slept for two nights, and not only because she was in the grip of excitement, but because the slugs never slept and did not understand why it was necessary for her to turn herself off and lie down. And the moment she would lie down, she would immediately feel a current in her mind — the slugs were calling her.

Packing her diary pages, Nadezhda suddenly began to have doubts. Maybe she should leave them on the ship? Or should she take them with her on the launch? Maybe, they’d be better off with her? They’d be safe with her. No, she decided, she could always tell the story, and there would be nothing left on the ship.

A current in her mind. Time to run. And it suddenly seemed to Nadezhda that she would never return here. Life, which had dragged along so slowly and monotonously, had suddenly accelerated to a frightening velocity and was careening forwards. And it was precisely now, that it could be cut short...

“We are going to try and turn the ship towards our planet,” the slugs told her. “But this is very risky. In order to do this, we must force the ship’s brain to submit to us. If we don’t succeed in this, then we’ll try to turn it off and use the emergency escape launch. But whether it will fly where we need it to go, or whether we’ll be able to control it, is also not certain. It is therefore possible that we are threatened with death. And we must tell you this.”

“I know,” said Nadezhda. “I was in the war.”

But the slugs did not understand, because there had long been no war among them.

The slugs wasted no time. They had made rods with which they could reach and touch the dummies, and turn them off. They gave a rod to Nadezhda. She was to go ahead and open the doors.

Two slugs followed right behind her. Two others hurried, crawled, hopped to the next floor where there was also a section with some kind of machines, like the captain’s bridge in an ocean liner.

“Three doors,” repeated the slugs. “But behind the last door, there may be no air, or not the same air as in our section. Don’t enter at once. Wait, while our air fills in. Clear?”

The slugs always expressed themselves clearly. They tried very hard so that Nadezhda could understand their instructions and requests. Nadezhda had somehow once gone beyond the first door. She remembered that there was a wide passage, and along the walls stood reserve dummies, motionless as if they were dead.

The slugs told her that was where the dummies rested and were recharged. Why she had once gone there and when that was, Nadezhda could not remember. But she remembered distinctly the corridor with the dead dummies in the niches.

“They won’t touch you,” said Dola.

“You don’t have to reassure me,” said Nadezhda.

“But don’t take any risks. Without you, we cannot escape. Remember that.”

“I remember it perfectly. Don’t worry.”

Nadezhda ran her hand along the cube in the wall, and the door slid aside. In this corridor was a strange odor, sweet and at the same time burnt. All the niches were occupied.

“It takes longer to recharge them now,” said Dola, crawling behind her. “You’ve seen that there are fewer of them now in our areas?”

“Yes, I noticed,” said Nadezhda. “I must not forget to take the little spheres.”

“Spheres?”

“I told you about them.”

“Watch out!”

One of the dummies suddenly leapt from its niche towards them, moving to block their path and, possibly, herd them back. The dummy was rushing to restore order.

“Faster,” said Dola. “Faster.”

Nadezhda ran ahead and tried to leap over the dummy, rushing beneath her feet.

But the dummy — how could she forget? — could also jump, and it hit her with its beam. Fortunately, not a powerful one. It probably hadn’t had time to fully recharge. Nadezhda fell to her knees and dropped the rod. She groaned from the pain. Her legs were not what they used to be. In school, she had even played volleyball for the “Medics.” They had taken second place in Yaroslavl. But that was long ago.

Dola stopped the dummy. He had the same kind of rod as Nadezhda, only stronger.

“What happened to you?” he asked. Dola’s voice was a hiss, with no expression, but from the sensation in her head, Nadezhda knew how agitated he was.

“Nothing,” said Nadezhda, getting up and forcing herself to forget about the pain. “Let’s keep going.”

It was twenty paces to the next set of doors. Another dummy began to crawl from its niche, but it moved slowly.

“The machine has already received the signal,” said Dola. “They are connected with it.”

Nadezhda ran up, hobbling, to the door, but there was no cube in the usual place.

“I don’t know how to open it,” she said.

There was silence behind her.

She looked around. Dola stood motionless. The second slug was using his rod to fend off three dummies at once.

“Quickly,” said Dola, finally.

“Maybe there’s another way?” asked Nadezhda, feeling how her hands were growing cold. “We can’t open this door.”

“There is no other way,” said Dola, and his voice whispered, rustled somewhere from below, from afar. The door was locked securely.

Still more dummies, others, moving slowly, crawled out from the niches, and it seemed like a herd of oversized cows was descending on the second slug.

At that moment, the door opened by itself. It flew open, so that Nadezhda barely had time to spring aside, sensing that the door had not burst open for no reason. It was more the way a homeowner would throw open his door, suspecting that a thief had snuck into his house.

Dola also managed to leap aside. The slugs knew how to hop rather briskly.

A kind of dummy Nadezhda had not seen before leapt through the open doorway. It was almost as big as she was, and was more like a sphere than a turtle. It had three segmented arms, and it buzzed loudly and threateningly, as if it wanted to frighten those who dared enter a restricted area.

From somewhere, a ball of flame exploded and flew past, filling the corridor, right next to Nadezhda. She felt its burning proximity. She squinted her eyes but could not see how Dola managed, using his rod, to halt this new dummy, to turn it off. Although it was too late.

The turtles, crowded at the far end of the corridor, were blackened as if charred, and the other slug — who had held them back, and had not had time to get out of the way when the door burst open — had been turned into a pile of ashes on the floor.

Nadezhda saw all this as if in a dream, as if neither danger nor death concerned her. She understood that her job was to go through the second door because it could close again, and then everything for which Bal and the other slug had died would be senseless and futile.

Proceed to part 2...