But the others only laughed at the accident, and Levin realized that the view held by those in the club-or, at least, the view loudly expressed by those who wanted to be heard saying the right sorts of things-was very different than his own. It was agreed at every table that Russian life had been much improved by the disappearance of those “pesky” robots, always motoring about underfoot, making one feel self-conscious and intruded upon, their circuits forever buzzing and whirring away.
“To humanity!” said the prince, and raised his glass. “To the New Russia!” echoed Sviashky.
“Levin, this way!” a good-natured voice shouted a little farther on. It was Turovtsin. He was sitting with a young officer, and beside them were two chairs turned upside down. Levin gladly went up to them. He had always liked the good-hearted rake, Turovtsin, and at that moment, after the strain of intellectual conversation, the sight of Turovtsin’s good-natured face was particularly welcome.
And maybe… Levin narrowed his eyes and felt his heart pounding in his chest…
With exaggerated casualness, Levin smoothed his beard and approached his old friend with an easy smile. Pulling his chair close to the other man’s, breathing hotly into Turovtsin’s ear, he murmured a single word:
“Rearguard.”
“Eh?” responded Turovtsin loudly, his eyes lighting up. Levin’s heart beat faster; his blood roared in his ears. Could it be Turovtsin? Did he share in the Golden Hope? Who would have thought it was foolish Turovtsin?
“Rearguard?” repeated Turovtsin, but loudly, his eyes glittering with anticipatory merriment in his eyes, as if awaiting the punchline.
Levin drew back, stammering. “Ah… I thought… but, never mind, never mind. I said nothing.”
“Oh, well,” said Turovtsin. “Here, then.” He handed Levin a pair of glasses. “For you and Oblonsky. He’ll be here directly. Ah, here he is!”
“Have you only just come?” said Oblonsky, coming quickly toward them. “Good day. Had some vodka? Well, come along then.”
Levin, with difficulty hiding his disappointment, got up and went with him to the big table spread with spirits and appetizers of the most various kinds. One would have thought that out of two dozen delicacies one might find something to one’s taste, but Stepan Arkadyich asked for something special, and the tetchy adolescent waiter trudged back into the kitchen to search it out. They drank a glass of wine and returned to their table.
“Ah! And here they are!” Stepan Arkadyich said toward the end of dinner, leaning over the back of his chair and holding out his hand to Vronsky, who came up with a tall officer of the Guards.
Vronsky’s face, too, beamed with the look of good-humored enjoyment that was general in the club. He propped his elbow playfully on Stepan Arkadyich’s shoulder, whispering something to him, and he held out his hand to Levin with the same good-humored smile.
“Very glad to see you,” he said, and then added with a wink-or at least, what Levin thought was a wink-“It has been a long time.”
“Yes, yes,” said Levin. In the next moment, a roar of laughter convulsed the table, as Oblonsky described the old slop-slinging peasant who’d replaced the household II/Cook/98. Levin judged that his moment was ripe. He leaned forward, and, laying one hand on the upper part of Vronsky’s arm, whispered the code word both men had heard together from Federov.
“Rearguard.”
For a long moment, the word seemed to shimmer in the air between them, while Levin sought a sign of life in the impassive face across from his. But the count did not whisper “Action.” Instead he laughed genially and meaninglessly, twirled his mustache, and turned away.
Levin turned away as well, his worst suspicions confirmed: the resistance, if there were truly such a thing, could not number Alexei Kirillovich among its ranks.
But what danger did this fact pose to Levin? What should he do? He wished for the means to run a complete analysis of the situation; wished, not for the first or last time, that loyal Socrates were present to give him counsel.
“Well, have we finished?” said Stepan Arkadyich, getting up with a smile. “Let us go.”
CHAPTER 3
OBLONSKY LED THEM like the piper of myth to the gambling tables. I/Dice/55s trembled and bobbled and danced, zipping in algorithmic patterns across the green acetate of the table, randomizing some men into small fortunes, and others into disappointment. Oblonsky himself was of the fortunate group, to his great delight. “Perhaps Small Stiva was bad luck to me for all those years!” he decreed jovially, provoking great merriment in his fellow gamblers, and naught but melancholy disdain in Levin.
Oblonsky had again clutched the I/Dice/55s in his fist, hoping to add further to his fast-growing pile of rubles, when a crowd of thin, high-cheeked men-who-were-not-men strode purposefully into the room.
“Ah!” said Stepan Arkadyich, only the tiniest flutter of fear rippling his habitually good-natured expression. “Gentlemen. Or, rather, gentle-machines, if I may be so bold as to coin a term.”
“Might we invite you to join us in our games?” Vronsky ventured.
“To the contrary, your Excellency,” said the tallest of the man-machines, who wore what looked like a scruffy two-day growth of beard; Levin marveled in spite of himself at the artistry of it. “We are here to collect these apparatuses.”
One of the other Toy Soldiers held out his hand, and Stiva, wide-eyed with astonishment, placed the I/Dice/55 into the lifelike pink of the robot’s open palm.
“Now, wait… if I might… hold on, now…,” protested the old prince tremulously. “Is there no place in the New Russia for a bit of friendly gambling?”
“It is not the gambling that is proscribed, gentlemen, it is the technology.” The machine-man spoke rapidly. “Russia has her enemies, more now than ever. Enemies above; enemies within. The open distribution of technology is dangerous and can no longer be countenanced.”
And the face of the Toy Soldier all at once wavered and blurred, revealing the machinery hiding behind the skin of his face. From where the eye had been, the muzzle of a miniature cannon jutted forth already shooting, and a quick and efficient volley of electric fire blasted the green Class I gaming table neatly to ash. The tiny cannon disappeared and the man’s face reassembled itself; he cleared his throat (There is no throat! Levin adamantly reminded himself, no throat!)-and spoke: “I ask that you place your Class I devices on the floor before you.”
Into a large pile it all went: heirloom I/Hourprotector/ls, I/CigarLighter/4s, I/Bifocal/6s, all the tiny, convenient wonders that had been made possible by groznium technology. All were heaped and vaporized as thoroughly as the gaming table. The Toy Soldiers turned on their black boot heels and departed, leaving in their wake a long, stunned silence, which Stepan Arkadyich filled with a pitiful murmur.
“Such is the price of happiness.”
“Yes,” said the old prince, shaking his head and wearing no expression. “Such is the price.”
Levin, disgusted by the scene, pulled on his coat.
“Levin,” said Stepan Arkadyich, and Levin noticed that his eyes were not full of tears exactly, but moist, which always happened when he had been drinking, or when he was moved by emotion. Just now it was due to both causes. “Levin, don’t go,” he said, and he warmly squeezed his arm above the elbow, obviously not at all wishing to let him go.
“This is a true friend of mine-almost my greatest friend,” he said to Vronsky. It was evident to Levin that Oblonsky, more affected than he could openly admit by the evolution of the New Russia, was casting out for some source of happy feeling to console him. “You have become even closer and dearer to me. And I want you, and I know you ought, to be friends, and great friends, because you’re both splendid fellows.”